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Archangel17
A Different Bias
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Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "A Different Bias" channel.

The question is, wouldn't it be in the best interests of Sinn Fein to let brexit happen? Couldn't this increase the chance of an Irish reunification?
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@ADifferentBias The difference is that in the UK Wales, NI and Scotland together still can't get a majority, in the EU getting a majority due to a co-operation of the smaller countries is possible. Basically in the UK England has a majority in westminster on its own, in the EU there is no nation that is even close to having a majority on its own.
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Guy Verhofstadt, the representative of the EP in the negotiations, has an english oldtimer car that you could see him riding (or at least see him try) in the documentary (at least the one I saw). And it is even said in it that he loves the UK, just not the leaders or what they are doing now (leaving). What EU leaders (and their staff) showed was discontempt for the UK leaders/government, who couldn't get shit done, were woefully unprepared and didn't even see a problem in keeping the Irish/NI border open without an agreement or plan. They were completely in their right to be contempt towards the UK leadership and their "plans".
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I was surprised I nowhere saw anything about border problems due to brexit with regards to hauling, now I know why this was the case, there is no hauling happening :p
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123 456 Absolutely not
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@chethemerc7841 That is why Sturgeon's approval rating is 50% net (72% good vs 22% bad) in scotland and why she's the third most popular politician in the entire UK.
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@l33jcm Honestly I'd say brexit is a step forward on the road to a USE, they always would have stepped on the brake anyway
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@benoitseron2392 No it wouldn't help climatically minded parties in power, since usually it are older people who go and vote, more so than the young ones. Personally I think mandatory "voting" is better then voluntary voting, but ofcourse both systems have advantages and disadvantages.
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LMFAO :D
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@thepenguin305 So when Germany, in 2006, agreed to meet the agreed 2% of GDP on defence spending it lied? There was never an agreement about it, at best there might have been a non-binding pledge or saying of an intent or some other vague non-binding thing. Germany was quite happy to house NATO troops with the benefits that accorded the German economy, Germany also pays a pretty large yearly fee for the troops that are stationed in Germany though. I believe it was somewhere around 1 billion euro's or dollar, could be wrong though.
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the june "check up" is basically for one or two reasons. 1) Did the UK properly participate in EU elections (like did they really mean the election or did they just "play a game")? 2) Does the UK make any headway (is a referendum agreed, is a general election planned, are talks between May and Corbyn moving farther succesfully, although the last one should be finished by then, ...)? I am not certain about the second reason, but the first definitely plays a part.
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Spain would oppose it if there was no brexit. But if the UK leaves, this creates an entirely different situation, seeing Spain isn't going to do a spexit (or whatever) anytime soon.
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@Oldmanplum Then why not give these powers immediately to the prime minister? It seems rather stupid that the Queen is basically just a talking doll in this. I believe you might be right about this Queen, but another monarch might actually do something different here. At the very least stall things, or maybe even say "a courtcase is being looked at, I can't prorogue untill there has been made a declaration in it" or something like that. Moreover, while it might not recently have happened that a monarch went against a PM (that we know off), it hasn't really happened either that a PM gives this kind of "advice" while not having the backing of a majority in parliament on this and it being a clear way to circumvent parliament and with it the people as a whole. I'd think handling in favor of the people (and their representation) should be more important than following your PM's advice and precedent. Afterall, there has to have been a first time for this existing precedent too.
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@happyguilmore4253 You mean the nation that had the British empire, France and Russia/USSR trembling in their boots 2 times in a two front war? And the nation that has won the most battles (or wars?) in history, which also controlled nearly the entire of Europe for a short time? And lastly the nation whose soldiers fought well according to all accounts, but just had terrible leadership/lacked the material?
3
Why don't remainers just form a "caretaker" government under Corbyn untill an extension is reached and after that the other parties give him a choice: a second referendum or they drop him and go for a general election. This would also ensure that labour can't pander to remainers in this GE. I'd say this probably is the best outcome that remainers can get now.
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To me it is just a general interests in politics. I likewise follow politics in the US to stay up to date, eventhough I live in Belgium. The only times brexit is mentioned here is if there is something about it in the news (currently almost never) or if the UK comes up for some reason, like my father saying he'd want to go to England again sometime when we were discussing possible holiday locations for the future.
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@stuartpaul9995 nah, they won't, just like borders haven't become meaningless with the introduction of planes/choppers/cars/...
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@neildoerdan2298 I don't know where you get that from, but that's complete bullshit.
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I doubt the EU will demand a people's vote, it would just give more power to the idea that the EU forces more referendums on the people if the first isn't in their favor. The EU demanding a public vote is very destructive to the EU's image. If the leaders choose for this option, the EU certainly will be in even bigger trouble than a no deal brexit especially if the UK votes to remain. Therefor I don't think this is on the table. I personally hope the EU leaders say: "we gave you untill now to come up with a solution, your parliament litteraly rejected every possible solutions, therefor we can do nothing else but to cut you loose".
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Seems like a UK problem, other (west european) countries don't seem to have those problems. So this says more about the UK than anything else.
