Why do you insist on continuing to argue irrelevant points?
Can the EU government be held to account? yes/no
03-13-2021 07:53 PM
#826
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Why do you insist on continuing to argue irrelevant points? | |
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03-13-2021 08:00 PM
#827
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Why does a democracy have to involve parties among their members of parliament? I don't see why that's such a critical thing. Or if it is, why not just accept that each country itself forms a party - there is the GER party, the FRA party, the ITA party, and so on. Fine, now everyone's in a party. | |
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03-13-2021 08:03 PM
#828
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Anything else we discuss on this matter is nothing more than correcting my obviously not perfect understanding of the nuances of the EU. I don't care if I'm wrong on certain points. What matters is accountability. Convince me that the EU (not an MEP) can be held to democratic account, in ways other than a once-in-a-generation in/out referendums, and I'll concede the EU is more democratic than I'm giving credit for. | |
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03-13-2021 08:07 PM
#829
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Yes, if you don't like how the person you elected as an MEP votes you can vote for a different person next time. How's that any different from what we do here? | |
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03-13-2021 08:09 PM
#830
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Should all member countries of the UK hold in/out referendums every five years too then? How else can they hold the UK to account? Doesn't this highlight that the UK doesn't work as a democracy? | |
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03-13-2021 08:10 PM
#831
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03-13-2021 08:10 PM
#832
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03-13-2021 08:11 PM
#833
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03-13-2021 08:12 PM
#834
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Wait, didn't we actually hold a referendum where we decided to hold the EU to account by leaving? And they let us? | |
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03-13-2021 08:16 PM
#835
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In the end, you're doing exactly the same thing whether or not there are parties. You're voting for someone who you expect to represent your interests. The parties aren't a critical component of that, except that they help people identify how the people they're voting for are likely to behave. | |
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03-13-2021 08:16 PM
#836
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The UK population still holds the UK government to account. The EU population cannot hold the EU to account. So this analogy isn't working. | |
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03-13-2021 08:17 PM
#837
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03-13-2021 08:17 PM
#838
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03-13-2021 08:18 PM
#839
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03-13-2021 08:23 PM
#840
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I mean it's like your saying because there's no Tory or Labour parties in the EU parliament that it makes the EU fatally flawed somehow. | |
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03-13-2021 08:25 PM
#841
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03-13-2021 08:28 PM
#842
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03-13-2021 08:29 PM
#843
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03-13-2021 08:32 PM
#844
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I didn't decide Surrey isn't a nation. I know it isn't a nation. | |
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03-13-2021 08:40 PM
#845
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03-13-2021 08:43 PM
#846
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03-13-2021 08:54 PM
#847
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What is this EU government that you keep referring to? As said many times already, the EU parliament (=MEPs) can absolutely be voted out. If you mean the EC, which obviously cant be directly voted out since it consists of heads of state, how were you planning to vote out your Lords? How is it different exactly? Could we just skip to the point where you say you're just talking out of your ass and don't really care about any of this. | |
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03-13-2021 08:59 PM
#848
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03-13-2021 09:03 PM
#849
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The UK govt is the Conservative party, who hold a parliamentary majority. We decide every five years if the current government should remain in office, or be removed. | |
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03-13-2021 09:04 PM
#850
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Did the clocks just go forward? There's over an hour between my posts lol | |
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03-13-2021 09:04 PM
#851
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Nope, 28th March here. I guess they changed in USA though. | |
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03-13-2021 09:12 PM
#852
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btw I would definitely support abolishing the House of Lords. Sorry I glossed over that, this is actually a fair criticism of UK democracy. But it changes nothing with regards to the majority parliamentary party. We still have the problem that no party in the EU has a majority, nor can they. And nor should they. That wouldn't be fair on all the nations that party does not represent. There is no solution. | |
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03-14-2021 03:39 PM
#853
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03-14-2021 06:24 PM
#854
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Because our two leading parties are, for me, unelectable. I can't vote for either. Our politics is a fucking mess. That is not the same as saying our democracy is a mess. | |
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03-14-2021 06:37 PM
#855
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The problem with British politics is not the system of democracy, it's partly that the British people will not hold corrupt governments to account, and partly due to the alternatives being awful. The Tories are crooked, and Labour are either too socialist for them to have a realistic chance of getting into power (Corbyn), equally as corrupt as the Tories (Blair and Brown), or Tories wearing red ribbons (Starmer). | |
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03-15-2021 07:30 AM
#856
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tl;dr | |
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03-15-2021 08:48 AM
#857
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It's not really an attack on democracy, it's an attack on freedom. If they take a vote on this in secret, yes that's a democratic crisis because then we can't hold the MPs to account come the next election. Which, incidentally, is precisely what the EU did regarding Catalonia. | |
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03-15-2021 11:19 AM
#858
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The two do tend to go together though... | |
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03-15-2021 01:12 PM
#859
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03-15-2021 02:27 PM
#860
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Obviously. But it speaks to the - I hesitate to use the word - futility? - of the protests. This is not like it's the first time something like this has happened. It's not right of course, but women who go out alone at night all know they are taking a chance of running into a male creep of some kind. If you talk to them, the vast majority of women will say they've been harrassed/stalked/followed at some point or other, often multiple times by different men, in their lives. So it's not just the occassional murder; it's a serious ongoing problem for women. | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 03-15-2021 at 02:32 PM.
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03-15-2021 02:34 PM
#861
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I stand corrected. There's virtually no relationship between population density and covid death rate. | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 03-15-2021 at 02:37 PM.
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03-15-2021 04:10 PM
#862
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03-15-2021 04:24 PM
#863
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The economic support has been medium. We've been keeping people afloat. Ok jobs have been lost by the bucketload, many companies have gone under, but first and foremost people need to eat and pay their bills. The furlough scheme definitely helped people, even if it meant people had less money than they were used to. Sacrifices needed to be made. | |
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03-15-2021 05:11 PM
#864
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Women: | |
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03-15-2021 05:11 PM
#865
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COVID response: | |
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03-15-2021 05:28 PM
#866
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The police are now guarding statues. Meanwhile somewhere a woman is getting raped... | |
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03-15-2021 08:10 PM
#867
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Intervene how? Sex offenders register? That can ruins someone's life and should not be done lightly. Peeping and stealing knickers isn't serious sexual crime and shouldn't be treated as such. I mean, it does kind of depend, largely on whether it's opportunistic voyeurism or planned. I've looked at a female friend in the bath when she's left the door open. I should have turned around as soon as I saw her, but I looked for longer than I should have. I'm not even ashamed. Should I be signing the sex offenders register? That would seem a bit harsh. Maybe if I set up cameras so I could film her taking a bath, then perhaps that wouldn't seem extreme punishment. The context here matters. Is it premeditated? Does it indicate a sexual deviancy that shows complete disregard for moral standards? All I did was go for a piss and instead I got an eyeful. But technically I'm a voyeur. | |
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03-15-2021 08:37 PM
#868
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Surely you can see there's a huge difference between getting a serendipitous leer at a woman in your own house (which is disrespectful but not a crime), or looking down the blouse of a woman who bends over in front of you at the supermarket (also disrespectful but not a crime, and something most of us would be strongly tempted to do), and lurking outside a bedroom window at night trying to get a peak (which is an actual crime and a sign that someone has a problem). | |
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03-15-2021 08:59 PM
#869
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03-15-2021 09:13 PM
#870
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03-16-2021 12:09 PM
#871
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Who takes a bath with the door open? | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 03-16-2021 at 12:11 PM.
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03-16-2021 12:23 PM
#872
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Agree with everything Poop said, except this. | |
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03-16-2021 12:28 PM
#873
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This is pretty much the gist of this post, and I think it is this attitude that lets the gov't get away with being so incompetent and corrupt. | |
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03-16-2021 12:31 PM
#874
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You have to ask what the motivation is. Certainly there is a dark element in stealing a woman's underwear. The guy is almost certainly going to use them to fuel his sexual fantasies. Those fantasies might be innocent or they might not be. But regardless, it seems clear to me there's something more out of order about stealing a £1 pair of underwear than about stealing a £1 candy bar. I think it's the fact that it's an item of intimate clothing. | |
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03-16-2021 12:52 PM
#875
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I'm not a fan of thought crimes, and I don't think it should be anyone's business how people get off, as long as they're not hurting anyone. I'd need to see a pretty strong causal link between knicker stealing and harassment/rape/violence before doing any preventative measures. | |
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03-16-2021 12:56 PM
#876
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Just to reiterate, not too long ago masturbation (especially female) would have been on that same list of suspicious/dangerous/ungodly behaviors that need to be beaten out. The only reason I'm against kiddie porn is that someone needs to shoot that shit, if it were say animation, knock yourselves out. | |
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03-16-2021 01:19 PM
#877
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03-16-2021 01:22 PM
#878
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03-16-2021 01:25 PM
#879
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There's nothing wrong with wanking obv. But if someone tells a psychiatrist they wank while imagining themselves stabbing a woman that's a warning. | |
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03-16-2021 01:27 PM
#880
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03-16-2021 01:35 PM
#881
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This would never get past the front desk at the cop station. I mean the bolded is the critical part of the story right here. At worst you having a look is ungentlemanly. You didn't go out of your way to sneak a look, you weren't peeping thru the keyhole, and if she wanted to ensure her privacy then she should have closed the fucking door. | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 03-16-2021 at 01:42 PM.
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03-16-2021 01:39 PM
#882
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My intuition is cross-dressers don't normally see a nice pair of panties on a neighbor's clothesline and think "I wonder how I'd look in those? Maybe I'll nick them." They just buy their own. | |
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03-16-2021 01:43 PM
#883
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03-16-2021 01:49 PM
#884
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I guess we're using different definitions of moron, but at least we agree most people are sheep. | |
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03-16-2021 01:53 PM
#885
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I also think it's a bit much to ask Joe Citizen to do a lot of independent research on coronavirus or pandemics in general and decide to stay locked down and keep their kids at home, while the gov't is telling them to go to restaurants and send their kids back to school. | |
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03-16-2021 02:01 PM
#886
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03-17-2021 08:27 AM
#887
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Here's an example of how moronic the British general public are. | |
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03-17-2021 08:32 AM
#888
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To be fair, lots of people around the world think the BBC is a trusted source, but the rest of the world doesn't get the most blatant propaganda. They get World Service and all the quality Attenborough documentaries. | |
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03-17-2021 08:50 AM
#889
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The BBC is considered fairly neutral by most independent bodies. Certainly they tend to be pro-gov't, regardless of which party is in charge, but they're not fanatical or anything about it. | |
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03-17-2021 09:13 AM
#890
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03-17-2021 09:22 AM
#891
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03-17-2021 10:40 AM
#892
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And good luck with having a non-moron as our PM and role models for MPs. | |
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03-30-2021 03:57 AM
#893
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Arrrggghh!! Goddamn Eurolibtards and their immigration "rules!!" | |
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03-30-2021 07:34 AM
#894
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The Spanish aren't "libtards". Try "fascisttards". | |
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03-30-2021 07:42 AM
#895
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So having read that article, this is only a problem for those who failed to register as residents, have lived in Spain under the radar for years, and now are suddenly expected to prove they have lived in Spain since before Brexit. | |
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03-30-2021 07:46 AM
#896
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Because it highlights how the media wants to paint a picture of the EU as "unreasonable" because they won't let our special people have special rules. That seems to be the main reason the Daily Express exists. It's this kind of #MEGA reporting that makes people think the EU is some horrible entity we should avoid at all costs. It's a problem for everyone when the press is this hopelessly biased. | |
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03-30-2021 11:38 AM
#897
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There is press that is hopelessly pro-EU biased too. People gravitate towards papers that share their bias. Do you think any pro-EU folk read the Daily Express with the potential to be swayed by their reports? No more than there are anti-EU folk who might get swayed by a Guardian article. | |
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03-30-2021 01:56 PM
#898
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Again, can't see past your own nose. It's like you live in a little bubble. | |
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03-30-2021 05:43 PM
#899
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You say that whenever I basically say anything along the lines of "I can't speak for others but for me..." | |
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04-02-2021 12:13 PM
#900
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The EU is dumb as fuck. | |
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