The British attitude towards Europe?

[bob4john]

I'm glad that the people of Europe think that the US was useless during both wars... next time we may just stay home...

And as for Germany owning most of Europe, dont take yourself so seriously. The Germans were not the first people there... and, Britain does not claim the USA any longer, as that argument was settled by treaty, twice. So was the area that you claim that Germany owns...

bob

 

[Invictus_88]

maybe you would explain how britain could now survive outside of the eu?

let’s start with the financials?

eea, efta.

 

[Maciamo]

I'm glad that the people of Europe think that the US was useless during both wars...

Never said that. I emphasised the point that the US didn't help out of altruism or friendship by because it had economic interests in doing so. It's certain that the US helped considerably to shorten WWII in Europe and were almost alone in defeating Japan. Now Japan is almost a vassal state politically (many called it the 51st state).

next time we may just stay home...

Not bloody likely to happen anytime soon with the current direction of the US foreign policy. Boosted by its victory in WWII, the US has since become the policeman of the world and seems to enjoy this role very much.

And as for Germany owning most of Europe, dont take yourself so seriously. The Germans were not the first people there... and, Britain does not claim the USA any longer, as that argument was settled by treaty, twice. So was the area that you claim that Germany owns...

What are you talking about ? There is no comparison in Britain's claim on its former colonies and Germany's claim on parts of its homeland cut away as war reparations. What if Britain had lost WWI and, say, Scotland and East Anglia had been cut off and given away to Germany as war compensation ? Wouldn't the Brits feel bad about it and think it would be their right and duty to recover the integrity of their homeland ?

 

[bob4john]

my last post is not listed....

 

[bob4john]

When a country looses territory because of reparations, civil war or other.. the aggressor no longer has any claim or rights to the lost territory.

Central Europe was settled by Germanic people. How can Germany claim all the territory that was settled by the Teutonic people?

Hitler chose to claim all of the Teutonic settlements to entice the people to riot and savagery. He attacked Poland and Italy as part of his plan to put the 'Old Germany' back as it once was...

Why are you saying the same things?

When the citizens of a country say such things, their neighbors get nervous/angry.

Can you not see why Britain will not become a full member of the EU?

 

[bob4john]

Never said that. I emphasised the point that the US didn't help out of altruism or friendship by because it had economic interests in doing so. It's certain that the US helped considerably to shorten WWII in Europe and were almost alone in defeating Japan. Now Japan is almost a vassal state politically (many called it the 51st state).

A nation should not go to war because of altruism or frindship... only if it holds treaties for mutual assistance, which the US did not have with any European nation in either war.

Not bloody likely to happen anytime soon with the current direction of the US foreign policy. Boosted by its victory in WWII, the US has since become the policeman of the world and seems to enjoy this role very much.

Someone shure needs to keep the peace... it falls on the US because it is the only nation that has the resources and the will.


What are you talking about ? There is no comparison in Britain's claim on its former colonies and Germany's claim on parts of its homeland cut away as war reparations. What if Britain had lost WWI and, say, Scotland and East Anglia had been cut off and given away to Germany as war compensation ? Wouldn't the Brits feel bad about it and think it would be their right and duty to recover the integrity of their homeland ?

Why do you not understand? Britian holds as much right to its former colonies as any other nation of its former territories. If the newer nations wish to rejoin its former position, then it should be a peaceful consideration, not done by military force.

Armies are only useful for coercion, not for peaceably recombining countries.

 

[Gwyllgi]

eea, efta.

A meaningless response.

The position that Britain is now in, thanks more than anything to the disastrous consequences of what can only be described as the insanity of Blair and Brown, is such that although we have very limited options now open to us.

Limited in fact to two.

One is to stop faffing about and commit fully to Europe, the other is to find a way of growing bananas and take up cannibalism because the other option to the EU is to become a third world country.

Britain is hopelessly overpopulated because of Labour government policies and hopelessly id debt for the same reason.

To stand alone we need to reduce our population to a sustainable level which is probably around thirty million (hence the cannibalism) and to discharge our humungous debt by exports.

The global market is pretty well supplied with what it wants to buy by China, India, and other low cost producers who are taking increasing market share every day.

Since countries that have nothing else that can be sold at a competitive price seem to manage on exporting bananas, if we ever seriously did consider quitting our best option then we’d better find a way to grow the buggers, and soon.

All the UKIP and other cloud cuckoo parties fail to take into account one thing.

Britain is insolvent, and deeply and increasingly in debt and their blue skies vision is flawed by our being totally unable to get off the ground.