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@GeorgeGeorgeOnly So, given the combined European membership of NATO (if say they were to represent themselves as one under the EU flag), what are the proportions now in terms of balance of power? US would still hold the main power, however it definitely would be more like equals. At this moment EU members in nato would spend around 300-350 billion in their military if they spend 2% of their GDP (which would be the most likely target for a EU army), while the US spends 700-1000 billion into their armed forces (official budget is around 730 billion, but much of the presidents discretionary budget also flows to the military, how much this is exactly I can't tell) which makes up for around 3,6 to 5% of their GDP, so probably double that of what the EU would set as their goal. Now, in terms of strength it might get closer than you would think based on these numbers. The US spends a lot on maintaining many foreign bases and waging costly "large scale" military operations globally, while this offers more global power, it offers little to regional/base power in terms of bang for bucks, which is what the EU would probably focus on (more defensively orientated). And especially Nato would be focused on the region around Europe. Furthermore it isn't exactly clear how efficient US spending is used. If the EU spends it more efficiently it might in the long term match US "regional" or "base" power with lower spending. For example, Russia only spends 60-70 billion on defense, but is still considered the world second strongest military with several innovations.
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@GeorgeGeorgeOnly It doesn't govern NATO in that they can make the others do what it wants. However, thanks to its power and influence the US can often push NATO members to do what it wants, however in the end the members ofcourse can still decide themselves. And they definitely are seen as the leader of the alliance, though sometimes large european nations (Germany, France, ...) try to push back against this. A united EU in NATO would definitely be more seen as a "co-leader". Then again besides these two, the only other members are Canada, Iceland, Albania, Montenegro and Turkey. It is therefor possible that a united EU army might lead to a degrade to a more regular military alliance of the US, EU, Canada, Turkey and Iceland. Albania and Montenegro are likely to eventually join the EU if it exists long enough and could just be guaranteed by the EU untill then. But this would be rather far into the future either way.
2
I think it depends. Here in Belgium we have had youth skip school and protest every thursday and during about 12 weeks the protests attracted more than a thousand people (the highest was 36k, which is a lot in a nation of 11 million, where the greatest climate protest ever was 70k people). After the 12-14 weeks it went down to maybe a few hundreds (but they still refuse to stop). There was a massive amount of press attention for these protests and there was a lot of discussion (not in the least because they did skip school). It has made the climate an important topic for the regional, federal and european elections in may. So if done right and in a persistant manner, the impact will be just as high and much more positive.
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@andysm1964 I live in Belgium, there is no real problem with seperatist notions, maybe 15-20% of Flemish people support it, no more. The only reason a "seperatist" party got around 22% of all (belgian) votes in the previous federal election was because they shelved their seperatists sentiments in favor of the economics.
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@ChristianIce I personally will never accept anything like the 2nd amendement in my nation, but I am not an american, it's their choice.
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@ChristianIce Actually, it was more because they didn't have a federal army untill several years after independence was won (a federal army was only formed after the french revolution and there was a serious chance they'd get involved) and even then it was limited, so there was a need for state militia's for protection in general. But afterwards, yes slavery was most definitely a reason why they didn't abolish it.
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@twat240 But what if, for example, they make one on the right to live? Something that no one could ever contest, something that's very clear? Well would that be used to block any form of abortion whatsoever? Or block euthanasia? Ofcourse whenyou make a constitutional law, you always make sure to be very carefull with the wording and lots of experts would look at it and try to find possible unwanted implications and change it to account for something. And if you are somehow blocked, you'd try find a workaround. In your example, they'd just say that because the embryo up to week x isn't alive/viable to live yet (medically), it therefor doesn't have the right to live yet and therefor an abortion untill week x is possible. In case of euthanasia, it is even more easy, the right to live doesn't mean you are forced/obligated to live and therefor you can choose to end your live/have you live ended. You see how important the wording can be? And if it is absolutely impossible to get around, you just need to change the constitution. In fact, this is exactly what Ireland did. Particularly as we don't have proportional voting If you get a written constitution, maybe at the same time you can chance to PR. But again, it mostly depends on the UK situation and yes, the UK the situation at the moment is difficult. In my eyes partly because the UK is falling/has fallen behind other democracies on democratic systems (FPTP and constitution).
2
@Willywin first it was, the economy will collapse as soon as you vote to Leave then it was the economy will collapse when you invoke Article 50 Just few people actually said this and this would was always more dependent on how markets would react and wasn't a 'collapse' as you say, rather a hit to for example the pound. The markets reacted better than expected, possibly because essentially nothing was clear or decided at those moments, for all they knew the EU and UK would reach a deal that would cause nothing to change in terms of trade. And for the record, the pound has been falling the last few years compared to the euro and there has been a lot of investment moved out of the UK to the EU or investment that was expected to be done in the UK put on hold or moved to the EU. Does this mean there was no investment? Ofcourse not. And again, a lot of bussiness wanted to first see what would happen, if you don't need to move production, work, whatever obviously it would be cheaper to not move it. Much will again depend on how bussiness will react now to the deal reached and the actual impact of brexit/end of transition. then it was the economy will collapse when we left on Jan31st Anyone who said this was just stupid, the transition agreement ensured essentially nothing would change in terms of trade for almost another year. So why would the economy collapse at that point? then it was the economy will collapse at the end of the transition period It would collapse without a deal, guess what, a deal has been reached, so any economic impact won't be as worse as could have been according to the worst case scenario. Besides this, only one day has gone by: a holiday during lockdowns, so a negative outcome can still come. Moreover most people that know what they speak about said the hardest hits would come overtime, initially not noticed, unlike covid which hit directly and has a direc huge impact, the brexit impact to the economy will happen over a prolongued time almost unnoticed while it is happening. 'There would be queues miles long from the get go - then when there are no queues - 'well there's no trade...' Well, yeah, there is no trade, get the numbers yourself if you don't believe it. It is a holiday, with lockdowns, uncertainty among hauling companies on what to do/what will happen especially after what happened last week, ... So obviously there aren't lines now. Sure some people said there would be queues immediately, the problem is, this was under the assumption that there would be as much trade as usual, there isn't. Last week we could already see how much impact a temporary closure had after a few hours, eventually the impact lasted for days after the border was opened again. That there will be delays at Dover is not disputed, even the British government has prepared for it. Now at some point I am sure there will be some minor disruption somewhere which will be quickly resolved as companies and Governments in Europe want to sell hassle free to the UK as well You do know that the UK governments position is to get deliveries into the UK as hassle free as possible (since this involves things like food, medication, essential supplies, .... things that will immediately be noticed by the population if missing), even if it means just waving them through upon entering the UK. It is the EU that plans to treat the border as it is: a border. The delays are expected to hit traffic coming from the UK to the EU and the EU can't care less about that. But you need to move on, everyone else has, Labor, Lib Dems, the EU Oh, don't worry, we have moved on and accept the UK is out, you already were out almost a year ago, and I am happy about that, I would have detested another extension. But just because we have moved on, doesn't mean we can't look at and expect/discuss the impact of brexit. Labor does this too, as do the lib dems, EU, ...
