Sorry for being pedantic, — Janus

Apology accepted.

But, the dementia seems to show when he tried to spin the 2020 elections. — Shawn

I agree that this was a big faux pas as was his "debate".

But I'm not sure about "dementia". I think his biggest problem was that he had no knowledge or understanding of politics and he surrounded himself with advisers whose advice he half of the time chose to ignore.

And let's not forget that the pandemic was unprecedented, and no one was prepared for it. He could have done better, but he didn't handle it much worse than many other leaders around the world.

After two World Wars, one would think they've learned fighting each other is no good. — Manuel

Correct. Total waste of time, money and other resources that could be put to better use. And other powers are taking full advantage to increase the division for their own agendas.

Sorry, but, he made 9 phone calls to the DOJ about turning over the election and handing him the victory. He may or may not have dementia; but, it strikes as some kind of needless spin so he can turn out superior because that what he believes he is, when the issue was about not his superiority; but, the votes of Americans.

Nevermind the fascist point. I had something else in mind.

But the again EU is anti-democratic, and they also want and army... — Wheatley

Yeah. It's ironic.

Not that NATO is much better. I mean yes, the US is somewhat democratic, more than the EU now, I'd argue, but it doesn't matter, I mean they can just bombard you with propaganda and people go wild and want to go to war.

Insane.

Not that NATO is much better. I mean yes, the US is somewhat democratic, more than the EU now, I'd argue, but it doesn't matter, I mean they can just bombard you with propaganda and people go wild and want to go to war. — Manuel

Correct. The Iraq war had really good ratings on cable news. To quote George Carlin, "We love war!"


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fox-news-tops-cnn-msnbc-in-initial-war-ratings-race

I agree. It's hard to tell what actually happened there. Quite possibly, he does have some psychological or personality issues. I'm not excluding that.

But someone in his position has no direct contact with the world, he knows what he is told by others and precisely because he wasn't a professional politician I don't think he understood how things are done outside the business world. He obviously doesn't have the refinement and social skills of someone who has been a lawyer and politician for many years.

Still, he did quite well in the polls until the epidemic started to bite and the issue of police racism flared up in combination with the general public frustration. But none of those issues were his fault.

Yeah. Fox.

I think there should be a law that says that opinion or preference can't be given as fact.

I think there should be a law that says that opinion or preference can't be given as fact. — Manuel

Yea, good luck passing that. I believe it's also unconstitutional. Was it the 1st amendment?

Maybe. The constitution should be updated though. It's not as if it were God's word or something.

But, point taken.

The constitution should be updated though. It's not as if it were God's word or something. — Manuel

Petition for an amendment! Reason: too many gullible people! Now, how's that for a proposition? :nerd:

Yeah. It should be amended significantly every X amount of time. They had no idea about what we would be dealing with back in the day. Nor the moral progress we've made in many areas.

Yeah, but US conservatives won't have it. They've successfully made congress dysfunctional. And you need congress to help ratify a new amendment. (I forgot the whole process)

:rofl:

Not that NATO is much better. I mean yes, the US is somewhat democratic, more than the EU now, I'd argue, but it doesn't matter, I mean they can just bombard you with propaganda and people go wild and want to go to war. — Manuel

This is a gross misconception. People just keep repeating each other that the EU is not democratic. It is, in fact, more democratic than some European states and it certainly is more democratic than the USA if only for the fact that there's a plurality of parties, meaning the representation of various different types of EU citizens is better guaranteed.

Unlike the USA, the EU is less susceptible to lobbying influence as a result of the plurality as well and requires the approval of individual Member States depending on the subject. This requires successful lobbying efforts to connect with the EC, the EU Parliament and the relevant heads of state or ministers at the same time.

Of course, part of what is often considered the democratic deficit results from the particular constitutional setup of the EU, which has two sources for democratic legitimacy. On the one hand the EU Parliament and on the other the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of Europe). The first directly represents EU citizens the second the people of individual member states. The second is an international treaty principle of equality among states and it's difficult to reconcile the two because obviously smaller countries are "overrepresented" in the European Council which can be a loggerheads with the overall will of all EU citizens. On the other hand, it is another check and balance on the exercise of power, more regularly requiring compromises.

And while the Parliament only has a weak right to propose new legislation, which the EC can ignore provided it gives reason to do so, the fact is that in almost all democracies, the majority of legislative proposals are initiated by governments and often passed with little or no resistance (either due to governing coalitions enforcing party line voting or governing majorities in national parliaments). Additionally, for each new legislative proposal by the EC a new and separate coalition/compromise must be build to pass it. The EU Parliament exercises a lot of influence on legislative proposals.

Meanwhile, voting in the European Council requires a qualified majority or sometimes unanimity.

So when people complain about the democratic deficit of the EU, it usually reflects little knowledge of how the EU works and why. Which of course is also a problem because the EU should explain what it does much better than it does now.

if only for the fact that there's a plurality of parties, meaning the representation of various different types of EU citizens is better guaranteed. — Benkei

This is how democracy works: prior to the American civil war there were five different parties that claimed to be anti-slavery. Only one party was pro-slavery.

The result was that anti-slavery energy was scattered at best and divided against itself at worst.

