Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "TLDR News EU"
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@sfp2290
The leaders "I" elect, should not have any say in how the peoples of southern, eastern or western europe lives.
But the people you elect now have a say in the lifes of people in other parts of Denmark, so in the end you get the same result: your vote influences what happens elsewhere.
But it does also mean, that even if all Danes voted for the same party, it would still amount to about a tenth of the strength the Germans would represent in the EU.
Yes, but people don't vote in the EU based on nationality, they vote based on ideology. People from a town in Denmark also don't have the same voting strength as a large city. This is universal. If this is something you have a problem with, you'd need to reduce the politics to a "city block" level. It doesn't really matter if you scale this up.
Now what could be different is regional concerns. For example many people in Denmark might feel x about Z and in Italy most people feel y about Z. This can be a problem, however this also can exist in a small nation, my country Belgium is a good example of that. That is why there would be a senate where the senators are voted based on equal sized district. A north German district might have similar concerns as a Danish district and completely different concerns than a south German district. Eventually on the European level it would be Germans/Danes/... it would for parliament: left, right, center, ... and for the senate: north, south, east, west, center, ...
And for parliament I'd just have a general European list or otherwise few very large lists, not nation by nation.
Then there's the whole issue with the media. Most Danes doesn't know even the most basic things of how the EU works.
EU media networks would come into existence and the way the EU works would be learned in School, similarly to how it is done now for your national government.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there comes a univeral "EU" language that will be adopted in all nations as a second/third language. I'd bet it would be English. And EU wide media would just use that (as well as EU politicians when outside their nation).
Add to that, that most people (at least in Denmark) vote for the same parties in the EU election that they do on a national level, despite not knowing what parties the representatives they vote on are a part of in the EU and what they stances on different EU matters are.
That is just a problem with the current system. With a better new political and election system that would change.
Personally, I believe people who speak of the EU, myself included to a large degree, judge the EU and its' worth based on the idea they have of it and not based on knowledge of how it actually works and what decisions are made.
Indeed. I can agree with your sentiment in terms of how the system is operating now. I do expect this to eventually change. A federalised EU can't function with the current system.
Also sorry for the long comment :p
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@bjrnhjortshjandersen1286 I'd like to have an EU army and in that case NATO could be replaced by a just a regular defensive alliance, though it would come down to more or less the same. Even if NATO seizes to exist, I don't really care, but there certainly need to be a united EU army before that time imo.
As for the need of a credible enemy for a defensive association, I completely disagree. A defensive alliance doesn't really need a clear enemy, it is usefull eitherway. It will diminish the chance of conflicts between members (due to the other members wanting a peacefull resolution) and it defends all members against any attack, whether it comes from a clear enemy or not.
A defensive alliance in of itself can never hurt, it just can't be turned into a more offensive one. And NATO definitely isn't likely to transform to an offensive one, too many members are against that. Sure some members might cooperate regarding offensive actions, but that happens regardless of NATO. The only time NATO can be seen as an offensive alliance was Afghanistan, but this was in response to the 9/11 attacks, so it can still be considered a defensive action (though due to the more borderline nature of that situation several members only contributed the bare minimum/no combat troops).
Russia overall definitely doesn't need to fear more from the west. Its entire history is one of constant expansion since it conception, ofcourse this sometimes will cause an invasion/war at some point by another power. Even during WW2 there are credible sources that indicate Stalin hoped that the European powers would bleed themselves dry in a war between them, so that then the USSR could invade and easily take over European lands, the Nazi German invasion just came +-2 years too early.
At this moment no one really wants a conflict with Russia and definitely doesn't want to invade it. Russia doesn't have anything to fear from Europe or the US unless they themselves make the first move. Russia's problem is it is stuck in a 'war is necessary to grow power' hard power mentality, while Europe is more looking to the economy and soft power. The more powerfull EU countries rather want peace and good relations with Russia and the US focus has shifted to China and the South China Sea. If NATO is a threat to Russia, it is all due to Russia's own doing (more specifically their leadership).
This is really shown by the Ukrainian situation. There was really not a movement of Ukraine joining NATO, at best just speculative discussions. By now acting as if Ukraine would join NATO soon, Russia likely has just sped up its future ascension and even made other neutral countries (ie. Sweden and Finland) move closer to joining NATO than ever before.
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@jg9585
which have unanimously and consistently underestimated the left's results for at least ten years
Have they though? In 2012 and 2017 presidential elections the polls were pretty much dead on and this year it was within the margin of error of 3% (when looking at the entire left).
