[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[DSMatticus]

Your option 3 looks exactly like option 2, because they are the same option. If you give in to the hard right's demands to tear it down, then it will be the hard right negotiating with itself to determine what the state of international agreements look like. That is how parliamentary democracy works. Winners write the treaties, not losers.

The referendum is not an election. If the EU spontaneously dissolved right now because reasons, fascists would not sweep into power in every single member state because there was secretly a dissolution clause and "fascists autowin your next election" was part of it.

Here's some hypothetical political demographics for you:
20% of voters are anti-EU liberals.
35% of voters are pro-EU liberals.
10% of voters are pro-EU conservatives.
35% of voters are anti-EU conservatives.

Notice how both the referendum and the liberal coalition have 55% support? Notice how, assuming that anti-EU liberals are not actually radically isolationist and are in fact just voicing opposition to the current set of treaties, that there is 65% support for writing new treaties? It's really fucking obvious that left-wingers who vote against the EU are not going to turn around and vote for conservatives to run their government. I don't know how you don't get this. If the radical right-wing needs liberal votes to leave the EU, then they don't yet have the votes they need to ruin everything. If the radical right-wing doesn't need liberal votes to leave the EU, then they already have the votes they need to ruin everything. If we allow the EU to keep fucking shit up, the latter scenario is inevitable. You cannot actually stop the rise of fascism by just fucking ignoring the grievances that are driving people into the arms of fascism. If we stop the EU from fucking shit up while the majority of voters and politicians are in favor of an at least somewhat unified Europe, then it will be chaotic but nowhere near as chaotic as a fascist Europe.

Seriously, what the fuck is your actual plan? What is supposed to stop the fascists from winning in Austria next time around? The next ruling UK conservative coalition is probably to be Johnson-Farage. What is your plan to make that not happen? Slowly pack the institutions of the EU with leftists over the next several decades? I know the tortoise wins in Aesop's Fables, but you're still a fucking idiot for betting on him, and you are especially stupid considering in this version of the fable the tortoise has to run twice as many laps with half as many legs. The rules of the game have not been kind to the tortoise, is what I'm saying. There is fundamentally no reason to believe that the situation will improve with time. Almost every election the fascists break their old records. The political situation is getting worse, not better.

The longer we just hope things will get magically better the worse they will in fact actually get.

That's fucking hilarious, considering that your plan still is:
1-Tear down the EU. Aka what the fascists want.
2-???????????????????????????????????
3-Magically everything gets better!

The most impressive part of this post is that you got the numbers in the right order for a change. You know what they say, "what's that number after two again?" time's the charm.

[Longes]

And people mock Russian elections.
In Austria, in Waidhofen, the voter turnout was 146.9%.

[Stahlseele]

UT Announcer Guy Voice:"Iimpressive!"

[Username17]

DSM, I get that you don't understand parliamentary democracy, but could you have some fucking humility about it? This conversation would be way less stupid if you understood that you don't understand parliamentary democracy. There actually totally is a mechanism that gives power to the fascists across Europe if the EU collapses. The collapse of the EU triggers snap elections in every member state with insurmountable advantages for isolationist parties. That is how it works.

The only way forward is to reform the EU. Ironically that's what Cameron is trying to do now, which is a ball of fail because he is an austerity junky and actually agrees with most of the things that cause the crisis in the first place.

Your plan of giving the hard right everything it asks for and then trying to beat them in the snap elections that follow their public victory and the total discrediting of all mainstream parties of the left and right is ridiculous. The best way to defeat the hard right is obviously not to give them the mother of all convention bounces, tar all their major opponents with the biggest scandal the world has ever sen, and then hold immediate elections. That you could even consider that might be the case is proof that you don't understand parliamentary democracy.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

The collapse of the EU triggers snap elections in every member state with insurmountable advantages for isolationist parties.

I don't even know what kind of argument this is supposed to be. HURR DURR MOMENTUM?

First, I have no idea why an EU exit under the mainstream right is supposed to destroy confidence in the left at all. "Oh jeez, look what Cameron got us into! Fuck you, labour!"

Second, when you say shit like "giving the hard right everything it asks for" you are just begging the question. If the (hard, moderate, centre, whatever) left adopts a pro-exit strategy as part of an attempt to renegotiate treaties that are less fucking insane and harmful to progressive causes, then it isn't a concession to the fascists any more than agreeing that the sky is blue. "I'm not going to stop fucking this dead horse. I don't care what you say or how stupid you think it is, this dead horse right here? I am fucking it. If you want me stop fucking it, then you're just going to have to sign up with the fascists." You've just declared that the stance isn't going to change (no matter how compelling the argument against the EU may be) and then stuck your fingers in your ears. Has it occurred to you that that's a part of why the fascists are winning more votes than ever fucking before? Because no one else will budge on this issue except the goddamn fascists?

Third, the Austrian green party usually wins something like 10% of the vote in a good year, but when the mainstream Austrian presidential candidates cancelled eachother out to the point that none got to go into the second round of voting and it was "go Green or go fascist," the Green candidate pulled 50.3% of the vote. The mainstream left collapsed, the mainstream right collapsed, and the fascists lost. Now, is that going to happen in Austria next time? I'd wager no. Are Austrian's fascists on the way to becoming the single largest voting bloc in parliament? I'd wager yes. But your requirement that "the center must hold!" is in fact bullshit. The center can get fucked without dooming leftists to obscurity.

[Username17]

Wow. That's probably the dumbest plan.

So let me get this straight, you think that Labour should drop everything they are doing to endorse UKIP's positions and then contest the snap elections as the kinder gentler version of UKIP? How many years of professing love for scrapping open borders treaties do you think it would take to get the British people to take Labour seriously as EU Sceptics? The Brexit referendum is next month, how the fuck is this etchasketch supposed to work?

The Austrian Greens are pro minorities and pro EU. They are not an example of how you have to demand to burn the EU down to beat the fascists or drive out the establishment parties. You can run a moderate leftist EU reform platform and beat both the status quo and the fascists. This is a real thing that legitimately can be done. And you just seriously own goaled yourself by even mentioning the Austrian Greens.

-Username17

[Parthenon]

The only way I can see any left wing groups calling for an exit is to say that the EU doesn't do enough to encourage workers rights, free movement and immigration, and instead actively hinders social equality and general wellbeing through things like forcing austerity.

And so they would then say that we should leave the EU in order to make our own even better EU, with blackjack and hookers. By which I mean stronger human rights, easier movement from outside of the EU, a central bank that encourages actual economic growth etc. Which is pretty much bullshit and not going to happen.

[Username17]

The only way I can see any left wing groups calling for an exit is to say that the EU doesn't do enough to encourage workers rights, free movement and immigration, and instead actively hinders social equality and general wellbeing through things like forcing austerity.

And so they would then say that we should leave the EU in order to make our own even better EU, with blackjack and hookers. By which I mean stronger human rights, easier movement from outside of the EU, a central bank that encourages actual economic growth etc. Which is pretty much bullshit and not going to happen.

That is amongst the fundamental problems with the idea of ending the EU outright. Leftist critiques of the EU are that it doesn't do enough. Only the most callow and juvenile of leftists are going to look at the Schengen agreement and conclude that it needs to be scrapped entirely so that there is room for a bigger and better treaty of free movement to be written in its place. Leftists want stronger protections for human rights, and they aren't likely to agree with the idea that setting fire to the EU declaration of human rights is a good first step to doing that.

The whole "Repeal and Replace" concept is simply a rightwing idea. Very few leftists are immature enough to buy into the notion that the best way to improve a government program is to end it and start over with nothing. On account of that being flipping retarded.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

Why not repeal and join America? We have room for some more states.

[name_here]

I'd be pretty dubious of an EU exit strategy that isn't:

1. Everyone leaves the EU
2. Everyone promptly signs on the dotted line for EU 2.0

Which would probably actually be an option, though likely to result in some stragglers. I'm not very informed on how the EU restricts any side negotiations between members, but if it's loose enough member nations could potentially write up a new set of rules that go into effect once a sufficent number sign off on them, and even if that's not allowed I can't imagine they're so restrictive that they'd stop an informal deal to that effect (though with the caveat that they'd want to close the whole deal within a single election cycle so they don't leave the EU and have a key member refuse to join the new one).

So far as I've heard the only compelling reason to specifically get rid of the current EU is the way it's been screwing over Greece, who might be better off if they were monetarily sovereign and had to run their own central bank but not meet stupid punitive dictates. Otherwise, leaving the EU means getting rid of something flawed but still useful and replacing it with nothing. The only reason to do that is if the current rules specifically prohibit doing what you'd do if starting fresh, and even if they do it's still best to get a headcount of who will help start fresh beforehand.