2
@harryst.george514 oh please, it is easy to discard the advantages of something if you only look at the initial clear costs. Upon close examination you'll find Erasmus was a net benefit for the UK, both economically as well as educationally. This is just like with the EU budget, only looking about what the UK payed into it and received from it, while ignoring everything else it brings, like trade, influence, ...
2
@LarsPallesen Funny enough, the US is against the formation of an EU army. When they talk about European nations taking more responsibility, they essentially mean to just spend the 2% or more on the military (40% of which on material according to the NATO guidelines) and preferable buy more US arms (tanks, planes, ships, guns, ...) with that increase in funding. They fear an EU army would make the EU too independent, both in terms of strength and material, leading to a loss of influence and income for the US.
2
@prout7569 Belgium has taken in more migrants than the UK proportionally, the UK is among the worst countries of the (current and former) EU-members in regards to migrant crisis impact (ie how many you took in) and Belgium is the second highest net contributor to the EU budget proportionally, right after Germany (for 2007-2013). The UK is only 7th in that metric, after the UK there are only 3 other net contributors. Between 2007 and 2013 the UK only contributed 3,5 times more to the budget that Belgium in absolute numbers, while having a gdp over 5 times higher. Clearly you are full of bullshit. In regards to migrant workers, it is rather simple, migrant workers either did jobs for which there aren't enough qualified british people or they did low paying manual labor jobs British people don't want to do. So yes, you can have higher unemployment together with a greater shortage of migrant workers.
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@Martyntd5 having asked us to make a decision But they didn't ask you to make a decision, they asked the people's advice and in the end the people are litterally split down the middle when it comes to this advice. Therefor (especially after recent years) the parliament is entirely it its right to take notice of the advice, but do something else/go against the advice. It's like a boss asking his employees for advice, but in the end he makes the decision. and it's the Union Flag, it's only a jack when it's on the bow of a ship No that is just a popular belief of recent times. In fact the flag is refered to as the union jack even when it isn't hanging on a ship for a long time. Even before 1902 the admiralty said they used the term for the flag no matter the context. But yes the origin of the name can be traced back to its use on ships. But now using it in whatever context is legal and correct.
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@Korschtal Really? Most constitutions will be much more than a sheet of vellum. Even the US constitution is by now more than just a sheet of vellum due to constant additions/amendements to it.
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Nah, even at this moment the leave side would get in a referendum into the high 40's, higher than in any other EU country.
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@johnhobbes2268 I don't know where you get your conclusion from that the UK has the biggest pro-EU group from if it is not from leaver vs remain. Yes, many want to remain, but I doubt many of those want further integration. Most will want a status quo. Do you have a poll that found the percentage of pro-EU supporters in the UK?
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@alttiakujarvi I don't think Spain will make a problem IF brexit happens. Afterall the situation would be completely different. You would have a nation that split of from a non-EU member, this while Spain is clearly going to remain an EU member.
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123 456 And? How does this influences Spains decision to a veto scottisch membership or not?
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@bujin1977 The UK refused to annex Malta even when Malta asked for it. So I don't know if Malta is a good example.
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Sorin Predator I think you're a few centuries behind.
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That would basically be England "leaving" the UK and EU. But honestly this isn't a real option. Most likely NI would join Ireland if they leave England behind and Wales is unlikely to leave England behind due to geography, etc.
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@thepenguin305 the 2% was a guideline. Obama pushed for pledges that the other NATO members would try their best to reach the 2% by 2024 at the latest or something similar in 2014. However it unfortunately wasn't a written down agreement, but something another government could quitely ignore. Trump definitely hasn't been the first president trying to push NATO members to spend at least the 2% set in the guidelines. Anyway, the US didn't pay for the defence of NATO members, their expenses would be the same regardless because of their own choice. Even when no one saw any need the US upped its defence spending in the past few years and only a minority of Americans think the budget should be lowered. It is also ridiculous that Germany's armed forces have been so shoddily equipped that under VDL's time as defence minister they had to use broomsticks instead of machine guns. This is more likely then to do with bad (budget) management, considering Germany still spends (slightly) more on defence than France and still France has a (more) capable military. And it isn't like the German military is larger and thus needs more spending to be as efficient, the opposite, France's military is a bit bigger. So these stories of 'x% of whatever is badly maintained and not usable' or the 'broomsticks instead of machineguns' you mentioned shouldn't be due to a lack of funding, rather just mismanagement of the funds. Ofcourse Germany's military should logically be larger than France's which is what the increase propsed now will likely lead to, but the current funding for the current size of Germany's military should have been adequate.