In 2012 the polling in the legislative elections the seats and votes for the left were also pretty much dead on. In 2017 it was quite a bit off, but not just for the left, also for the right. It seems the polls overexaggerated the succes of the new LREM party back then.
I'd assume with the experiences of 2017, this time the legislative polling might be a bit improved to more match the 2012 accuracy, but that is something we'll have to see within a few days.
french polling institute have explained that their formulas exclude electors who are uncertain for whom to vote or whether they will vote.
Except I am looking at the results of several different polling agencies, often with different techniques. But I guess we'll find out how accurate they were this time.
At the same time the left has been increasingly focusing their campaigns in the areas where participation has been low for a while, so I'd say there is a distinct possibility for an offset of the current power balance and so of polls.
Polling should normally look at all of the population, so if more people intend to vote compared to the other times, then this should already be reflected in the polls. Again might depend on the different techniques used.
What the current polls show is that possibly the left coalition might get a plurality of the vote, but not even close to a pluraility of the seats, which could indicate the left being very strong in some departments, but overall speaking less strong than some other parties (like Ensemble). In the % of the votes, there constantly is a switch of who gets the plurality, but there never is a switch in the number of seats, there it doesn't seem to even be close.
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@LeadLeftLeon
Russia's current account surplus is bigger than ever.
it was bigger than ever, only to then nosedive as the price of gas and oil went down and exports decreased recently.
Russian exports are going strong.
I wouldn't exactly say lowering by 5% going strong. Moreover supply lines aren't easily cut, Europe has only just begun moving away from Russian gas and oil, before now they still needed it to fill their storage and to have time to get into other supply options (like LNG). This won't be the case for much longer. Sanctions always are a long term game, not a short term one.
Moreover it is more about the imports of crucial goods. Overall imports were down almost 10% for Russia.
Then you have the -4% economy 'growth' of Russia, which are official numbers from the Russian government, it isn't unlikely they upped the numbers a bit to paint a more 'positive' picture.
US vassal Europe is having its economy crushed because sanctions backfired.
US vassal 🤣. And its economies crushed? If that it is the case the Russian economy got destroyed, considering its inflation and growth rate was significantly worse, even by Russian numbers.
US thought it could engineer regime change in Russia with sanctions.
No one expected any regime change with these sanctions, at least not in the first few years.
IF the West is pushing Zelensky back to the negotiating table, they have accepted Ukraine is losing.
No, just that negotiations still need to happen. No one likes this war and if it can be over sooner by negotiations, that is the best outcome. However they aren't pushing Zelensky to make peace at all costs, in fact they reiterated they'd keep supporting Ukraine. They know Ukraine won't accept any peace treaty if it doesn't at least include the return of all occupied territories (save maybe Crimea).
The West will just GIVE 300 billion frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. Where'd you pull this one from? Out your azz?
Logic dictates compensation for the damages caused by Russia in Ukraine. This also happened in the past. Ofcourse this best gets legalised in peace treaty ofcourse, but it Russia refuses, the west likely will just give it to Ukraine. You seriously think Russia will ever see these assets returned? Maybe after the regime change which promises war reparations to Ukraine, though these most likely will be similar or higher to these seized assets.
This long distance makes Ukraine's weapons vulnerable as they're being destroyed by Russia.
And yet this doesn't happen, and do you know why? Because Russia doesn't have that capability without full control of the airspace, which it hasn't.
To make matters worse the US is low on supplies and recently had to go shopping in South Korea to find shells for Ukraine.
This kind of shopping isn't anything new. It also doesn't mean the US is running out of supplies either, could for example be to grow their supplies or increase shipments to Ukraine. The US will never let its stockpiles run out, if they get anywhere near this point they'd invest massively into quickly upgrading its production capacity. Even a fraction of what they did during WW2 would be plentifull.
Meanwhile Russia is supplying itself
Clearly, if you ignore that they need to turn to Iran and NK to buy military equipment 🤣 Russia doesn't have the military industry anymore it once had, large stockpiles, yes. But these are meant to last long enough for production to increase to war production levels, but that isn't possible without a full mobilization and war economy. As it stand Russia is emptying its stockpiles.
and can get weapons onto the battlefield faster to maintain its firepower superiority.
And yet logistics are one of the key problems Russia so far has faced in Ukraine and it firepower superiority has only decreased in the past few months because they couldn't keep up with logistics after Ukraine started using HIMARS to destroy their logistic hubs.
