Oh I know the trends, I understand that, however in our current state: 1. Pensions are already screwed (state pensions that is). It's why they recently made it a legal requirement for companies to match private pension payments; shifting of the burden onto the job sector and off of the Treasury. 2. Entry into the housing market (i.e. the average age of a homeowner) is up into the late 30s, conservative papers like the Telegraph boasting in recent years how it's down from an average of 39 to a new, trendy, 37 years old. Woohoo! 3. Job losses are across the board. NHS is sinking with the government trying to paint it as service failure, instead of their management failures. Local councils have had their budgets slashed, leading to the forced closures of libraries and other such institutions across the country (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35707956, plenty of other recent articles available on Google too). 4. Support network for eldery and disabled demographics has been destroyed, with benefits being cut across the board. We're already at a pretty terrible state, and that's been the government's doing with little EU intervention at all. I hate to think what would happen to these areas of society were the current government able to make it to 2020 without the current protection EU law currently affords us. I want to leave the country, but I can't afford it yet. When it was younger it used to be idealistic "I want to work in Canada in the games industry". These days it's "I want to get far, far away from here but also to a country that isn't as screwed as the UK" (which rules out the US, so thankfully Canada is still an option. Housing over there is atrocious though ).
Speaking of, the general consensus around most industry people I've spoken to around here are "leaving the EU would kinda screw things up for games". Not gonna add much to the conversation though, I've kinda drowned out politics lately for my own mental health
Don't we all constantly want to leave this insane place we've been thrown into? At least often when I read about German politics my mind goes towards "I wish there were a country of my dreams I could go to and leave this screwed up place behind. " But the reality is that there is no such country and I am pretty lucky to be where I am. Reading about politics in other places makes that pretty obvious. Brexit might come from the same mindset: What we have right now seems bad, we need to leave it. The question if the place the UK would "move" towards is better or worse is the one people seem to disagree on however.
Exactly, I like how on the news today they were warning that leaving the eu would result in a recession... I'd argue we never really recovered from the 2009 fiasco. Interesting you mention the library's... My fiancee used to be a librarian in Lincolnshire, until they closed all bar 4 of the libraries in the entire county (down from 30 ish) even though lincs council has a budget excess. Thankfully my partner had moved into a new area of work before that happened but plenty of people she worked with were put out of jobs.
your correct on we view ourselves as Americans before we think of ourselves as a Washingtonian or whatever state you hail from normally. we do divided ourselves severely by other things like north/south, and Republicans and Democrats. I have had very heated debates that became arguments just over this election season and the way America should go in the future. the millennials and the baby boomers also are just two giant view points that don't agree. millennials are more progressive and want to grow and change quick. where as even my own father who is 65 is very tradition oriented, he is very set on his ways and refuses to think the way the country is changing so quick is good. a lot of older folks and my generation create a gap between ourselves. through tradition, culture, ideals, and our views of an American future. millennials I know that are far more politically active are very opinionated but also pretty rude. they want America to move forward but throw away the feelings of my father's generation.
If there is one thing all cultures have in common, it's that politics are always controversial Then again that's probably just more down to human nature, I mean look how heated debates relating to PA can get, and this is a game... I get what you're saying on generational differences of opinion. My parents are (now) staunchly anti Europe and want to leave. What truly baffles me though is my father in particular worked with Europe on EU wide policy for moment of rail freight between the UK and the rest of the mainland. He was very pro European at the time and he only retired 4 years ago. His entire basis for hating the eu now relates to a single new rule prohibiting any eu member state importing new locomotives unless they meet the latest emissions standard- which apparently no existing model does. I personally think that pushing manufacturers hard like this is the only way the new standards will ever be met, and even then why should one unpopular decision negate the years of good experiences?
This is of course where politics falls into an ideological battle. Associating capitalism as crony capitalism is another belief entirely. Blanketing capitalism as the cause of all current economic issues is equivalent to blaming religion for the tragedy in Jonestown. Sadly, this happens far too often. Personally, its ashame that people don't view the country for its entirety as an important issue. The belief that these issues don't impact them on "real terms" is exactly what leads to problems in politics. An excellent example is in the USA where few people actually turn out to vote for their state legislature. In the USA, there is a perception that local and state politics is insignificant and people ignore it entirely. Next thing you know, your property taxes rise and your local school loses funding. While the brexit case is different, the perception that these things don't effect them in "real" terms is disheartening. If you are part of the country, you have no choice but to be involved. Luckily, you are allowed to exercise your opinion. People viewing these issues as not legitimate shows that they are misinformed or don't care.
My post should never have been taken as a reason to not be involved. That said I think the strength of your point suffers from being split down the middle trying a) to defend the notion of capitalism as a structure that exists in the modern world and b) to tie this to a completely unrelated position on the matter of Brexit.