 

[Gwyllgi]

When a country looses territory because of reparations, civil war or other.. the aggressor no longer has any claim or rights to the lost territory.

Central Europe was settled by Germanic people. How can Germany claim all the territory that was settled by the Teutonic people?

Hitler chose to claim all of the Teutonic settlements to entice the people to riot and savagery. He attacked Poland and Italy as part of his plan to put the 'Old Germany' back as it once was...

Why are you saying the same things?

When the citizens of a country say such things, their neighbors get nervous/angry.

Can you not see why Britain will not become a full member of the EU?

Bob, I write this in all kindness.

You have a very great deal to learn about Europe and European people.

I suspect that you may also have things to learn about your own country, especially its actions on the international stage in the past, at present, and what the future holds for us all as a consequence of American hegemony and the idea that America is best.

It isn’t.

It may be best for those who live in America and see the world from an American perspective based on American values, but those values are not universally the best for everybody, no set of values are universally the best.

 

[Maciamo]

Why do you not understand? Britian holds as much right to its former colonies as any other nation of its former territories.

The people who claim the colonies for Britain are the colonists. These colonist sought independence from their homeland. Why would Britain have claims on land where none of its citizens live anymore ? (since they became American, Australian or whatever)

Germany's case is very different. Colonies are not part of the ancestral homeland. Germany was amputated from core parts of its ancestral territory after WWI. The only comparison with Britain is not the loss of colonies but if Britain had to give up part of its homeland (Sussex, Cornwall, Cumbria, whatever) to another country as war compensation. That's very different from giving up recent colonies. Germany lost all its colonies in Africa after WWI too, but the Germans didn't care much. What they wanted back in Alsace-Lorraine, Pomerania, East Prussia and Silesia.

 

[Starship]

And so it wasn’t the US that saved us from “The Dreaded Hun”, it was the millions of men, women, and children in the USSR who were killed fighting the Nazis and as a consequence of the fighting that saved our skins.

FIFTY MILLION people died in Russia.

We should never forget that, EVER.

Sources? Many. http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/ is as good as any.

I couldn't agree more the Soviets defeated the Nazi and payed the highest price for doing it.

If Hitler had not declared war on the US after the Japs attacked Pearl Harbour there was a real chance Roosevelt may never have involved American troops in the Western theater and instead gone to war in the Pacific only.

Had this happened there would have been no second front in Europe, the soviets would still have won, but the red army would not have stopped at Berlin far more likely at Dunkirk.

If you don't have a problem with Stalin's style of political governance, secret police, informants, mass deportations, famines, executions and gulags then fine but if you prefer life in a democracy then perhaps its safe to conclude we do owe America a debt of gratitude.

 

[Gwyllgi]

I recall discussing European matters with my mother back in 1955 when I started to take a real interest in the world. She was a highly intelligent woman who bore me quite late in life (she was 39 when I was “hatched”) and had spent some years on the continent in the diplomatic service, and during the war with a national newspaper as a news editor. The woman was pure gold in so many ways.

Anyway, her remarks about the USSR and its history were interesting to say the least. She told of the pre-revolutionary times, the dreadful behaviour of the rulers, and the eventual revolt.

Included were her analysis of why the Stalinist era was, just as was the Maoist era in the PRC, an interim state that the huge nation had to pass through in order to reach modernity at a staggering pace not least in order to prevent reactionary forces destroying the achievements made by the revolution.

On that basis there is good cause to speculate just what form the USSR might have socially evolved into had it not been so utterly devastated by the Nazi genocidal attacks, and if the USSR really had any short or even medium term objectives to the West. There would seem to be at least a prima face case that they had more than enough on their plate at home.

It’s also interesting to speculates to just what extent the social evolution that has taken place in Russia culminating in the collapse of the Soviet was delayed by the US and its Cold War against that which it saw as its greatest threat, specifically people power rather than huge corporation power.

It’s also interesting to wonder when the US (and others) will realise that Islam presents a threat that is far more real and present than communism ever was.

But who can really tell in the case of Russia. What it really comes down to is that we are where we are and the US is not the “Burning Torch of Freedom” it once claimed to be.

Or for that matter, if in reality it ever really was except when its own interests were involved.

 

[Invictus_88]

EEA, EFTA.

A meaningless response.
The position that Britain is now in, thanks more than anything to the disastrous consequences of what can only be described as the insanity of Blair and Brown, is such that although we have very limited options now open to us.

Limited in fact to two.

One is to stop faffing about and commit fully to Europe, the other is to find a way of growing bananas and take up cannibalism because the other option to the EU is to become a third world country.