Even in the best-case scenario where all the big nations and a majority of smaller ones are entirely up for a new Europe-wide organization right after scrapping the old one for being bad, there's still going to be a period of negotiation before it comes into existence. And I don't think the EU failing is likely to result in voters liking the idea more. Granted, one could plausibly plan to start out without everyone they want on the theory that enough will join for it to be stable and integrate the rest as their governments come around.

But it's totally possible to replace something by discontinuing it as the replacement comes into effect. Demanding it be eliminated before the replacement exists is either a plan to never replace it or a hardball negotiating tactic where the threat of total failure is used to coerce people into accepting your replacement over their replacement.

[Ancient History]

The GOP's official position is no more states ever. Like the slave states during the Civil War, they feel any further inclusion of states will dilute their power, because they will be more liberal. So that's why they're against making Washington DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. states - or, in fact, giving them any additional power to govern themselves or be treated like American citizens whatsoever.

[Username17]

Why not repeal and join America? We have room for some more states.

Puerto Rico voted to become a state in 2012. Still waiting for that act of congress to recognize it.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

So far as I've heard the only compelling reason to specifically get rid of the current EU is the way it's been screwing over Greece, who might be better off if they were monetarily sovereign and had to run their own central bank but not meet stupid punitive dictates.

You forgot Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus. All of those countries were required to sacrifice themselves on the altar of austerity in order to receive assistance. Altogether that's about 15% of the EU's population. Beyond that, many other countries elected conservative governments and took their cyanide capsules all on their own, but at the same time the EU likely could have done more to prevent that by using aggressively expansionary monetary policy to ease the pain caused by the crisis - which would have decreased the political backlash and weakened the case for austerity. Greece gets the most attention, but in truth unemployment in the EU as a whole peaked at ~12% in 2013, and has since fallen to ~10%. Meanwhile unemployment in the U.S. peaked at ~10% in 2010, and has since fallen to 5%. No, the crisis did not hit Europe later. No, the crisis did not hit Europe slower. EU unemployment has a double peak thing going on, where the first peak matches the U.S. and the second peak is the EU successfully derailing their own recovery suspiciously close to the start of the bailout programs.

Otherwise, leaving the EU means getting rid of something flawed but still useful and replacing it with nothing.

Why do you people keep saying "nothing?" The referendum is not actually effective immediately. David Cameron has said that what will actually happen is that the government will spend up to two years negotiating new treaties before actually leaving the EU. That's the conservative position. Even UKIP has been pretty clear that their actual plan is to replace the EU with simple free trade agreements, which are deeply inadequate, but still not nothing. There are a lot of question marks involved, because what goes in those treaties will depend entirely on who's in power when they're signed. But even the assholes who want Europe to burn are interested in a slower burn than the one you're imagining.

The only reason to do that is if the current rules specifically prohibit doing what you'd do if starting fresh, and even if they do it's still best to get a headcount of who will help start fresh beforehand.

The EU was designed to be a compromise between European unity and individual sovereignty. It was built to be weak (because everyone was at least as afraid of it as they were enthusiastic about it) and undemocratic (because none of the major players would sign the dotted line if it meant actually being bossed around). Since then, it's continued to accumulate further powers (sometimes deliberately and sometimes by accident) without anyone thinking to attach any democratic checks and balances to go along with them. It's a set of institutions that make the U.S. senate look functional, and while it really cannot be fixed from within it can still wave its dick around and fuck your country up. The articles of confederation weren't overhauled, they were overwritten. The people who wrote them declared that they were shit and wrote a new document to go in effect overtop of them. It would be really nice to not have to explore dissolving the EU piecemeal and instead have that sort of collective "we fucked up, do over," but the fact is that the EU told progressives their economics would no longer be welcome in Europe six years ago and the mainstream left hasn't so much as blinked. The political elite of Europe is self-destructively committed to this project as is, and as a result the left pissed away the chance to sit down and have a dialogue about replacing the EU with something less harmful. Oops. But we don't have a time machine, so like it or not we're playing off that mistake with the choices we have left. And realistically, those choices are "messy exit" or "fascist exit."

So let me get this straight, you think that Labour should drop everything they are doing to endorse UKIP's positions and then contest the snap elections as the kinder gentler version of UKIP? How many years of professing love for scrapping open borders treaties do you think it would take to get the British people to take Labour seriously as EU Sceptics? The Brexit referendum is next month, how the fuck is this etchasketch supposed to work?