I can see I'm largely outnumbered here - I apologise for not being able to individually respond to many of the points made but I'd be sat here typing for hours. For those who have the time, the interest and the inclination, I'll link below a documentary which sets out the case for Brexit in a pretty comprehensive way. It's an hour long, which I know is a big ask if you have only a passing interest in the debate. There's a playlist with a few bite-sized snippets here. I have to say that points like the one Gorbles made really sadden me. Things like 'imagine how terrible our politicians would be without the EU to watch over them' completely defeat the object of a representative democracy. The EU is steadily accumulating powers, withdrawing from nation states the ability to set their own policy. You may think that their judgement has been great so far, but what happens when they prevent the government of the day from enacting a piece of policy that you really rather like? The government wants to do something that would be of enormous benefit to you, but the EU won't let them. Then what can you do about it? The EU is making all sorts of threats about things it might to do make things difficult for a post-Brexit UK. Each of these threats, if carried out, would not be in the interest of the remaining members of the EU, but would actively harm their economies. Do we really want to be part of an organisation that would willingly inflict harm on its own members simply to make a political and ideological point? This is exactly the sort of behaviour that representative democracy was established to prevent. That is the behaviour of a power-mad tyrant; or in this case an entire army of thousands of well-paid, sycophantic, power-mad tyrants. Many wars have been fought, and many lives have been lost over the centuries to remove people from the grasp of tyrants. It saddens me that people are so willing to submit themselves to what is, for now, a seemingly-benevolent dictatorship.
Hmm I see where you are coming from. I agree that democracy could be improved at the EU level. To me EU doesn't look like dictatorship. And blatant nationalism is more dangerous for wars I think. There's a lot of things all these countries share. And I don't think leaving the EU is a good choice. It should be about transforming the EU to something better.
How many times have I heard one political party accuse the other of being literally hitler. People who want out say that the EU is literally hitler. People who want in say that the UK is literally hitler. People who want out say that our economy will be better off like Norways. People who want in say that our economy will be better off in the EU. People who want out say that our security will be at risk staying in the EU. People who want in say that our security will be at risk leaving the EU. People who want out say that the EU won't let us run our country the way we want. People who want in say that the UK won't run the country the way we want. --- It's hard to make a actual decision when both sides want the same thing in every issue brought up. It's only going to end up being that if we stay in the EU, we get fucked. If we leave the EU, we get fucked. Making comments about how we are going to lose or democracy is we do or don't ignore the fact that we never had much of a decision in that matter anyway.
This week people screamed at each other on boats in political flotillas, and today an MP was murdered. Can we just put off this whole sh!tty affair until Britain learns to grow the f*ck up?
Wise words- sadly when people kill each other over which football team they support, the chances of people 'growing up' are pretty slim. At least with this they are debating something that at least has some importance to it- although as a result all rational thought and arguments have been thrown out of the window for hysteria, xenophobia and doom saying on both sides of the argument.
I still think it ignores the fact that the EU can change. It takes the occasional crisis, but it can change. I don't think we need more or less europe: the amount we have is sort-of fine. I think we simply need to implement it better. We have a shared monetary system but individual control, which led to the Greece crisis. We have a Schengen zone but no shared border control, leading to immigrant problems. At the same time, the EU is doing good things like ensuring Net Neutrality by removing roaming costs for example. We need a big centralized control to do that. But at the same time, many people have no clue what the hell is going on. (myself included). things like TTIP basically ignore what the EU citizens want. It's changing, but it's essentially a giant shady business. It does weird **** like moving the central government between two cities every month, wasting millions. It has people that just go to work occasionally to get their check and then leave. Ideally, the EU is big enough to ensure universal rules and regulations where it matters, but is small enough to be efficient (or as efficient as bureaucracy can practically be). I would very much like the UK to stay and make the EU a better place.
yeah one needs to be devout in a relationship and not scamper at the first night were the sex was a little less good.
What about if the sex has been consistently awful over 20 years? And not only that, she spends hundreds of pounds a month on shoes and handbags!
Judging from the billion or so jokes about marriage, people stick together even then. I read an interesting article that suggested Churchill would've rolled over in his grave because of the brexit campaign. (rather than, as some Brexiters suggest, cheering for it)
Both sides are calling each other Hitler and calling themselves Churchill. Don't read too much into it. The EU as it stands today would have been completely unimaginable in Churchill's lifetime so we have no way of knowing his thoughts on it. Besides which, great as he was as a wartime Prime Minister, he was elected again as PM in peacetime and was found quite lacking. We shouldn't put so much on the opinions of one individual - and this applies when citing anyone as supporting or opposing Brexit. There is no way to know for certain what will happen whichever way we vote. We can forecast anything we like but 2008 showed that even the experts get it horrendously wrong on occasion. No-one saw that crash coming. So this isn't a vote about what will produce the best outcome, because there will be no way of knowing - even after the event - whether we'd have been better off voting the other way. This is a vote with our hearts. If we vote to stay, we will eventually become a state of the United States of Europe, which is and always has been the end-goal of the European Project. If we vote to Leave, we will stay the United Kingdom as an independent, sovereign nation. Ultimately, every other consideration pales into insignificance by comparison.
If we vote to remain in the EU this dose not mean we will end up in a United States of Europe. This is as much a falsely as saying that Turkey are about to join the EU. Even if Europe ends up going that way, the UK will have future votes on if we want to stay. This vote is not on if you want to stay in the EU no mater what. It is more, do you want to stay now with how the EU is now, and if there are treaty changes we will get to vote again.