20,000 Russian shells fired for every 7,000 from Ukraine.
Pityfull display from Russia. They are supposed to be the 2nd strongest military power in the world and only outmatch Ukraine, that had no real military to speak off 8 years ago, 3 to 1. If this is the rate Russia can maintain, it would get dwarfed in a war with the west, who'd immediately amp up production of shells beyond that level.
The US & the West do not have infinite weapons to send to Ukraine.
No, but they have bigger economies and industries that Russia, so can sustain a war of attrition much longer.
Over 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers dead already stated by EU's Ursula von der Leyen.
Casualties, meaning killed and wounded. The estimates for Russian casualties are of a similar size.
Ukraine is being demilitarized.
You have a weird interpretation of demilitarisation. A country that has only grown in military strength holding off the supposedly 2nd strongest military in the world for months and having pushed it back on several occasions when the expectations were it would fall in weeks, equals being demilitarised 🤔🤣
Demilitarization happens by destroying all of their weapons or/and annihilating the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
By that definition Russia is getting demilitarized even faster. It has lost more military equipment than Ukraine while it can't replace it with new equipment at even a fraction of the destruction rate vs Ukraine who has only seen its military equipment grown thanks to western nations sending military systems Ukraine couldn't even hope to get their hands on before (both due to cost and politics). And in terms of manpower Ukraine and Russia are losing more or less equal amounts.
But hey, I guess we'll find out in the end who was right.
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A Id Language isn't that big of a problem. At a time the US had large regions who spoke french, german, ... Only over time has this unified into one language. Hell, even now the US has actually no official language and could be seen as having two major languages: english and spanish.
As for the EU it would just be a matter of looking for a common language that would be learned as a second/third language in all schools and would be used if people don't speak the same primary language (for example on the European level, european news, from different countries, ...). Honestly english would probably be a great common secondary language. With the UK leaving there is no great nation in the EU that speaks english (yeah sure, Ireland, just assume they speak Irish and they aren't a large nation anyway), so it would be a neutral choice. Furthermore english is the most used language worldwide and is primarily spoken by most EU allies worldwide. And in several nations it is already thought as a second language.
People would speak their own language in commone life, but could communicate with others, follow news and european elections/politics/...
Eventually language in the connected world of today is bound to start growing towards one or a few languages. Dialects are already in many parts dissapearing or dissapeared altogether (at least here in Belgium I notice this tendency).
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It might not seem like many oppose it, but that is mostly because independence is not really a thing. By most it is just seen as a political talking point and not more. If it would truly become a real possibility, you'd see the opposition skyrocket, especially when the downsides would really start getting pointed out (like a certainn economic collapse and political irrelevance in the world and even just (western) europe.
There are also many young people idenfying more as Belgian than Flemish, it really mostly depends in which cricles/regions you move in.
Studies keep showing that support from independence lingers somewhere between 10-30%, but at the same time you have studies showing that support to return to unitarism might just as high or higher, there just isn't a real big political party moving into it, or they are not attractive to many pro-unitarism people due to their other policies (like PVDA).
You might feel more at hom in Maastricht or Amsterdam, I for example would not. I don't really like big city centers to start with, they are often different to the rest of the country, thus not necessarily a good representation. Except for the language I as a Flemish brabant citizen would feel more at home in Wallonian Brabant than eg West-Flanders, let alone dutch regions.
There are also regional politically differences in Flanders, should we then afterwards also split up flanders? Different regional political leanings is normal in countries.
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@mukkaar In the US the cost of new nuclear is also high, I doubt that it isn't streamlined there. There are several reasons for the high prices.
- Bureaucracy is one of them.
- Another is getting the permits, people tend to not like having a nuclear powerplant in their neighbourhood/close by. So they start procedures to stop these permits. And ofcourse it isn't only local activists, also anti-nuclear activists in general will try to stop or slowdown the construction with procedures. It is both the procedures and delays that costs money.
- then you have the interest on loans/investment. Generally without government support, the interests on investment into nuclear are a lot higher, since the large cost make the risk higher. If something happens to the plant before it breaks even, the losses for the investors can be massive. And ofcourse if the government gets involved in this to lower the interest rates, they essentially make themselves a guarantor, putting the risks on the tax payers. These tax payers don't like that and as a consequence, neither do the politicians.
- Then ofcourse you have the actual costs of the plants and all the necessary safety requirements/systems, which is far from cheap either and might have become more expensive than in the past due to increased requirements.
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