Here's that begging the question thing again. If UKIP declares that three lefts make a right, agreement is not "endorsing the UKIP position." UKIP does not have a monopoly on that position. Or rather, if UKIP ends up with a monopoly on that position, it's because everyone else are clearly a bunch of fucking idiots. The left-wing case for exit is that the EU is an undemocratic institution which allows conservatives to undemocratically block progressive fiscal and monetary policy in member states, and that it's not going to be realistically possible to stop the EU from doing that because conservatives have a massive institutional advantage within the EU. That is not endorsing the UKIP position. For fuck's sake, UKIP is pro-austerity and gives zero fucks that the EU is threatening the future of progressive economics. UKIP's grievance with the EU is that leaving the EU is the first step to getting rid of all the brown people. It's a very different position.

And yes, it is a shame that labour has had six years to accept that the EU has failed its first serious test and instead they stuck their heads in the sand and tried to wait out the storm. The correct moral of that particular story is that sticking your head in the sand doesn't fucking work so stop doing it. Not "just a few more years and the fascists will stop gaining in the polls, I promise." I still don't even know what the fuck your actual plan is beyond "wait it out." We're probably going to have another major economic crisis soon(TM). Shadow banking is still out of control. Student debt is still out of control. China's desperate attempts to stabilize are eventually going to fail. Do you really think the EU is going to handle those crises any better than they've handled this one? Really? Or do you think it's more likely that they'll fuck it up again, and vindicate everyone holding the eurosceptic banner (i.e. the fascists, if you get your way)? Seriously, where is your faith in the EU coming from? I can remember all the times you predicted Germany would blink during the debt negotiations. They didn't. Do you think maybe it's time you stopped being optimistic and started being right?

You can run a moderate leftist EU reform platform and beat both the status quo and the fascists. This is a real thing that legitimately can be done. And you just seriously own goaled yourself by even mentioning the Austrian Greens.

So, if the fascists win the next presidential election (or just make significant progress in the next parliamentary one) does that mean you have to eat your fucking crow? Before you declare victory for the Greens, you should probably know that in the past ten years they've picked up three seats in the National Council while the FPO has picked up nineteen. Hofer was .6% away from winning the presidency. That is not what defeat looks like. That is what narrowly averted catastrophe looks like, and it's a catastrophe that will play out again in four years.

[Maj]

Why do you people keep saying "nothing?" The referendum is not actually effective immediately. David Cameron has said that what will actually happen is that the government will spend up to two years negotiating new treaties before actually leaving the EU. That's the conservative position. Even UKIP has been pretty clear that their actual plan is to replace the EU with simple free trade agreements, which are deeply inadequate, but still not nothing. There are a lot of question marks involved, because what goes in those treaties will depend entirely on who's in power when they're signed. But even the assholes who want Europe to burn are interested in a slower burn than the one you're imagining.

Because ripping something up and giving yourself time to create something new once it's been ripped up is stupid. It's like the Republicans saying we should dismantle Obamacare and something else will be put in its place... Like a few tax credits.

Why would you even want that? How can you trust that it will even happen?

[maglag]

So far as I've heard the only compelling reason to specifically get rid of the current EU is the way it's been screwing over Greece, who might be better off if they were monetarily sovereign and had to run their own central bank but not meet stupid punitive dictates.

You forgot Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus. All of those countries were required to sacrifice themselves on the altar of austerity in order to receive assistance.

Portugal has been in almost non-stop economic crisis for centuries, and Spain has gone through more downs than ups.

Greece was ruled by a military junta that was still killing their own students for the evulz in 1973 when not going to war with Turkey.

The current "austerity" is still much better than the shit Portugal, Greece and Spain had to go through in pre-EU times. Stop pretending after-WWII pre-EU was an idlyc paradise everywhere in Europe.

[Username17]

I still don't even know what the fuck your actual plan is beyond "wait it out." We're probably going to have another major economic crisis soon(TM). Shadow banking is still out of control. Student debt is still out of control. China's desperate attempts to stabilize are eventually going to fail.

That is a weird grab bag of ideas and most of them have little to do with the EU. Student debt is mostly not a thing in most EU countries, for example.

