I would concur. While the issues of racial injustice and the unaccountability of law enforcement officers are problems, and I'm glad that they are being discussed more and more, they are not the only issues. The economic issues are on the back burner. Justice reform has built bridges that socioeconomic reform can walk across... the time is closer than it was ten years ago when those underlying problems were not given due attention. — creativesoul

And that's why I think discussion is important. And yes, the obvious elephant in the room, the economic situation, is forgotten.

My country doesn't have riots on the streets or similar problems as they now have in Sweden, yet I have to go just to the generation of my great grandparents, and Finns were killing other Finns in a civil war. I don't think my generation or the younger ones aren't much different from them. Social cohesion and respect for people who have opposing views is important for any democracy to function. And understanding that things can get really much worse and very quickly is important. When the worst happens, the vast majority of people can just be left thinking of what insanity has taken over the country and their fellow countrymen.

In the US you already have the emergence of such an ugly divide forming up, and a spark can happen in country filled up with guns when a Kyle Rittenhouse type meets a Michael Reinoehl type in a protest filled with people. Will after a bloody shooting the discussion be more easy? Will reform happen or will it be the new President invoking the Insurrection act? I don't think so. Later people just want to move on and forget the whole dismal time.

Sure, but I would ask myself whether those who use that type of language are actually interested in a discussion or if they're just more interested in venting. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, the Forum isn't a "safe space" and simply going away isn't an answer.

Anyway, you do you. I can't help but notice that the insults here always seem to flow from the left to those on the right though. — BitconnectCarlos

Philosophy students are usually leftists. Yet increasing amount of members here are what would be called centrist or even on the right, I think.

That's just not true. Focusing upon the racial injustice reform sheds light upon all sorts of things, including but not limited to, law enforcement issues like abuse of power/brutality. — creativesoul

I do understand your point. Yet how do you approach these injustices is important. Do you make accusations and divide the people (as happens) or do you make the case that the country simply should live up to it's values and try to find the broadest support to do so? I would argue that there is a dedicated effort to keep the people divided in the US.

There is no absolutely no difficulty in understanding that Black Americans are disproportionally targeted by police numerous ways and that police have been militarized in American which effects all Americans regardless of skin color. — Maw

And I would argue on the way how to communicate the latter issue correctly is important. If we divide the people by race or income and say "the police works for you, not for me!", it's not hard to see that it will turn off some people who otherwise would agree with you that the police uses excessive force and starts confronting criminal suspects as enemy combatants, which is really a bad thing.

Is your suggestion here that if police brutality is disproportionately aimed at black people specifically and other minorities generally, the correct thing to do is pretend it is aimed at white people equally? Is it so hard to see why that is racist? — Kenosha Kid

Is it really aimed? You really think that this isn't a problem in very poor white communities in the US?

Blacks make up 13% of the US population yet of those people arrested each year, over a quarter (in 2018 27%) are black. So is this really an issue of police brutality being aimed at somebody or the police using excessive force generally when arresting people? I have said myself that yes, there is an obvious difference how the police approach suspects based on race, but is this really so huge that we can say that police brutality is aimed at a specific racial group? If so, what is the intent?

If the real issue is that police uses excessive force and has a low bar to use deadly force, wouldn't the procedures themselves be worth to focus or do we look for a segment that the brutality is aimed at?

Where there is disproportionately more crime you will find more contact with the police. And with more contact, there is the possibility of excessive force. Since it's an obvious fact that poorer communities have more crime than prosperous communities, you could thus also make the argument that police brutality is aimed at the poor. The statistics would support that. Yet defining this an issue of either racism or income or both doesn't actually focus on the obvious and that is how police operate, how they approach their job and how the legal system protects the use of excessive force. One is making a larger accusation on the society itself, which many people might have different views. I think this problem needs support from as big as possible segment of the population.

You might want to just not engage with people who are talking to you like that. I, for one, don't. — BitconnectCarlos

When those interested in philosophy cannot exchange ideas with each other, all is lost. Sounds dramatic, but there's a truth to it.

(And I still have confidence on the administrators following the rules of the forum equally with everyone.)

Then why not simply police brutality and what we do about it?