2
@thepenguin305 are we then to presume that lying is acceptable? Who says they were lying. You can mean something one day and then another day change your mind due to a change of circumstance, whatever the change is. For example the 2008 crisis would be more than enough of a thing to change a government stance on planned defence spending.
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The right way to poll in the UK is by district and then translate these results to the national level by both a national proportional representation, but moreover showing how seats are likely to be assigned and from which you can really determine a possible new composition.
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In my eyes this doesn't change much in terms of brexit. In the end an extension is only possible if there is an appropriate majority in parliament for a genuine option, which there still isn't and is unlikely to be reached in the next 5-6 days.
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@AnexoRialto Twitter has permanently banned Trump's personal account and has deleted tweets from the POTUS account when Trump started using that after. Honestly I dislike this step, especially since this decision came after last 2 tweets that don't inspire violence except with people who already will do violence anyway. (Not to say Trumps tweet all are acceptable ofcourse). I don't like any platform holding this kind of power, this is essentially limiting free speech. People should be held to account for what they say and pointed out when they make up shit/spread misinformation (which Twitter already was doing), but they should still be able to speak. If Trump's supporters now say that Trumps freedom of speech is infringed on, they would imo be absolutely correct and that is dangerous, because this in effect only strengthens their resolve and validates their idea that something is going on, that there is this conspiracy happening that tries to shut up and remove Trump.
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@jimbob-robob The fact that trump has other avenues to express his free speech doesn't take away from the fact that twitter and other platforms took it away/limited it. Not everyone has access to Fox news or the white house press room to express their freedom of speech. This isn't just about Trump, but rather about the power allowed to these social media companies to essentially shutdown anyone they want.
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@jimbob-robob Then I guess your point wasn't clear, because this wasn't a knee-jerk response. Even after rereading your comment, I still stand behind my reaction.
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You don't understand, this message is part of a treasure hunt around Biden's election. The "hidden" text contains clues for the next hint. :p
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She can't offer a people's vote without parliament and she won't offer a general election, because this will not be in the best interest of the conservatives either.
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@youtubefightsback535 That's just like saying "I don't trust the government to be fair about who wins in a two option referendum". With that mindset you can't trust the government for ANY kind of referendum. In the end the rules need to be clearly and publicly defined before the vote and afterwards, the end results (both first and second choice) need to be made public, it is impossible for the government to then not follow the set rules, because everyone would know they cheated.
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@youtubefightsback535 The previous referendum was a cock up either way, that is why I talk about clearly defined rules before the referendum.
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@Leszek.Rzepecki A recent interview from the capitol police chief, whose account has been collaborated by several others, showed that capitol police both before and during the attack requested national guard units as support. But either were refused or send on a long bureaucratic path with people having to ask permission from superiors who couldn't get it immediately to people talking about how national guard units in front of the capitol would look bad, ... In the end it took 3-4 hours for national guard units to respond in force after capitol police already made clear how bad their situation was. Moreover we don't really see police actively letting protestors pass, a lot can be misconstrued from the angle and wrongly interpreting the situation. Even with nearly all on duty capitol police deployed around the perimeter, you'd have 1 cop per 1m (+-1100m), that is easy to breach by protestors/rioters. Either by just attacking around the perimeter or even better concentrating numbers on just a few places, overwhelming the cops at that point. And the moment you are forced to retreat by such numbers, re-establishing a smaller strong enough line/perimeter is incredibly difficult if the rioters/protestors/whatever quickly push on. And ofcourse there might be a few bad apples therbad for the entire department. To condemn capitol police at large, due to some fragments/snippets or the fact they couldn't hold back nearly 10 000 people is just wrong.
1
@Leszek.Rzepecki Well, the Capitol police chiefs and sergeants-at-arms have resigned Yes, because of what happened, not necessaily because they or their subordinates didn't do the right thing. It is not unusual that after a failure, be it your fault or not, to take responsiblity and resign. The National Guard of Maryland says it offered twice and was refused, by Capitol police. And this goes directly against accounts of both the chief of capitol police and several other officials. So there either was miscommunication or someone from the Maryland national guard is lying. but police having selfies with rioters does raise more than a few questions. How many of those have you seen? I have only seen a picture of one agent doing that and like I said, there can always be a few bad apples. t's notable that Capitol security authorities have held no press conferences explaining their decisions and performance Why would they? They have to explain it to their superiors and investigators, not the public. And there are reports of rioters showing their police ID before being allowed in. It's probable, if these stories are true, that there were off-duty military and police among the rioters. This is something completely different, ofcourse there can be cops and military among the protestors. It is not like they are all immune to Trump fanaticism while many other parts of the population aren't. The US has 1,3 million active duty military personnel and around 700k police officers, even if just 0.1% of them are fanatic Trump supporters, it would still mean 2000 of them. Now they should just all be found, fired and charged if necessary. and the people responsible will have to await a thorough investigation, which won't happen till Trump and his henchmen are cleared out. I don't think so, the FBI is now apparently already busy arresting people. The president can't stop an investigation into this, just like he couldn't stop the FBI Russia investigation. Maybe the senators and house members implicated might not be targetted now, but that might also be more because their contribution is circumstantial at best legally speaking. Only the house and senate themselves can probably act against them. It is very notable, though, that the police preparation for the trumpanzees was a fraction of what it would have been - based on response to prior BLM demos - had the anticipated protests been by BLM. I don't entirely agree with these comparisons people make, obviously it could hold water, but if you want to compare this to BLM, you need to look at the very first days, during these the police in many places didn't respond well either and there was also a lot of chaos and police retreating to wider perimeters. That feels actually quite similar to this, underestimation of the situation, being overwhelmed and pulling back to regroup and get extra support, problem was, capitol police can only fall back in one direction: the capitol. Better comparisons would be to see what happens during future pro Trump protests. I believe the first largescale BLM protest at the capitol happened days after they started in general, so it was clear that these protests could erupt in violence (due to a few bad actors mostly), so they were better prepared. However there was no example for pro-trump protests in the days before the capitol push (unless I missed them?). And like I said, according to the interview of the capitol police chief (corroborated by other officials) he did actually request more support in the days before and asked the national guard to be on standby, to be ready and again requested support several times on the day in question. He claims calls for national guards were refused at least 6 times.