But the more fundamental issue is that the EU isn't the same thing as the European Central Bank. You can be in the EU and not part of the Euro. The fact that the ECB took several years to come up with an anemic response to the financial crisis is certainly bad, but tearing the EU apart doesn't actually solve that issue. Since the specific country voting to stay or leave next is the United Kingdom, it's very relevant that they are not on the Euro and no one forced austerity on them at all. In fact, when the crisis hit they had a Labour government who dutifully did the same kind of half-assed Keynesian response as the Obama administration did, which produced the same kind of slow but real recovery. Then in 2010, just as in the United States, the people voted them out of power in favor of the Conservatives. Then they hit the economy with austerity measures which tanked the recovery. Not because the EU forced them to, but because they are Conservatives, and that is what Conservatives do. And you know what? They fucking won re-election in 2015, running on their economic record despite the fact that it was literally the worst economic record since the 18th century.

The big problem is that Conservatives around the world have figured out how to capitalize on crisis better than Liberals. They have figured out that they are not punished at the polls for poor economic performance because fear and despair motivates the conservative voter. But breaking up the EU won't change that. Breaking up the EU will be another crisis. Breaking up the EU will hand victories to right wing parties all over Europe.

And the fact that you refuse to understand this is simply puzzling at this point.

-Username17

[Koumei]

They have figured out that they are not punished at the polls for poor economic performance because fear and despair motivates the conservative voter.

Also because if you repeat a lie enough people just accept it as truth, and if Rupert Murdoch likes you, he will repeat that lie for you. His empire spends a lot of time telling everyone how good conservative parties are at handling the economy and how shit the other guys are on those points, when it doesn't take much actual research to reveal the opposite as true.

If Murdoch actually had never been born, as seen in "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" with their parody of "It's a Wonderful Life", then conservative governments the world around would be having a much harder time convincing everyone that they can actually fix economies.

[DSMatticus]

So far as I've heard the only compelling reason to specifically get rid of the current EU is the way it's been screwing over Greece, who might be better off if they were monetarily sovereign and had to run their own central bank but not meet stupid punitive dictates.

You forgot Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Cyprus. All of those countries were required to sacrifice themselves on the altar of austerity in order to receive assistance.

Portugal has been in almost non-stop economic crisis for centuries, and Spain has gone through more downs than ups.

Greece was ruled by a military junta that was still killing their own students for the evulz in 1973 when not going to war with Turkey.

The current "austerity" is still much better than the shit Portugal, Greece and Spain had to go through in pre-EU times. Stop pretending after-WWII pre-EU was an idlyc paradise everywhere in Europe.

Stop. Just stop. You really have no idea what you're talking about. Take Spain, for example. Spain joined the "EU" back in 1986 when the "EU" was actually just the European Economic Community - a trade pact. After joining the EEC, their GDP increased and their unemployment decreased until 1992, when the treaty of Maastricht was signed replacing the EEC with the institutions we know and love. What happens to Spain after 1992, you ask? Their GDP stagnates for a decade and their unemployment manages to skyrocket almost as high as it is today. Almost. Even the introduction of the euro is a mixed bag for Spain - their GDP skyrockets, but their unemployment almost stops recovering entirely. And we all know what happens in 2008. Spoiler: I could take this paragraph and replace every instance of the word Spain with the word Portugal and still be right.

If there is any story to be found in your gotchas, it's "powerful growth and recovery derailed by the creation of the EU." I assume the problem is that you read the graphs upside down. Classic maglag.

That is a weird grab bag of ideas and most of them have little to do with the EU. Student debt is mostly not a thing in most EU countries, for example.

You do know China isn't in the EU either, right? Have you ever heard of the United States housing bubble? You know, the United States housing bubble? It happened in the United States. It was a housing bubble. It started deflating in 2007. In the United States. It was kind of a big deal. The fact is that the global economy is pretty fucking interwoven, and shocks in one area will reverberate both because that is fundamentally a part of how trade works and because banks and financial firms are international entities with global exposure.

The big problem is that Conservatives around the world have figured out how to capitalize on crisis better than Liberals. They have figured out that they are not punished at the polls for poor economic performance because fear and despair motivates the conservative voter. But breaking up the EU won't change that. Breaking up the EU will be another crisis. Breaking up the EU will hand victories to right wing parties all over Europe.

Again, if you believe economic crises hand conservatives victory, then the fact is that the EU is still in crisis and at the current pace of the recovery they will be there long enough to hand conservatives plenty of victories. Now, I don't actually blame 2010 on conservatives having any (significant) advantage in times of economic weakness. I blame it on the mainstream left viewing left-wing economics as a necessary evil to be avoided at all costs. We chose shitheads to represent us, they failed, and now we have... this. But on the flipside, FDR inherited an economic crisis and ended up one of the most popular presidents of all time - admittably the timing was a little better for him, but so were his policies.

