The EU Loses The Principles On Which It Was Built

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Rodent said:

if so, I'd read it. 

No freebies, Rody, you would actually have to buy it!  Hey, I gotta make a living, now that I have been demoted out of the aristocracy to the peasant class!  (Somehow I don't think the libraries in Central Michigan are going to be picking it up.)

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

1 minute ago, Jan van Eck said:

No freebies, Rody, you would actually have to buy it!  Hey, I gotta make a living, now that I have been demoted out of the aristocracy to the peasant class!  (Somehow I don't think the libraries in Central Michigan are going to be picking it up.)

Maybe your Canadian friends will purchase/build an environmentally friendly, very expensive, heavy oil (or whatever flavor you and William were talking about) book burning machine, and then get the government to buy all the copies of your book they can for disposal.  Maybe even give an unemployed activist a job to run the machine!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

47 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Maybe your Canadian friends will purchase/build an environmentally friendly, very expensive, heavy oil (or whatever flavor you and William were talking about) book burning machine, and then get the government to buy all the copies of your book they can for disposal.  Maybe even give an unemployed activist a job to run the machine!

Dan, you have one wicked sense of humor!

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

58 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Dan, you have one wicked sense of humor!

🤪

[jaycee + 348]

8 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Tell you what, you don't like my ideas, you don't much like me either,

 

I never said I disliked you or your ideas, I answer your post on other threads rationally and with 3rd party proof or examples where I can I dont dislike anyone here everyone has a point and I like debating them to learn more of people's views and see what their rational is.  I don't know everything and I am always keen to learn.

 

8 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

you have made clear your dislike of my alarm over Venezuela

Again I have never said that. I actually wrote a post for the other thread pointing out a major flaw in your tactical approach but that was the first one I discarded before even posting as I knew you would read it in your own way and the debate would go down a pointless path just as this one has. The post I eventually did post was not a reply to you but after posting I realised I would have to spend a long time discussing it to get my point over as the other poster's view was so fundamentally different from my own so figured to save time and delete the post as life is too short sometimes which is where I cam getting to here.

 

8 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

instead of writing nasty notes, why don't you go your way, I'll go my way, and that way we can both scrupulously avoid casting aspersions, probably better for the forum. 

The 'nasty note' I posted further up this thread was not in reply to a post on this thread by you or even about a post on another thread by you but you chose to believe it was directed at you with zero proof. You are choosing again to attribute blame to me where there is none. If anyone should be taking offence it is me. I do agree with you however posting further on this is pointless as we keep having the same argument where you cast aspersions and I point out I never said anything. We will never be able to communicate I feel so I suggest you refrain from any replies to my posts and I to you yours.

Edited August 15, 2018 by jaycee

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, jaycee said:

 

The 'nasty note' I posted further up this thread 

Please, just go away. 

[jaycee + 348]

27 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Please, just go away. 

please filter me

[Eodmatt + 114]

15 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Hmmm.  I believe the Queen of England is the Head of State of Canada?  Anyway, nice to see you have some interest in this topic, jaycee, if not mass starvation in Venezuela. 👍

The Queen is the "titular head", but doesn't get involved in politics, that's down to the government. The Queen does have a very interesting power however and which was used in Australia a few years ago. If she is advised that a government is going badly against the wishes of the democratic majority of that country, she can order the government to "go to the country"or, hold a general election. In the case of Australia, the government concerned was defeated and a new government elected.

Pity she didn't exercise her power in the UK when the Blair government was in the chair.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

The directions some thread here take are amazing. How did you guys start with the founding principles of the smelly half-corpse that is the EU to the powers of the Queen? I love it!

On topic: I don't see why the EU would express any opinions regarding the Saudi/Canada spat without being asked to do so. Basic principle of diplomacy, I believe.

[Eodmatt + 114]

Dunno, Marina. Life is like that though. I love your description of the EU as "the smelly half corpse", though. Its just about right. But why would the EU express any opinions on the Sa Udi / Canada spat indeed?

Only if there was something in it for them. The EU has come a long way since it was the EEC - and mainly in the wrong direction. And now that the heads of the EU are an unelected bunch of bureaucratic Mandarins, nothing they  do in the future will surprise me, since they no longer have to answer to anyone.

Edited August 15, 2018 by Eodmatt

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

10 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

(Somehow I don't think the libraries in Central Michigan are going to be picking it up.)

Hey!

I grew up on a farm in Central Michigan, and my Mom was a volunteer at the local library.

Please don't underestimate the lowly local public libraries.  Reading books from local libraries was fundamental to me moving the heck out of Michigan, and into the world at large.

Reading books can be a viable precursor to learning, digesting, and moving on to a larger world stage.

Books good. Back yard... Meh.

[RuudinFrance + 25]

Started late reading the discussion and oh my, isn't this going in all kind of directions, but it's fun reading.

Some of my opinions?

Trump is trying to do his utter best to take the USA out of the of civilized western society. I just wish the rest of us would accommodate him. Tough statement, but we sure have a belly full of him by now. Good that EU tries to protect Iran business. Vlad isn't as bad as Donald and neither are the Iranian people. Good that Nordstream 2 will be built. We need  to avoid being overdependent on one supplier (thanks Nick for the phraseology).