Police brutality does not apply to just blacks. Don't think anyone whose the least bit knowledgable on the subject thinks that it does. There's overlap though, and disproportion...

Pointing out examples of white victims misses the point in much the same way that "All lives matter" does... — creativesoul

So better to not point out that there are white victims too? Is even mentioning that some kind of dog whistle?

Just as someone even referring to colorblindness is a racist? Yes, some racist can use the phrases. But what is wrong in trying to judge people as individuals and never judge as groups of people by race, nationality etc?

Fuck off you rat, you're the lunatic whose first response to having mentioned the riddling of an autistic boy with bullets as being BuT hE wAsNt BlaCk! Don't pretend to be above this shit when you perpetuate it. — StreetlightX

There's our Aussie moderator doing his job of moderating a Philosophy Forum.

Did I say it's inflated or non-issue? No, absolutely not.

It's quite apparent that with American police the racial profiling and how they differ in their response according to a suspects race is beyond comparison to many countries, for example (from a large number of examples) shown with how police approach in video a white man carrying a rifle and a black man carrying a rifle. (The white young male is stopped and asked what he is doing while the black man is ordered by gunpoint to hit the ground with more police patrols being deployed to the sight.) So yes, race is a factor. However the simple fact is that it isn't everything and race and racism doesn't explain everything.

Just pointing out the bias towards blacks and thinking that this is an issue only with blacks and minorities makes the argument about police being racist, which leaves behind the fact that the police uses excessive force towards the majority whites too. Not so much, but still does. Similarly the system protects the police in these cases also. In a country so filled with guns the police simply resorts to lethal violence. Yet is behind everything just racism?

The argument could be also made with income: that poor people are likely to be shot and rich aren't as usually, in every country actually, the "customers" of the police are indeed on average poorer people. Then accuse "the rich" and divide the people by simply their income level. If the people belong to one race, then the division could be made so.

Yet in both cases, be it by race or by income, we are dividing the population into two groups where one is the victim and where one is the accomplice to police brutality as somehow the police working for one group and not for the other. As if it wouldn't be people in high crime areas that need good policing. We don't look at the issue as the police using excessive force and the legal system being biased and protecting the police as a problem for the whole country. We don't emphasize that that this can happen to anyone in and try get people to think of the others. The other people are privileged and it isn't a problem for them, so they somehow make it possible. And we hear everywhere dog whistles and see hidden racism. When one imagined part of the people are accomplices, then there is no need to seek allies or broaden support to get reforms. And that of course prevents large reforms of happening, when popular outrage isn't used to create a larger agreement on what to do. That there is less racism now than fifty years ago hardly matters.

And does making those accusations on others that are fellow citizens help? No, but it keeps the citizens, the people, disunited. And that divide keeps the status quo of the present.

I can assure you, nothing I say to you will have any effect whatsoever on American power structures. — Maw

Of course not, but perhaps I do get to understand your point.

Many don't, that participate on the PF. (Even if I did spent few years in my childhood there and last time I was there was last year.)

Yet that's the argument what people can discuss?

My take on it is that the economy has been in trouble since the financial crisis of 2008. — Punshhh

Uh...the World economy has been in trouble since the financial crisis of 2008, even if China and India have put respectable growth numbers.

The Conservative party is heading for oblivion, which will allow socialists into office. — Punshhh

You did have elections just last year, didn't you? How did those go?

I wouldn't say any party is heading for oblivion, as it just assumes that other parties will take their place without any effort. The political landscape and politics is far more dynamic and more complex than that in any country. If you think that younger generations are more leftist than older ones, well, they were so also in the 1960's and 1970's.

As the article pointed out, fighting Ebola etc. got them better prepared.

I've noticed this being very important: the success stories have usually been countries that before have had a lousy response earlier epidemics, which put their politicians into a bad light and hence made them to take these issues more seriously.

Perhaps in the US case one issue here was that the CDC did succeed containing earlier pandemics like the Ebola outbreak.

It's interesting. Trump's male picks all seem to be spineless, vicious, or both. The females, more a mixed bag. — tim wood

I thought that the appointment of Neil Gorsuch went easily by US standards. I may be wrong...