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@Leszek.Rzepecki In my experience, officials resign when they have been caught doing something wrong, not just making a simple mistake It looks like your experience it quite limited then. Obviously it happens more that people resign because they just want to or make a mistake, but at that level, which such a responsability, it is expected you resign if something goes wrong, even if it is not your fault and did what you could. It looks better if they quit rather than being fired, or jailed. There is no way they would ever risk facing jail time unless they actively worked to support the riot. And in that case resigning wouldn't do anything. And yes, Pelosi would have demanded his resignation anyway, not necessarily because he personally failed, but because the capitol police failed in securing the capitol, whether they did what they could or not or whether they failed because of their mistakes or not doesn't really matter, something like what happened demands something to happen and usually it is the highest men in charge that become the fall guys. I think I'd rather trust the national guard And I rather trust someone whose story is corroberated by several other people from other departments/instances. But like I said, maybe there was just some miscommunication, or maybe the national guard (or people from it) are trying to safe face/shift the blame. They are still human afterall. Why would you trust them more than an experienced and respected person like the capitol police chief. It is not like there couldn't be some dishonest career people there. To be clear this is not an attack on the national guard in general, but even just one (or a few) person(s) there is enough. I don't really see why you would put their word over others just because they are in the national guard. That is similar to expecting the president to do what is right because he is president. Not everyone is as honorfull as his post/rank might make you assume. Usually, authorities do hold a press conference to explain their behaviour, if only to spin things their way. You said it right, usually. This isn't a usual circumstance and what would they say? "We were overwhelmed and didn't get the support we asked for, eventhough others say we didn't ask"? It would just turn into a blame game. Everything that had to be said in public was already said or speculated on, it makes much more sense for the capitol police to just stay quiet publically and report to congress and investigators. Capitol police is not the same as other police departments, their responsability is to congress, normal police departments is (or should be) to the public. Capitol police are more like guards/protection force. You aren't going to see the secret service bring out a press statement if something where to happen close to the president. No, they do their job, keep quiet themselves, have internal inquiries and leave it to the white house to decide what and how it should be made public. No, the reason they haven't held a press conference and resigned instead was because they know they were culpable. And this is a major assumption with the only evidence being your own opinion and others speculation. Honestly are you really this naive to think everything has to how you expect it to be/envision it or otherwise something nefarious is going on? Amazing. It didn't occur to any of these good police to arrest folk as they were expelled from the Capitol. Why would they? They were overwhelmed, the capitol was already breached. At that point their main goal is to clear out and secure the capitol, not let it become an even bigger 'warzone' where the rioters act like animals in a corner. More deaths are likely to occur if not that, then defintely more injured. What happens if rioters that felt cornered started a fire and the capitol went up in flames? yeah sure, there would be a fire surpression system, but what if they disable it somehow, or make the fires too intense? With the amount of security cams the capitol must have, images/video's from online, police cams, cellphone data, interrogation, ... It will be much more effective to pick them up one by one when they feel safe and are seperated from their 'comrades'. Clearly you don't know or underestimate what the situation actually was or you don't know how it is best to act in such a situation. De-escalation is paramount tactic, something the US police force is uses not often enough, causing all these tragic deaths/stories to happen due to police actions. In this case they used it right: first de-escalate and secure, investigate and arrest after. That's an astounding standard of policing you would never, ever, see applied to a BLM protest. roll eyes Did a BLM protest ever took the capitol or something similar, with the same number difference? Hell, even during BLM protests the main priorities were to disperse crowds, only arrest when possible, when you can do it in a (for them) safely manner. When the crowds can't overrun you. This is what mostly happens in huge crowds that turn violent (not just the US): make them disperse, identify them later, only arrest those you can in a good and safe manner. I actually did look at an analysis of BLM protests, it said 93% were peaceful, and 7% had violence associated, Obviously I refer to the violent ones. I thought this was a given no brainer. Yet here we have a WLMM (White lives matter more) riot where not only was there violence, but police death as well. And? Like I said, for so far I know this was the first of this kind (at least in the last several months), if I am wrong please show me. We'll see how police prepares and responds if they try something like this again in the future, for example on the 17th (I believe) they again want to do something. If you could provide references to the Capitol police chief asking for reinforcements Here you have his interview in full, open it in incognito and select free and you can read it fully https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sund-riot-national-guard/2021/01/10/fc2ce7d4-5384-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html What I am saying is that Trump or his supporters had corrupted many, including in the leadership. This is a cancer that needs to be extirpated, starting with it's source, Trump. Don't disagree with you here, but the chief of capitol police is directly underneath congress, not Trump.