MBS taking funding out of Canadian universities is a good thing in accordance with my hero Jordan B. Petersen.

KSA has for decades been subsidizing the building of mosques in EU for being allowed to have their conservative imams preach in EU. They also have this proxy war with Iran in Yemen, which is for a large part being made possible by good old civilized USA, which doesn't care a bit about the collateral victims, why should they, the money is good.

Sure Chavez and Maduro are a bunch apart, but isn't the Trump helping them along as well? Social causes are such good excuses for affirmative political action and by the way, isn't the world at this moment in a state where very few care about 25 million starvation cases?

Quote: "And who, other than the Americans, can show any leadership?" With Trump at the helm, good old egocentric, unreliable, untrustworthy and unfaithful Trump? Who are you kidding?

Good to get this of my chest, now it's time to hit the sack.

Have fun.

 

[Lisa + 3]

If Trudeau truly cared about human rights, he wouldn’t have done shady back room deals to ensure that Canada remains reliant on oil from countries that regularly commit human rights violations. Western countries have bilateral trade agreements with numerous countries that don’t share our values, including China. Trudeau tried bringing human rights into trade negotiations with them and was told to take a hike. I guess it wasn’t that big a deal to him because he immediately caved. 

If the west wanted to make a difference, we would do something productive like band together and refuse to trade with them until they met our virtuous standards. Sending out a couple of ill thought out tweets doesn’t deserve back up from other nations, especially the U.S, given that the liberals have repeatedly offended Trump. What the liberals did was juvenile and in line with the virtue signalling, holier-than-though rhetoric we’ve been forced to choke on since we elected a drama teacher with pink socks. Trudeau made a mess and he needs to put his big boy pants on and clean it up. It’s an absolute joke to expect the EU to come to our rescue. Besides, just because the EU didn’t tweet about it doesn’t mean they aren’t working behind the scenes to smooth ruffled feathers. My bet is that’s exactly what’s happening, but maybe the author isn’t just doing a bit of virtue signalling himself and knows for certain that no effort has been made. 

Have a look at our federal website. There’s a nice piece about how Canada and Saudi Arabia share many common values  including peace and security, energy security and humanitarian issues. 

 

[TXPower + 643]

6 hours ago, RuudinFrance said:

Started late reading the discussion and oh my, isn't this going in all kind of directions, but it's fun reading.

Some of my opinions?

Trump is trying to do his utter best to take the USA out of the of civilized western society. I just wish the rest of us would accommodate him. Tough statement, but we sure have a belly full of him by now. Good that EU tries to protect Iran business. Vlad isn't as bad as Donald and neither are the Iranian people. Good that Nordstream 2 will be built. We need  to avoid being overdependent on one supplier (thanks Nick for the phraseology).

MBS taking funding out of Canadian universities is a good thing in accordance with my hero Jordan B. Petersen.

KSA has for decades been subsidizing the building of mosques in EU for being allowed to have their conservative imams preach in EU. They also have this proxy war with Iran in Yemen, which is for a large part being made possible by good old civilized USA, which doesn't care a bit about the collateral victims, why should they, the money is good.

Sure Chavez and Maduro are a bunch apart, but isn't the Trump helping them along as well? Social causes are such good excuses for affirmative political action and by the way, isn't the world at this moment in a state where very few care about 25 million starvation cases?

Quote: "And who, other than the Americans, can show any leadership?" With Trump at the helm, good old egocentric, unreliable, untrustworthy and unfaithful Trump? Who are you kidding?

Good to get this of my chest, now it's time to hit the sack.

Have fun.

 

Trump isn’t trying to take us out of western society, he is trying to take the U.S. off the path Europe is on.  History demonstrates that Liberal Democracies eat themselves.  Europe is about 30 years ahead of the U.S. in that regard, Canada about 15, all are at full chew.  I could go into several examples but for times sake I’ll just name a few: Socialism, Economy(European nations individually and the EU’s generally) Immigration (this is particularly troubling. Seek out some stats on rape in places like Switzerland. MSM news outlets are not reporting on it).  

I am glad to see you mention Prof. Petersen, it’s good to hear some sanity from one of our neighbors to the north.  I don’t agree with everything he says but his criticism of what academia is doing to free speech is spot on.

KSA, conservative Imam’s, proxy wars and collateral victims.  Well, that’s a lot.  One word, Iran. 

As to social causes and political affirmative action, how many other nations have pulled Naval Hospital Ships off the coast of Colombia to help the Venezuelan people?

Ahh leadership and “good o’l egocentric, unreliable, trustworthy...........Trump”.  He’s keeping the promises he made to the folks that elected him.  I’ve said it before, his leadership is unpalatable to those peoples and nations who liked the status quo.  America first isn’t status quo.  To those who like America first, it’s tasty.  Full disclosure, I don’t like everything Mr. Trump says and does.  But I like it better than what was on the menu before he was elected.

TXPower