I can see how it would be difficult to consider two facts together if you have a walnut-sized brain. — Maw

You and others didn't get my point, but anyway, must be my walnut-sized brain.

Yet hard to understand why this urge to divide people, to make an event that had widespread condemnation at first into a polarized issue. It only serves the present power structures to stay intact.

My mistake. The university cites the killing of George Floyd in the same statement regarding the renaming to George square. I made a false connection. — NOS4A2

You're not the only one that made the mistake, some newspapers seem to have made the error also. The building is is next to George Square and hence it is named 40 George Square, which is right next to 50 George Square.

Yet perhaps this is a great example of the "decolonization" of philosophy: Hume encouraged in a letter Lord Hertford to buy a plantation in Grenada and lent money to another person that did acquired plantations in the Caribbean. Hence David Hume seems to be the one of the ideological pillars of the slave trade by these acts, at least according to prof Waldmann:

'His (Hume's) views served without doubt to fortify the institution of racialised slavery in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

'More importantly, the fact that he was involved in the slave trade is now a matter of record. He was not deferential to social convention and he was aware of the widespread denunciation of slavery by his contemporaries.

'Anyone possessed of Hume's talents would recognise the obvious enormity of slavery. But Hume endorsed slavery; indeed, he justified it.

(See article)

Hume was indeed a racist, even if some scholars point out he was against slavery (see here). And just how widespread was the denunciation of slavery at that time, I'm not sure.

How do these views effect the other things Hume said? After all, there's a huge quantity of non-interesting stuff that prominent philosophers and scientists wrote that we don't read and refer to. Yet the cheap but typical rebuttal in our time would be to disregard Hume "But he was a racist and I don't like racists". So off with the racist Enlightenment!

Well, I'm a Finn, so I shouldn't care either.

Unfortunately Europeans will start mimicking the trends from the US, the good ones and the bad ones, because I guess there isn't anything else to do. What I'm worried that your shit show of politics will come to be my shit show of politics later.

I trust we all realise that politics is long past convincing people of a vision and instead politicians pander to whatever voters want to hear so they get power to do what they want? — Benkei

They've always done that, especially the clueless ones. The duopoly situation in the US makes things different.

Now what politicians want to do is to enflame the other side to attack them and portray to their supporters (and lure new people to their side) how much the other side absolutely hates the actual voters themselves. The best thing what happened to Trump (besides James Comey, which of course is now totally forgotten) was Hillary Clinton saying that Trump supporters were "basket of deplorables".

Politician promising to do something is so lame, old school. Far better to portray other politicians hating you Benkei, what you think and how you live. It works like a charm, because it will activate you once some politician running for office "is really" against you.

Right. You go with your condescending own echo-chamber...

I'll assume that you didn't understand at all what I was saying and naturally didn't care at all.

Well, if your really lucky, you can continue to enjoy your bickering even more on how evil and racist white Americans are if Trump wins the election.

?

Sorry, to what am I saying yes?

You realize an institution can both be systematically racist and excessively violent right? Or is this too big a thought for you? — StreetlightX

Concentrating on the systemic racism part veers the focus away from the fact that excessive violence happens without regard to one's race. Where was the white priviledge of Linden Cameron?

Or do you think that this police officer was different from those other trigger happy policemen that have shot unarmed black people without any reason? Those were racists, but this guy was policeman was different, just inept to tackle the child, as the mother thought the policeman ought to respond?

Just another day of cops shooting autistic boys in the back. Threatened by someone more mentally stable than them, I guess. — StreetlightX

And the underlying reason was systemic racism?



Or could we start calling this problem that the police is using excessive force in general and get's away with it in a biased judicial system?

. But generally out chief epidemiologist said from the beginning No lockdown. And the government listened to his department. — Ansiktsburk

Swedes here made a decision and didn't flinch as the British government did. And the Swedish went with that.

But can one say whats right or wrong? — Ansiktsburk

After the pandemic we know.

We are here having the second wave and both people and especially officials are getting really jumpy. Guidance and even possible regulations about using masks are getting more common. Until now, the Finnish street has looked a lot like the Swedish street. Yet the pandemic ought to blow out of proportions here if Finland should catch up the death toll of Sweden.