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@Leszek.Rzepecki It still doesn't explain why the turn-outs for BLM protests a few months ago were much more robust than last week. I guess this might be because the capitol has never been charged at before even with threats in the past. This is likely something that would be asked at an inquiry. And police don't usually set out a perimeter of protests with agents in full riot gear, not unless there were events earlier leading up to it (like violent protests in the days before, there or in other places with similar protests). There is police visible in riotgear later on. Honestly it could also just be that capitol police doesn't have enough riot gear for every agent,, because they normally never need it. Unlike regular police departments their job usually is just guard duty etc, not look over violent protests. But this is ofcourse just speculation. as Republicans will obstruct it every step of the way. This isn't dissimilar from the Russia investigation, where GOP couldn't do much against, and now they don't even control the senate, house or presidency anymore. And also an investigation into what happened in the capitol is going to have much broader support from voters than something like the russia investigation ever did.
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ger du A preferential vote is better than a second round. With a second round there is a much higher chance that the compromise (with deal) wins. Because in the first round (remain vs leave) the people in favour of deal and no deal will both vote leave, and if they get a majority, then in the second round (deal vs no deal) those who were for remain and deal would both chose leave with deal. However in a preferential vote "with deal" might be smallest of the three and a large amount of those choosing with deal might choose remain as second option, making remain win. However if you meant to have three options in the first round and the two with the most votes go to the second round, then it is just as good as preferential voting, because in essence you will have preferential voting, just split up over 2 referendums instead of 1.
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@twat240 The problem in the US with the 2nd amendement is not necessarily that is difficult to change, but that a large amount of people (even those in favor of stricter regulations) don't want it to change. Any government that would try to get rid of it even if it was possible with a regular majority would stil never touch it. The 2nd amendement problem isn't really that it is part of the US constitution, but that it is enshrined in the mindset of the US population and that is the major reason why it wasn't removed or updated. Hell the supreme court should normally say that guns can only be owned by "well-regulated militia's", but they don't even do that, because the judges too have grown up with the popular idea. It shows a problem in the US, not with a constitution. Furthermore I personally think free speech is important, maybe they might add something along the lines of "as long as it doesn't promote hatred and ..." or something. But even this would in the US be limited, because spreading violence with you speech is actually necessary to overthrow a tyranicall government which should be the right and duty of the people according to their declaration of independence. Eitherway, using the US constitution isn't a good thing, because the US mindset is just different and it is this mindset keeping the constitution as it is.
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@twat240 I mean, a minority of people argue for gun rights and they WRONGLY ignore all of the facts and even wrongly use a constitution as defense, and they still block legislation. It is definitely a very large minority who argue for gun rights and a majority that is against abolishing or changing the second amendement. There however is a large majority for stricter gun control, as long as it is in line with the 2nd.
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@greeny202ab It was around 9 billion and if you want to pretend your trade and influence did not suffer from brexit, fine by me, it doesn't change reality though.
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@greeny202ab Our influence obviously has not suffered in fact disassociating ourselves from the other Europeans has probably improved our influence around the globe And why would that be? In fact the newly formed Italexit party is actually using improved British influence after Brexit as one of its slogans. It is easy to state something like that, doesn't mean it is true. Furthermore it is likely more about british influence on internal affairs, rather than international influence and this new party isn't even being polled yet, it isn't impossible they'll completely flop, it is waiting untill the next election to know that, somewhere in 2023. and looking at the figures Which figures? Hopefully not just the ones the UK government promises, because promises can easily be made, but are much more difficult to keep. Erasmus was actually a British creation Ehm, no? The idea of erasmus originated from Italy and was advanced by a Belgian councilmember in the 80's. Germany, France and the UK were actually rather opposed to it, because they as large countries already had their own exchange programs and there are moves to allow Erasmus countries into the much larger Turing program Again, at this point everything about the Turing program are rhetoric lines, there is no actual layed out plan released yet, so why the hell would the EU even consider opting in to it at this stage? It would make much more sense for them to expand the erasmus program instead. How the UK will be able to get 30k students and more of all backgrounds in it with only 100 000 million pound in spending and to more regions accross the world is baffling. This would make around 3300 pound per exchange student. Even just the flight might (depending on the country, but considering they don't work with erasmus, most likely it will be focused on further destinations) take up a fifth of that budget, leaving around 2700 pounds for all other expenses, that is very low. And this obviously doesn't take into account administrative costs, getting exchange rights, ... From everything I read about the Turing program I can only get the feeling the UK government is, like with so many other things, underestimating everything or maybe they know it is bullocks and just want to have some speech lines.
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I too live in Belgium and I agree compulsory voting is important. But I do have to make an adjustment to your statement. Votes for a party list aren't distributed among the candidates of that list proportionally, but are distributed in such a way that the order of the list is followed. This while enough preferential votes for a specific candidate can push this candidate higher on the party list to make him/her more likely to get a seat. But the system behind this is a bit more complicated than I want to explain here on youtube.
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Long extension would be stupid for the EU at this point. The UK parliament couldn't make any real decision about how to move forward knowing there was a deadline twice already, why the hell would a third time be any different?
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Actually, as long as a PM has been elected as an MP, they are elected. In all (or at least most) parliaments with a constitutional monarchy a prime minister is appointed after the elections during negotiations, therefor you don't really know for certain who will be PM, but normally it is a party leader (usually of the largest party but this depends) or at least an elected MP.
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@andyinsuffolk One constituency choosing our executive leader That's why I am a proponent of PR and not FPTP. But you can hardly say he's elected by just his constituency, since the tory members also voted for him. However, yes it still would be better with PR. Do we need a PM? Yes, simply because you need someone to govern the country. Basically the PM is supposed to take care of day to day affairs and executing the laws, while parliament is supposed to create the laws, make the absolute important decisions and be a check on the PM. Honestly, I don't immediately know a nation that doesn't have one person as a "leader". Maybe smaller countries can try to use a council or something, but a large country? no, probably not. give veto The US president has veto powers, but for so far I know the PM doesn't, unless you are talking about something else than I am thinking off.