Also Rupert Murdoch. I also blame his fuck-off huge propaganda network.

What the fuck do you see happening going forward? I'm serious. What are you hoping will happen? Right now, general economic weakness and the inability of the EU to tackle crises is empowering radical parties, particularly those on the far-right. We seem to agree on that. I see that ending in a bunch of fascist eurosceptic governments who will initiate exit on the worst possible terms, but you are looking at the exact same thing and concluding gradual progress is on the horizon. How the fuck you figure?

[hyzmarca]

Why not repeal and join America? We have room for some more states.

Puerto Rico voted to become a state in 2012. Still waiting for that act of congress to recognize it.

-Username17

Yeah. But that's Puerto Rico. No one cares about Puerto Rico. If the United Kingdom asked, well that's different. That's the momland. It would be like when your parents ask to move in with you. Can't really say no.

It's never going to happen, of course, because the United Kindgom would never ask, and is perfectly fine on its own, but they'd probably get in.

[Username17]

What the fuck do you see happening going forward? I'm serious. What are you hoping will happen? Right now, general economic weakness and the inability of the EU to tackle crises is empowering radical parties, particularly those on the far-right. We seem to agree on that. I see that ending in a bunch of fascist eurosceptic governments who will initiate exit on the worst possible terms, but you are looking at the exact same thing and concluding gradual progress is on the horizon. How the fuck you figure?

It is entirely possible that right wing parties will take over one or more countries. I mean, more countries than the ones they already have. Or take more thorough control over the countries they are ascendant in. Bad stuff happens. The bad guys lose sometimes. It is also entirely possible that real progress is going to be made on a number of fronts and that things will get better in a number of places. Indeed, the most likely scenario is that both will happen.

But real progress does not happen in fiery declarations or mighty topplings of tyrants. That shit happens, but it's the work of years, sometimes generations, to make those history book events line up. Rosa Parks was elected secretary of the Montgomery NAACP twelve fucking years before she lined up enough support to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. Real political efforts are, as Weber pointed out, the "strong and slow boring of hard boards." If you want good things to happen, you have to work at them for a long ass time and accept that there are going to be setbacks. Before we could get gays in the military we needed to go through the whole Don't Ask Don't Tell shenanigans (itself a change from an earlier policy of homosexuality being simply banned). Economic progress is often really slow. The Federal Reserve was around for 64 years before it acquired a dual mandate. And the Eight Hour Day movement turned 120 years old when the United States enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937. Slow progress is simply what there is, always and everywhere, it's what you fucking get. The Overton window moves slowly and progress can only ever appear quick if the situation on the ground has lagged behind it and has something to catch up to.

I'm gonna tell you basically what I told Lago when he was babbling about predicting recessions and trying to arrange for Democrats to lose before they happened: winning is winning and losing is losing. If you think you have some sort of Xanatos Gambit where you can lose now in order to win super hard later, you're probably wrong. Also you are probably a dangerous idiot. There is no finish line and no final victory possible, time simply moves forward continuously and however much equality, freedom, and prosperity you have at any given moment is tautologically the amount you have at that moment. If you let the right wing do things that increase human misery, then human misery is increased. There's no silver lining there, it's just bad.

The EU is a weird grab bag of stuff. Lots of stuff the EU does is bad, and almost all of the stuff it does could be much better. There is lots of room for improvement in the EU. And hey, maybe the European Central Bank can get a mandate to keep unemployment low before 2062. If it does, it will have grown into its role faster than the Federal Reserve, which did not get a dual mandate until 1977.

But the idea that simply burning the EU down would improve the situation is pure fantasy. You aren't cutting off an afflicted limb or doing something similarly heroic to save us from a future bad outcome. There's lots of good stuff about life in the EU and scrapping it would be throwing all of that away. Our models for European countries outside the orbit of super-states (whether it be NATO, the EU, or the Warsaw Pact) are pretty fucking grim. Do you think Latvia should follow the model of Moldova, Yugoslavia, or The Ukraine? How about Denmark? Partition, occupation, or ethnic cleansing? Which do you favor as your post-EU dystopia for the Danes? The people living in Europe are in fact real people, and taking away their Leviathan and replacing it with nothing but uncertainty and fear is not a kindness.