Cities like Helsinki have now ordered the use of masks in public transports. Likely using masks will get to be as in the US here too.

And that barely exists pace every FBI report on the issue since the mid 1990s. The FBI recognises that the threat of "right wing" domestic terrorism is much larger than that of "left wing" terrorism. — Benkei

Yet it acknowledges the threat.

And as the FBI defines some animal rights groups and environmental groups as terrorist groups/criminal organization just as right-wing militias, the US authorities are quite unbiased and non-aligned in how they approach any group that thinks violence and breaking the law is justified. Which I think is a good thing. And which many staunchly partisan Americans hate, because for them only one side is a threat. This non-aligned approach is evident in the testimony of the FBI director Christopher Wray (from a year ago). He does admit that there are several terrorism investigation towards people that define themselves to be Antifa:



Just to give an example how the FBI really follows this approach that director Wray above tries to explain to the partisan crowd on Capitol Hill, here's a quote from few years ago (from FBI webpage):

In recent years, the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front have become the most active criminal extremist elements in the United States. Despite the destructive aspects of ALF and ELF's operations, their stated operational philosophy discourages acts that harm "any animal, human and nonhuman." In general, the animal rights and environmental extremist movements have adhered to this mandate. Beginning in 2002, however, this operational philosophy has been overshadowed by an escalation in violent rhetoric and tactics, particularly within the animal rights movement. Individuals within the movement have discussed actively targeting food producers, biomedical researchers, and even law enforcement with physical harm. But even more disturbing is the recent employment of improvised explosive devices against consumer product testing companies, accompanied by threats of more, larger bombings and even potential assassinations of researchers, corporate officers and employees.

The various kinds of terrorists we have:

(I'll answer this separately as it is a bit different topic)

Charlemagne was of course not French because this identity didn’t exist back then. He too had an identity problem: he was ruling romanized folks with the help of a Roman Church, but he was Frankish... so he worked on symbols, to help forge some synthesis here, like the EU bureaucrats do. And one such symbol he used was the emperor thing. — Olivier5

Yet the real issue is how to get the masses to love their new identity, not only the elite.That's the hard part as it doesn't happen with a decree or sharing your wealth and power with your cronies.

The story of the Kalmar Union and comparing it to the United Kingdom tells a lot. The North European personal union lasted for some centuries until it broke up and simply was forgotten. Now is just thought as being a feudal oddity of the medieval times whereas nationalities like being Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish are the building blocks how we talk about history here. Yet if there would those rabidly nationalist and militant Kalmarists around, perhaps the union would have survived even to this day.

And looking at the history of the British Isles, you can see just how much effort have to be made to create a common new identity and how really people take these things into heart. The Romans did it smartly by enlarging the identity of being Roman and being around enough time for people to relate to this identity, unlike let's say the Macedonians with their brief time in the sun.

Europe is trying to be more than a collection of rabidly aggressive self-centred microstates. European nationalism killed millions, least we forget. We are trying to become something different than a bunch of nationalist idiots. So of course we have an identity problem... — Olivier5

Oh yes, "never again" after WW2 was the true fighting call for the EEC/EU. And that's about it, apart from the vague idea of being the counter response to US supremacy and the obvious push from large corporations.

You see, you actually also made the example of why EU is in such trouble: unable to create a larger pan-European identity, the EU then has taken into attacking those "rabidly aggressive self-centered microstates" that actually make it up. The inability to acknowledge that the union is indeed a confederation of independent states, again clearly shown with the response to the corona-pandemic, is one of the root problems of the EU. The EU has nothing else as an answer than more integration. It is so unconfident about itself that it thinks not having more integration will lead to an abrupt collapse of the union. And the idea that the EU is the only thing preventing Europeans to getting back to killing each other is simply ridiculous. Many European countries are totally capable of being peaceful with each other without an EU, so it's very foolish and actually condescending to think so.

And this really is a tragedy, as the English have shown that creating new identity above the old national identity is possible. Being British was cleverly used to unified their defeated islanders to share a common identity (even if it didn't work with the Irish) and it has worked at least for now, which is an accomplishment. The total lack of using anything else than bureaucrats to advance the EU shows the short sightedness of those promoting the EU. So does the thinking that economic growth and prosperity would take care of this identity problem... especially when the common market hurts some countries like Greece and favors others like Germany.