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@triniwilson-wolfe8013 But how can a constitution bind future parliaments if future parliaments can change the constitution? They'll just need a larger majority to do so. Even if a written constitution was written today normally it should be either accepted in a referendum, or at least pass an equivalent large majority as future parliaments need (or at least that is what should happen). And this first constitution should just be the already existing unwritten constitution, maybe changed here and there to modernise it or to make sure everything is clear (like clear who has what power).
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@Some Thing The Netherlands' full name is Kingdom of the Netherlands and their political system is NOT called Democracy but it's called Constitutional monarchy. It is still a democracy though. Constitutional monarchy is just like a federal republic a form of government. Whether it is democratic or not depends on how the government is formed, laws changed, ... and The Netherlands is definitely a democracy, saying otherwise is a serious insult. Britain has not got a Democracy either. What they've got is called Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. I'd say the UK is half democratic imo. However this has nothing to do with their government form, but rather how their MP's are elected, the house of lords and the fact that they don't have a written constitution. And are you sure it is "unitary", because Scotland, NI and wales also have their own parliaments, which would make it more like federal. you cannot have an inherited head of state and call it Democracy. I am sorry, but you are confusing democracy with republicanism, it is not the same thing. A republic can still be undemocratic and a monarchy can be democratic.
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@Some Thing Monarchy and Democracy are exact opposites. No, they are not. Monarchy and republic are opposite. Whether a nation is a democratic nation depends on where the power lies. Normally with a constitutional monarchy the power effectively lies with the parliament, which is elected by the people and thus it is democratic. Monarchy is a form of government in which a legal person, the monarch, holds sovereign authority until death or abdication. What you are talking about is an absolute monarchy, there is no such thing anymore in Europe. With constitutional monarchies the sovereign authority lies with parliament and the powers of the monarch are determined (and can be changed by) the parliament. Or in other words, the powers of the monarch are either symbolic or can't be used without permission of the government or parliament (depending on the constitution). But you cannot call it Democracy because Democracy (rule by people) is a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting. Exactly, and if the power lies with the elected parliament and the government formed by this parliament, it is a democracy. In a representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature. In a liberal democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights This is correct and almost always the case in a constitutional monarchy, therefor these monarchies are ALSO representative democracies. I live in a country with a king AND a representative democracy. Just because you seem to think they can't be combined, doesn't mean that's the case, but just a (wrong) opinion. It's either Monarchy or Democracy. NOT BOTH! Again completely fucking wrong. There are many non-democracies that aren't monarchies and there are plenty of monarchies that are democraties. You are completely missing the connection between both. Now if you had said "it's either absolute monarchy or democracy" I agree, but constitutional monarchies can be (and most often are) democratic. And don't say again they can't be, because reality already has proven you wrong (and your own words for that matter).
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@nautilusshell7837 The belgian king is also from the house of Saxe-Coburg though
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I think you give Cameron's choice too much honor. Cameron didn't initiate the brexit vote because he realised that it entails more than the parliament could decide (there wasn't a decision necessary really, because there was no real issue and parliament has made a lot of other important decisions throughout history), but he rather saw it as a way to shut up the parts of the tories that were leaning to Ukip and anti-EU. He never really thought the people would vote to leave (no one did, not even the leave campaign thought they could win, but they hoped they could manage it nevertheless). Ofcourse they aren't going to put "Do you think we should start thinking about, talking about, or considering, leaving the EU." on the ballot, the entire campaign was meant to consider and talk about leaving or not. It would have been the most ridiculous and stupid referendum ever. The difference between manifesto mandate and referendum mandate, is that a manifesto mandate never asks the electorate a question. The general election is in my eyes more important, because you basically elect the people that will make a lot of decisions that can influence your live, not just one. The people responded in record numbers. That is called a mandate. And what if in another referendum you have a record number of voters and remain wins? Doesn't this give a stronger mandate to overturn the previous mandate? That is the problem with referendums, if the difference is too small, within a few years, the mandate can be invalid and different and because of the "the referendum needs to be followed, another referendum is undemocratic" bullshit you can't ask a mandate to overturn the previous one, even if you'd probably get one. Now if Leave won by 55%+, it would be different, because how is that going to be overturned in another referendum in a matter of years? It is the manifesto mandate that is an advisory No it is not, an elected MP can't be voted out untill the next election and untill then their vote has legal authority and definitely isn't advisory. If a referendum was the legal mandate and the election an advisory one, you'd need a referendum on basically every little thing. Every month there would be multiple referendums. However there is no set time between a referendum about a previous referendum and the previous referendum. Besides, if the outcome would be same, what's the harm? Similar outcomes in both referendums: case closed and decision undoubtably made, but if the previous referendum is overturned with either 1) a much larger majority or 2) a much larger voter turnout, the previous referendum should be overturned. There is a reason why referendums are so rare: it's inefficient governing because people are fickle and often don't even know the far reaching consequences of their vote. If Parliament has the power to overturn the power of the vote, then we have an Oligarchy, not a Democracy. If there isn't a general election between the referendum and the overturning, it would be foggy whether it be democratic. However if the parliament that overturns the vote is elected after the referendum, you could make the case that the people have voted in a parliament that is meant to overturn it (or at the very least offer another referendum) because people made a mistake/changed their minds, or at the very least that people took the risk of voting in people that might overturn the vote and therefor it is a risk they took willingly. If there is evidence of election fraude (be it in the campaign or voting booth) or the vote was really close there definitely is a reason to hold another referendum. In the end your entire post basically comes down to the fact that parliament should be disbanded (seeing that they apparently have no right to make decisions about the nations future) and the UK should only be ruled with referendums. Or am I wrong?