Lincoln gathered all the anti-slavery parties together and thus won the presidency.

Plurality of parties usually means there's either no pressing issues to deal with or there's apathy about dealing with the issues at hand.

Plurality of parties usually means there's either no pressing issues to deal with or there's apathy about dealing with the issues at hand. — frank

Funny how all those Nordic European countries end up being so damn progressive, totally gripped by apathy...

The EU is not the USA and it certainly isn't the USA at the time of the civil war.

A sign that this forum needs new blood is that I already know you aren't going to understand what I just told you.

Or that's a sign that you're incapable of expressing yourself clearly. I'm not sure what you think I fail to understand in your post. How do you think it even relates to the discussion about the perceived democratic deficit of the EU?

It means the EU's clutch isn't engaged. It's never had to function as a real government. If it transpires that it has to, it could grow into a real democracy.

But the conditions in which it would have to make that shift would favor tyranny, not democracy.

Yes, it has all these separate governing bodies and all these fancy sounding internal organizations. How much influence does the average European have over any of this?

Virtually nothing. Yeah they can send some people to parliament, if they even know about it. It often (not always) boils down to ECB dogma.

As Schäuble told Varoufakis when Syrizia won: ‘Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy."

Member states cannot decide how much money they should print given the specific economic situations they find themselves in - outside of a select number of countries.

Parliaments are nice, and I like that they can form coalitions to pass laws. Did the EU function well in the 2009 crisis? What about the pandemic, did the member states help each other out?

It was Cuba and China, not Germany or France, who helped Italy.

In short, the EU has a long way to go to become democratic.

Again, Mody and Varoufakis describe this very well.

But I do agree that information on how the EU works, should be made easier to gather.

It’s too late. EU leaders ran to contribute to world-wide fascism far quicker than Trump did. They’ll need to beg the man for forgiveness.

A sweeping statement completely devoid of argumentation. Useless.

Yes, it has all these separate governing bodies and all these fancy sounding internal organizations. How much influence does the average European have over any of this?

Virtually nothing. — Manuel

I just explained how it is more representative than some EU states so virtually nothing is still more than most "democracies". So if your point is that modern democracies are not democratic enough then ok, but otherwise, this is simply not true relative to existing democratic countries.

Did the EU function well in the 2009 crisis? What about the pandemic, did the member states help each other out? — Manuel

Compared to what? I can criticise Dutch society up and down all day and point out all its flaws but at the end of the day it's a hell of a lot better than 98% of the rest of the world in most areas that matter to me. And did member states help each other out? They do so on an ongoing basis through the exchange of information, technology, capital, goods, people etc. and specifically Italy enjoys low interest rates on its bonds thanks to the ESF giving it headroom to react to the pandemic. Italy could borrow money from the ESD and received money through the Recovery and Resilience Facility during the pandemic. Did the EU and other member states initially not react to calls for help from Italy? Certainly. Everybody was unprepared for the pandemic, Italy, the EU and every other member state. But that's not a consequence of the function of the EU but a result of the gross underestimation of the risks of a viral pandemic, which underestimation we've seen in almost every country that hadn't dealt with MERS and SARS.

And Varoufakis has an axe to grind due to his role (or lack thereof really) in the Greek restructuring. Why take him so seriously? Greece and the other member states were collectively fucked by the banking industry, which claimed if Greece failed on its bonds it would cascade through Europe. Everybody feared that spectre and the resultant disintegration of the EU. Of course, Greece also got itself in that mess in the first place by window dressing its accounts through the use of off market swaps (courtesy of Goldman Sachs). Point is, it's not so black and white.

Mody, I assume you mean Ashoka Mody, is in the long list of the "euro can't work" authors at a time when support for the euro among industries, people and politicians is at an all time high. So really, who cares what he thinks? He probably makes some fair criticisms, I have some of my own especially around the introduction of the EUR but let's not pretend

At the end of the day, the EU functioned way better than the UK and the USA and worse than a few other countries.

In short, the EU has a long way to go to become democratic. — Manuel

Yeah, not really, you overestimate the democratic credentials of EU member states.

Flawed democracies in the EU:
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
France
Greece
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia

Nothing useful to add as usual. Stick with your shtick to the Trump thread please.

Flawed democracies in the EU:
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
France
Greece
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Malta
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia — Benkei

I found that information here. :chin:
https://www.euronews.com/2018/02/01/less-than-half-of-eu-countries-are-fully-democratic-report

Full Democracies

Sweden

Denmark

Ireland

Finland

Netherlands

Luxembourg

Germany

United Kingdom

Austria

Malta

Spain

The rating is given out of ten with eight and above ranking as "full democracy", six to eight as "flawed democracy", four to six as "hybrid regime" and zero to four as "authoritarian regime".

EU functioned way better than the UK — Benkei

Am I missing something? Isn't the UK part of the EU??

And in my opinion, the UK shouldn't be in that list with messed up representation in both the House of Commons and unelected House of Lords and no basically no ability to submit legislation.

Brexit. You missed Brexit.

Did the EU function well in the 2009 crisis? — Manuel

At the end of the day, the EU functioned way better than the UK — Benkei

2009, there was no Brexit yet! I rest my case. :cool: