Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Switzerland, Norway and Iceland REFUSE to join the EU. Why?" video.

  1. I think that the problem is that the EU was funded by people with federalist ideals. A democracy simply can't function properly with that many people, especially not in such a diverse continent. And you'll end up with a tyranny of the majority issue, leading to most majority decisions essentially being undemocratic (at least in my view)... No, we need to build on a confederate model. Norway like Switzerland don't really mind following pretty much everything the EU wants, our ideals are pretty similar. But we've spent more then 500 years in unions that where harmful to us and Iceland (a part of the Norwegian Kingdom for most of that time). So I'd rather have no say in EU laws but have the right to veto any EU law, meaning that we ultimately have the sovereignty, even if it means less say in our day to day laws. At least we have that emergency ventilen, while members have to follow EU laws...
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  2. 2:31 Other countries are already allowed to fish in our waters. There's species that's excluded (where only Norwegian citizens are allowed to fish) And a lot of regulations. But foreigners are allowed to fish here. 2:59 Exactly. I don't mind having all the same laws as the EU does as long as it's we who choose to implement them. I know that I can trust our politicans to generally make good decisions with our best interests at heart. Closer cooperation is definitely also welcom, but it needs to be a bottom up. 5:42 You forgot to mention Lichtenstein. 6:13 Thank you. :-) 7:34 Trust me, Iceland is far from joining... End of video: The only way I'll ever vote for a Norwegian or Icelandic membership in the union is if there's serious reform, making the union more confederal and less federal in nature... I don't mind close cooperation, but the power needs to come from the bottom up.
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  3. ​​ @NoName-hg6cc  "Properly". The US does not have a properly functioning democracy. The legal foundation of the US democracy is arguably worse even then countries like Russia although there's definitely other issues in Russia that makes their democracy worse. Seriously, the federalists turning the US into a union made a serious mistake. And as horrible as the confederacy during the civil war was on many levels I still think that it would have been better in the long run if the US wasn't united as a union and had headed in the direction of a confederation. Russia is also another example of how federations are harmful... Federations and unitary states are a democratic problem. The only anglophone country I'd argue have a decent democracy is New Zealand. Scotland and Wales would have a okay system if the UK had a confederate model as their local governments actually use a decent electoral system. The UK as a whole, England etc, US, France, Canada etc all have horrible democracies that seriously need reform...
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  4. ​​ @NoName-hg6cc  Russia's electoral system is better then the US, offering more political parties and a real election, their issues is the lack of a free press or free speech. As for the US. The press is owned by extremely few hands, there's legal limitations on what information they may cover with whistleblowers frequently punished and large numbers of people restricted by what's classified or by various contracts restricting speech about companies. And there's a ton of restrictions on voting making it hard for many to participate. Furthermore most political candidates has to be approved by one of the two political parties in order to run, meaning that it's hardly better then Iran where every candidate has to be approved by the Ayatollah... Only third party candidates are genuinely a sign of democracy at work, but due to the first past the post electoral system it's almost impossible for them to get elected and voters who try to elect them are punished hard by a electoral system where they're essentially blackmailed into voting for the least bad candidate from one of the two biggest parties by the spoiler effect... The US is a sorry excuse for a "democracy"... They're not alone in being deeply flawed, but honestly they barely qualify as a democracy at all in my book... And should definitely not throw stones at Iran or Russia in that regard... They're such a small improvement from those two...
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