I - find it inappropriate to talk about "alternative scenarios" because any change made to the scenario that has become history - fact - would completely change the whole story in the long run. — Gus Lamarch

Yet that's the whole question: would it really completely change the story? The superficial story of events happening and how exactly people reacted to them would change, but would the narrative in the Longue durée, about which the French Annales school were so enthusiastic about, really change into something totally different that we couldn't relate to?

Alternative scenarios only give some insight to the underlying power structures and of the reasons why something happened. They work like a war game: a highly realistic war game will give the players insight what actually would happen or why actually something happened. And throwing dice gives us the effect of chance. Surely the battles in a war game don't follow exactly historical reality, but they do show how the weights were stacked on the belligerents.

In my view, the study of Roman civilization, is to compare with ours and to repair errors so that they do not repeat themselves, and victories, so that they are redone. But anyone who's a person with an intellect slightly above average will see that the same mistakes are being made, the same decadence, the same nihilism, the same thinking. — Gus Lamarch

Any person? I think a lot of very intelligent people do believe in the uniqueness of our time and truly think we are really different and our society is totally different from earlier times.

This is using history as a guide to the present. Still, we shouldn't forget that every historical era was unique and we cannot create a mathematical formula to explain it.

The right way of thinking for me its this:

Rome fell right? Yes

Why did it fall? - Insert causes here -

Our society could fall as Rome did? Yes

So let's study it to prevent our society's collapse. — Gus Lamarch

But there's no barbarian horde on the gates that could defeat our society. Even if the US and Russia would decide to have an all-out nuclear exchange and bomb also China on the way, because why not, the places left out from the carnage, South America, Africa, Oceania, still uphold all the knowledge of our society. Our society simply isn't as fragile as the globalized society in Antiquity, because then there were huge differences between the "high-cultures" and the so-called barbarians. Just think how much people were literate then and now.

Nice then, that at least the fight for racial justice(equal treatment under the law) has the additional benefit of shining a light upon other problems that are not just about race, but rather about abuse of power. — creativesoul

Unfortunately the present discourse is meant to divide us, not to unify us.

Divide et Impera.

I do value those "old-school" views.

Perhaps the problems of the Roman Empire can be thought with alternative history: What would have it taken for the Roman Empire to survive, perhaps until this day?

Could we have avoided the De-globalization of the Middle Ages, but just continued from Antiquity to Renaissance? The love affair Renaissance had with Antiquity seems that this could have happened. Could entrepreneurialism have been restored, perhaps creating proto-capitalism? Or for the Roman Empire to survive, would it had needed a technological edge with the Romans replacing their ballistas with culverins and cannons? The East Romans had their nafta throwers that were potent against ships, so they did innovate a bit. Would the Romans have needed some innovation in ship building and then go on to conquer the World ruling the waves of not just the Mediterranean? At least they would have the drive and the correct attitude to do that, when thinking about the martial culture of Rome.

Perhaps the real problem here is that in a few years whites will be in the minority in the US. More whites are dying than being born. — Punshhh

This can be interpreted wrong.

The fact is that whites won't be a majority. That is different, because whites still will be the largest racial group in the US. You see, everybody will be then "a minority", which only sounds confusing, as naturally you can divide people so that every group is under 50%.

But yes, some people are somehow worried about this. Call them whatever. In the most peculiar way, some portray Europe to go this route more rapidly even if the US is far more multicultural than the vast majority (if not all) of the European countries.

So it is this weird in between time in Europe — schopenhauer1

Yet note that you are talking about 500 years.

From 2020 to 1520 is five hundred years also, and during that time there's been a lot of transformation too. The fact is, we can notice the transformation that has taken in our lifetime, in 50 years and perhaps understand that 100 years, and we typically can have some artifacts or old books that are a hundred years old. But once you are talking about 400-500 years, it is no wonder how distant the times are. There is a huge time gap between Charlemagne and Augustus and the height of the Roman empire.