Britain is hopelessly overpopulated because of Labour government policies and hopelessly id debt for the same reason.

To stand alone we need to reduce our population to a sustainable level which is probably around thirty million (hence the cannibalism) and to discharge our humungous debt by exports.

The global market is pretty well supplied with what it wants to buy by China, India, and other low cost producers who are taking increasing market share every day.

Since countries that have nothing else that can be sold at a competitive price seem to manage on exporting bananas, if we ever seriously did consider quitting our best option then we’d better find a way to grow the buggers, and soon.

All the UKIP and other cloud cuckoo parties fail to take into account one thing.

Britain is insolvent, and deeply and increasingly in debt and their blue skies vision is flawed by our being totally unable to get off the ground.

You ignored it, but it nonetheless did answer your question about how the UK could financially sustain itself beyond the constraints of an EU superstate.

 

[Gwyllgi]

You ignored it, but it nonetheless did answer your question about how the UK could financially sustain itself beyond the constraints of an EU superstate.

And you assume that I've not done my homework.

The UK is not in a position to step from where we are to where we would need to be in order to stand alone. Nor can we get there any more.

With a total national debt of ... tell you what, you tell me what you think it is, with a population of well in excess of seventy million, with an economy that is utterly dependent on continually taking on debt in order just to get by like a Glaswegian council tenant with a pocketful of credit cards which he adds to as each “max out”, facing a world in which the costs of doing business includes meeting international standards, and with the money lenders about to crank up the interest rates the moment they get a whiff of insolvency because of no new credit cards being made available, faced with that lot, and more, how do YOU propose the UK would exist without the strength of EU membership?

An horrifically long sentence, but not long enough to add in the effects of ramping unemployment and all THAT brings both fiscally to the government and socially to the population, public services that right now are unaffordable, and a whole lot more not least the possibility for our people to “get on their bikes” as they did last time Labour scredwed the country being lost.

Sorry, your dog won’t hunt. It’s got no legs.

 

[Invictus_88]

Not alone at all.

Alone like Norway is alone, or like Switzerland is alone. So...in fact not even remotely alone.

 

[Gwyllgi]

We are not in anything like the position that Norway or Switzerland are in.

Our populations are different in number and kind, our societies are poles apart, our trading economies are totally different one from the other, our internal economies are radically different now that the disgraceful almost Buccaneer City trading regulation has been brought closer to decency, in short, we are not in anyway like either Norway or Switzerland and so we can not emulate them.

Keep trying? For example, what do you think our National debt stands at? And how could that be managed if we were to break away?

Sorry, it’s game over for Britain. We’ve been playing injury time for far too long and all we’ve done in that time is score one own goal after another.

 

[Maciamo]

Not alone at all.

Alone like Norway is alone, or like Switzerland is alone. So...in fact not even remotely alone.

Norway is part of the European Economic Area and Schengen Zone. Switzerland is also in Schengen. The UK and Ireland are not yet in Schengen. In some ways Norway is more an EU member than the UK. It is part of the free market and common visa areas. It just doesn't send MEP to Brussels and Strasbourg.

Keep in mind that Norway is much less populous than Inner London. It's slightly bigger than the Greater Birmingham. It's easier for small countries to stay on the side and watch what's going one than for major world powers like the UK.

 

[Maciamo]

Had this happened there would have been no second front in Europe, the soviets would still have won, but the red army would not have stopped at Berlin far more likely at Dunkirk.

We would have had to move to Calais or Boulogne then. :wink:

 

[Michael Folkesson]

Invictus_88
What does the word superstate mean to you, when you refer to the EU as such?

 

[A ke bono kane kotto]

Alone like Norway is alone, or like Switzerland is alone. So...in fact not even remotely alone.

Sh't they are all alone in their mountains. Isn't that sad ?

 

[Michael Folkesson]

Well, you know. Mountain people. They are just weird like that. They'll probably join in five years or so. It depends on Iceland, the darn fishes and the strong nationalism of Norway. Fish and oil is important to our little brother, but they are proud gits as well. This election it was political dynamite to discuss Union membership due to political pacts between parties of antagonist positions in the issue, but it might just make it into the next one. It's increasingly inconvenient for the Norwegians in Brussels. They don't want to get out, and it is a growing problem for them to sit on the side bench.

Then Switzerland is the last piggy. Lichtenstein being the appendix of Switzerland and a back seat passenger follows whatever they do. I think that they should just become a part of the swiss confederation. It is in practice anyway.

Then according to some the Union is complete. If you ask me, Europe ends elsewhere.

But pertaining the OP, I think EU without Britain is unthinkable.