Once again, taking things back on-line, where it belongs. At 14:59 18-10-2002 -0700, John Giorgis wrote:
Why? (That is NOT a rhetorical question.) We can have a single currency for a single internal market without creating a federal Europe.> This looks like a prime example of deliberately providing > misinformation in an attempt to validate your point. First, it is for > the *entire* EU, not the EMU (Economic and Monetary Union) to decide on > whether or not to adopt federalism (the EU has 15 member states, the > EMU has 12 -- Denmark and the UK exercised their right to not join the > EMU yet, Sweden does not yet meet all the criteria for joining the > EMU). One would presume that support for a Federal Europe would be higher among EMU members.
And I will ask you again to provide facts to back your claim that the EU is "completely mistrusted" by the European citizenry. Or, alternatively, if you cannot do that: there is no shame in admitting that your statement has no factual basis.
Yeah, sure. Below you imply that you remember what was said during the debate about the electoral college, but at the same time you only remember what Sonja and I (the only active members from EMU-countries) said in that debate, not what others said. Credibility rating of your statement: "Credibility? What credibility?".At any rate, I only said it because I did not remember the opinions of the non-EMU member Brinellers.
Both the archive and the search are quite adequate, thank you very much. The archive contains most of the posts from Brin-L's history, and contains all the posts from the day I joined (mid-1998) -- which is why I have already managed on a few occassions to prove people wrong when a poster said "<poster> said <statement>".> And fourth, a search of the Great Brin-L Archive revealed only *one* > message from a EU Brineller in which a comment was made on federalism > and the EU, and he showed no sign of being shocked. That poster was me, > responding to you: Either your archive or your search is inadequate.
The search is also adequate enough. Your exact words were:
I searched on "federalis" (without the "m", so as to include both "federalist" and "federalism" in the search), and then looked at the results to see how many posts came from Brinellers from EMU-countries. There was only one such post in the results; the relevant part of that message was quoted in my post.and the only two active EMU Brin-L'ers seem shocked everytime "EU" and "federalism" are used in the same sentence.
But again, feel free to quote messages from several shocked E(M)U Brinellers that prove me wrong and prove you right on this.
That will be up to you. You are the one claiming that "the only two active EMU Brin-L'ers seem shocked everytime "EU" and "federalism" are used in the same sentence", so it is up to you to back your claim with quotes from relevant posts (at least one per EMU Brineller). It is not up to me to disprove it.Reread the discussion on the electoral college if you really want to convince yourself.
So, let's see some proof, or be a man about it and admit that your statement is false.
Translation: I (John Giorgis) reserve the right to make all the ridiculous claims I want about other Brinellers. I will not bother to actually back them with claims, because I do not have such proof, and I do not want to admit that I put words in people's mouths and make false statements. If I make a statement about an other Brineller, it is up to that other Brineller to disprove my claims.Unless I get really bored some day, I certainly won't consider convincing you worth the effort to search for it myself.
<SIGH>> >Yet, oddly, the fact that the price of UN support is basically an > >unethical bribery has not dampened anyone's enthusiasm to consult this > >completely discredited body. > > The UN has not been a "completely discredited body". I know that *you* > have a dislike for the UN, but apparently most countries do not. If > they did, why would they insist on UN support for actions against Iraq? > It makes no sense for them to want approval from an organisation they > consider "discredited". You mean that the Europeans don't realize that some of the Security Council permanent members demand countries with matters before the Council to pay bribes from other countries resources, and the fact that the UNSC includes one state-sponsor of terrorism and a permanent member that is one of the world's foremost violators of human rights?
John, would it be possible for you to actually *answer* a question for a change, instead of evading it?
Hm, guess I should not even complain about that; at least this time you gave *something* of a response, which is already a great improvement over your habit of completely ignoring critical questions about your statements (check my messages from the last few months; several questions there that you still have not answered).
As for your criticism of certain members of the UNSC: the United States itself does not exactly have a spotless record either, so maybe you should worry about your own country's behaviour first, before complaining about the behaviour of other members. The US is no stranger to violation of human rights, and has on several occassions abused its veto power to get in the way of the international community. Given that "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" is common behaviour in politics, it should not be so difficult to find something that can be explained as "the US bribing other countries". And depending on whether you see something as "terrorism" or "struggle for freedom", the US can also be said to be a sponsor of terrorism.
You should get more familiarised with the structure of the UN. You complain about the credibility (or lack thereof) of the Security Council, but the UNSC is only a small part of the UN (the UN has 191 members, the UNSC has 15). So, what will it be: is only the UNSC a discredited organisation in your opinion, or is the entire UN a discredited organisation in your opinion? After answering that, answer the following question:Or is it just that the Europeans realize all these things and still don't consider the UN to be discredited?
The UN has not been a "completely discredited body". I know that *you* have a dislike for the UN, but apparently most countries do not. If they did, why would they insist on UN support for actions against Iraq? It makes no sense for them to want approval from an organisation they consider "discredited".
Over here in Europe, we call it "American arrogance". Any idea why so many Europeans (and people in other parts of the world) do not think very highly of the US?Gosh, and you wonder why so many people in this country don't care what Europeans think!
Jeroen "Get your facts straight" van Baardwijk
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