The city of Rome went from a population of 800,000 in the beginning of the period to a population of 30,000 by the end of the period. — Gus Lamarch

This is one of the most startling statistics in history ever, the population of the city of Rome:



That only well into the 20th Century the city, then having been the capital of unified Italy already from the 19th Century, the population exceeds the population at the height of the Roman Empire in Antiquity tells a fascinating story.

As a whole, the period of late antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe, and a reversion to more of a subsistence economy. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a greater degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce and specialized production. What was once a "globalized" world, became a isolated fragmented continent - people living in Italy didn't have any notion or information of how was life in Egypt from the 6th to the 9th century, contrary to the roman period, where distant information was easily accessed -. These long distances knowledge only became the norm again after the 10th century onwards. — Gus Lamarch

A globalized economy creates market demand for specialization and specialized labour. I've allways thought that a society where poets can support their family by selling and reading poems (or for that matter artists can be rich and not just the wandering clown type or handyman) tells of wealth that hardly will happen in a secluded regional economy. Somewhere there has had to be created that wealth that can be put into art. And if it at first people like artist that are somewhat non-essential for people to survive, then come engineers and other professions that need an highly advance education system. Now the importance of these people are obvious to any ruler, but then when the true transformation happens in more than 100 years of time, even if the political changes can be as abrupt as the Roman Legions simply leaving England, it is hard to grasp the change.

De-globalization, the process of diminishing interdependence and integration, is the logical consequence when long term trade vanishes and when the state or states cannot secure peace and stability.

We should consider too, the theories of both Michael Rostovtzeff and Ludwig von Mises about the economic collapse of the Roman Empire: — Gus Lamarch

Well, debasing money is likely more of a desperate response to a problem that you cannot solve otherwise. It's a good point, but I don't think it's the most important reason as it is more of a response. I think Nero had a ruinous debacle with inflation and even more opposed him when he made his own version of a death tax: meaning that Nero's henchmen would go around killing rich people and then collect the tax. (No wonder one of the biggest armies was formed against Nero, but once the emperor died this army broke up.)

I think the problem was that for rapid economic growth Rome needed to conquer new territories, plunder them and when Rome could not expand anymore, when it had no loot to bring back to Rome and new slaves to us, the whole huge standing army needed to defend the borders became a huge burden. Soldiers manning a wall in the middle of nowhere are an expense.

Perhaps economics have to do with it as well. The agricultural practice of the three-crop rotation system spread from southern Europe to North, replacing the more pastoral into an agrarian, land-based one. — schopenhauer1

Have to comment here. The biggest change from the Roman Empire and Antiquity is the collapse of the "globalization" of agriculture, which made large cities and advanced societies impossible. If Rome had been fed from Northern Africa, Constantinople had been from the Nile delta. Once these places were lost large cities as Rome and Constantinople simply couldn't be fed by the local regions and the city populations withered away. Might have some impact on Roman culture and the rise of feudalism.

Do other people get shot in no-knock raids? — Outlander

One study put that between 1981 and 2006 roughly 40 innocent people were killed in no-knock raids. If there's tens of thousands of no-knock raids, that's pretty high still. Likely the stats aren't precise.

But unfortunately many people and the media don't look at this as a problem about police using excessive force, but as a specific problem of the police being racist against blacks. Hence things like a man shot while sleeping in an no-knock raid earlier this year doesn't get much media coverage as the person wasn't black (and it happened before the George Floyd killing).

Thanks for pointing at the Franco-German connotation, evident in the Division Charlemagne. Note that the alliance between these two acts as an informal European leadership of sorts. Hence Charlemagne in EU symbolism also evoke Franco-German ties. — Olivier5

When it comes especially to EU symbolism, the EU has a genuine identity problem.

Case example is the bland stupidity in the appearance of the euro notes: there aren't any people in them, what is depicted are basically unknown bridges as a metaphor for connecting people. Usually countries would have put their leaders or historically important people into their cash notes, and surely there would be such worthy historical individuals in European history. But nobody did even try this as they understood what a useless bickering match would it all have ended up with countries demanding their famous persons to be put in euros. And this shows how these historical people are linked to a national heritage. Even if Charlemagne was the "father of Europe", he surely was a French king, especially for the French.