You improve things by improving them. Giving the nihilists what they want is giving the nihilists what they want. These are tautological truths. They are true because they are true. And you seem to be choking when trying to swallow them, possibly because these truths are in fact horrible. Stare into that cosmic void a bit longer, and realize how long a fight we are actually going to have to make Europe a nicer place. It is a fight that is not going to end a hundred generations after both of us our dead.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

But real progress does not happen in fiery declarations or mighty topplings of tyrants. That shit happens, but it's the work of years, sometimes generations, to make those history book events line up. Rosa Parks was elected secretary of the Montgomery NAACP twelve fucking years before she lined up enough support to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. Real political efforts are, as Weber pointed out, the "strong and slow boring of hard boards."

On the other hand, revolutions are fast and interesting. Convincing the populace to change their opinions is hard and slow. Killing everyone who disagrees with you is fast and easy.

Having violent neo-Nazi and fascist organizations gain power makes it much more likely that violent leftest organizations would oppose them violently.

If violent neo-Nazis and fascists took power and started World War III, then it's likely that they'd soon be replaced with very liberal and progressive governments.

[Koumei]

Please tell me you are showing the Xanatos Gambit to be as stupid as it is and are not actually suggesting "let widespread war and genocide happen so we get a pushback against that" as a solution.

Otherwise I will laugh at you for hundreds of years. When the heat death of the universe occurs, my laughter at you will be all that remains.

[PhoneLobster]

Personally like anyone who isn't a neo-liberal or a neo-nazi I remain pretty indifferent about the survival of the EU since it outed itself with Greece and what not, I mean it's sad to see such a project fail, but you know it kinda has failed and how to go about fixing it ranges from unexciting to unpleasant to even contemplate.

But lets be clear here. Brexit is not the end of the EU, and the end of the EU is not the end of the world.

Both might be counted by fascists as victories for fascist agendas, but neither is a fascist takeover, nor even altogether significant for the ongoing rise of fascism compared to the actual fascist creating actions of the EU itself.

The EU has done a lot of stuff, even some good stuff, but all in all it's a weaker and less significant powerblock the great achievements of which have been things like regional restrictions on cheese branding, ignoring and vaguely supporting the rising power of fascist parties in and around it's borders, and pretty much completely failing as an economic union.

It could vanish tomorrow and not all that much would change. Or it could stay... and not all that much would change.

But again, lets face it, the EU has been screwing the pooch hard on populism and if it doesn't collapse now it probably eventually will and it will take a fucking miracle of policy change or unexpected events to change that irregardless of the potential failure or success of Brexit.

And anyway. Aside from all that. I'd argue that a successful Brexit is more likely to STRENGTHEN the remaining EU in terms of resolve and potential reform rather than cause it to collapse. It just... probably won't strengthen it enough...

[Koumei]

I personally like the bit where Sweden is in a comfortable situation, benefiting from the whole "militarily we're one place and actual war against any one country in the EU means actual war with everyone" thing and the "for the purpose of trade, we're one big country with open borders so go ahead and allocate stuff around without taxing the balls off people who don't happen to have easy port access to the US and Asia" so they can just spend their time focusing on being the best country in the world. As someone looking to emigrate there, I think it's very important that Sweden continue to be the best country in the world, and the EU staying together is at least partially necessary for that.

And as someone who is part of the first generation of Australians to get a shittier economic outcome than their parents and generally shat on by the government, I'm going to allow myself the selfishness that all the previous generations have shown by not caring how big the can is when it stops getting kicked down the road, as long as that stop happens after I'm dead. So the EU can just wait a couple of decades to collapse.

[Kaelik]

I personally like the bit where Sweden is in a comfortable situation, benefiting from the whole "militarily we're one place and actual war against any one country in the EU means actual war with everyone" thing and the "for the purpose of trade, we're one big country with open borders so go ahead and allocate stuff around without taxing the balls off people who don't happen to have easy port access to the US and Asia" so they can just spend their time focusing on being the best country in the world. As someone looking to emigrate there, I think it's very important that Sweden continue to be the best country in the world, and the EU staying together is at least partially necessary for that.

Except that no part of the EU is actually necessary for Trade Pacts and Military Pacts. Since there were both of those things before the EU. Sweden wasn't a member of them, but there's nothing stopping them from just doing that if the EU explodes tomorrow.