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@peterfireflylund Actually building new nuclear weapons would be proliferation. Not building new ones, but just relying on your existing stockpile isn't.
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@peterfireflylund It doesn't matter how you can theoretically interpret whatever articles, it is how it obviously is and how it will be seen. Building nuclear weapons is proliferation, no matter whether you already have some or not.
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@peterfireflylund LMAO
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But this fine isn't really followed up on anymore though
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You seem to be talking more about US elections than the EU elections (Israel, military industrial complex, ...). If you don't like what a party does after you voted for them, vote for another party next time. This how representative democracy with repeated elections work.
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@YourBeingParanoid I do not upvote my own comments, only losers do so. And if every party is funded by fascists or zionists, I'd say there is something wrong in your country to begin with. But if that is the case, the best thing to do is try and form your own party (their should be plenty of people willing to support you if all other parties are as you say) or you should support a small upcoming party. Often there are multiple small parties you don't even hear about because they are too small, but if enough people start supporting them, they can possible replace existing parties. Ofcourse if you have a two party system like the US, you need to try to change one of the parties by voting in new people (like what is happening to the democrats with the justice democrats). Ofcourse it isn't always easily fixed by just voting once every few years, if you want to change the system, rekindle/repair democracy in your country you sometimes might have to do more. How else would you do things?
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@fergusdenoon1255 What? I can't follow what you're saying.
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123 456 Why do you keep making irrelevant comments? Troll?
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123 456 Funny, troll. Because I paid for this 1000 dollar computer myself, did you? Or are you a little child that still hides under the skirts of his mother?
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123 456 Which one?
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123 456 Especially since none of my lists are public :p
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123 456 They never were :)
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A further short extension is already denied. So May and parliament have until the 12th of april to get the agreement passed or until the 10th to get an adequate majority in parliament for another option. The second possibilities seems very unlikely, thus the only possibility I see to stop a no deal is that May puts forth her deal a fourth time on the 11th or so and that the opposition sees no other way to avoid a no deal brexit and thus to minimize brexit and will support her.
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Why? The EU already said they were ready for a no deal happening now, it isn't in their best interests to drag it out even longer past the eu election.
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@kimwarburton8490 well, you also need some tory MP's and they too don't want Corbyn, so it isn't just the LibDems.
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@thepenguin305 You tell me, how much has the economic benefit been? Also remember that the US uses German bases not necessarily to improve the safety of Germany/Europe, but rather also as a hub to support their missions in the Middle East and Africa. If the US didn't had these bases in Germany, they'd just need to put them somewhere else in a similarly close and secure region and pay for it nonetheless. Unless agreements are written in black and white about something and not just a promise or such, a change in situation can allow this promise to change, be it a difference in government, economy, ... This is also why a new US president essentially always can just choose to get out of NATO, breaking the treaty and why it is important for a US president to iterate their standpoint on many different things (before and after the election), like NATO and article 5. No nation is completely bound to any agreement, they just need to deal with the backlash of changing it and a good argumentation is paramount. The 2008 economic crisis was a good reason for many countries to reneg on their earlier promise to up defence spending (especially considering the crisis mostly originated from the US).
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ger du That is not playing the game, that is being stupid. Lets assume 3 options. If you don't fill in a second choice, and your first choice gets eliminated due to having the least amount of votes, it will just be like you never went to vote, and your "gaming the system" accomplishes nothing but you not having a say in the matter. And if your first choice doesn't get eliminated, then your second choice (filled in or not) doesn't even fucking matter.
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@ADifferentBias You have a campaign before the vote, surely you can have decent explanations put out during this campaign, which also can debunk the idea that this system can be "gamed". And honestly is the voters make mistakes because they are stupid enough to try to "game" a system you can't actually "game", then these voters could be trying to game any sort of vote that isn't just two options. Preferential voting is the ONLY way you can be certain the winning side will have the support of a majority of the people when there are multiple options.
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James D Robertson Stalin was going to invade Nazi-Germany either way. The problem was that he expected the war between the allies and Germany to last much longer, like a repeat of WW1. Then after that he could sweep in and easily take a weakened Germany and western Europe. But with the Germans taking France in weeks, the USSR was far from ready, Stalin had guessed (wrongly) that he would have at least 2 years to prepare. If Germany hadn't invaded the soviets, the soviets would have invaded Germany within 2 years, either in 1942 or 1943.
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James D Robertson Why he didn't? Because he realised that if he took out the powerbases in Europe, taking their colonies would be much easier. Furthermore, you shouldn't forget that 1) Fascisme en communism were archrivals (which is the reason that the rest of the world was shocked of Germany-Soviet alliance), 2) Russia is more a part of Europe annd has its powerbase and largest cities rather close to Germany/europe, 3) he wanted to take out a weakened Germany that would be force to fight a two front war and definitely wouldn't want to give Germany time to regain their strength. From hindsight you idea might have been succesfull, but it might also have been catastrophic. What is the soviet got bogged down in de middle east like in Finland or much later in Afghanistan. What if Germany attacked them when their main force was bogged down in the middle east or even further? What if the soviets would themselves have had to fight a two front or maybe even threefront war against Germany, the allies and the Japanese? And then we aren't even talking about how the mindset was at that time. Europe and the US (but still more Europe) was the powerbase in the world, home of several great powers. Take over Europe and stopping the soviets would have been nearly impossible.
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James D Robertson Febrile speculation based on evidence historians gathered, but sure, bye.
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