And for this trans-national pan-European ideology and symbolism the EU has a hard time to invent things. The real "founding fathers" of the EEC were ordinary politicians and bureaucrats, which can hardly be created into larger than life figures and put onto a pedestal. And so has the whole invention of EU symbolism been carried out: with the passion of a nine-to-five bureaucrat inventing Europe Day and taking a famous piece from Beethoven as the anthem of the union.

And of course, if we were talking about the Charlemagne prize, we also have to note the Jean Monnet prize, a person who himself got also the Charlemagne prize:

The Jean Monnet Prize for European Integration aims at honouring Jean Monnet's memory and life achievements. It does so by rewarding talented individuals or groups having contributed to supporting or strengthening European Integration through a project they designed and implemented.

Win 1500 euros!

Perhaps this will be a blessing in disguise for liberals like me: it may take the abortion issue off the table, and other more-pervasive issues will persuade some "pro-life" folks to embrace social welfare. — Relativist

I always have to remind myself that the abortion laws in my country are far more strict than in the US especially when here there is no debate whatsoever about the issue. The fact that the laws are more strict in all Nordic countries than in some states in the US is worth to remember too.

When I've mentioned the fact to people here that US abortion laws are far more lax than we have them, people have been totally surprised about this. Here the US abortion discussion is either portrayed as one of those hot potato issues that people go bonkers about in America or, in the leftist media, that the Republicans are impending to cancel every right of abortion that US women have and the Democrats are valiantly defending the rights of women in this case. Of course, what actually people are purposing isn't much reported.

The exchange between a porter and the person who employs one isn't equal - the porter usually gets the short end of the stick. Also, it's not always the case that someone hires a porter because the luggage is too heavy to handle - sometimes people are just plain lazy. — TheMadFool

Yet isn't it beneficial for the poor guy working as a porter that people do use his services? What do you give the porter when you show that you can carry your own luggage fine and his services aren't needed? Who is really then the one giving the porter the short end of the stick?

Menial jobs are important in a society. There ought to be a full ensemble of various job positions starting from easy and menial to the difficult, demanding high pay jobs open for everybody. Replacing the menial jobs with automation isn't a good answer in my view, because that is the answer, usually. Thinking that menial jobs are degrading to the people working in them often stops short of thinking that what other jobs would there be open for the people.

But this of course is aside your OP, if I understood your point correctly.

One thing that came to my mind from your OP about psychological burden is the need for people to seek help or counseling if there happens a large highly publicized catastrophe. Health professionals might even demand to go and seek help. Churches open their doors. Seeking help from a "shrink" or getting "crisis management" is suddenly very acceptable as we have learnt that there is this time for collective mourning. This can be beneficial, because there's still this stigma that if you see a psychiatrist.

So next tuesday there will be a Biden Trump debate.

So at least we will have some debates.

Thoughts?

Charlemagne is not unknown. On the contrary, he is seen as a great king. Rightly so in my view. To compare him to Hitler is really unfair.

E.g. Charlemagne invited Jews in his kingdom, and this is how Ashkenaz came to be. Hitler killed them. — Olivier5

Those who did unite large parts of Europe together, even if for their lifetime, are going to be compared to Napoleon and Hitler. Yet in the current climate having a prize named after a king who was responsible for example to the massacre of Verden and beloved by the Nazis wouldn't be and obvious pick, but times have changed. Basically the whole concept of "Great Kings" isn't so popular today, even if there obviously are able kings who were successful conquerors.

I am not sure about your criticism of the actual point about people being able to carry luggage without assistance because carrying heavy loads can be difficult without the large trolleys porters have. — Jack Cummins

Why would people have heavy loads they cannot carry?

If we move, we will either rent a van or get a moving company. For the vast majority the clothes they need for a trip can be carried by themselves. That usually happens in airports before going through the customs check.

Well yes, by different means, but Charlemagne remains there in the cultural background. I think the EEC founding members for instance overlap well with his empire. There is also a EU Charlemagne prize, and even a Charlemagne building in Brussels. — Olivier5

responded with quite the same answer as I did.

The simple fact is that Charlemagne is simply so unknown and hence politically correct that the EU can name a prize after him. They wouldn't do that with a Napoleon prize and especially not with a Hitler prize.