2016 Primaries, Caucuses & Conventions

Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by DarkJello, Feb 2, 2016.

  1. Comissar

    Comissar I need me some PIE!

    On the subject of Brexit, I will say that I have heard a multitude of convincing arguments to remain, and little more than fearmongering as convincers to leave.
     
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  2. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath

    I dunno. It's hard to tell with so much self interest involved.

    In the short term there will undoubtedly be economic hurt. And my fear with leaving is that a tory dominated government will look to make britain a kind of cross between the US and Switzerland - a low government tax haven that undercuts it's neighbours in order to siphon off their money.

    But equally, I don't think the EU is democratic, moral, or even functioning well. It all seemed to chug along nicely in the good times but whenever it is tested by a serious challenge that demanded unified action it failed to meet it. It happened in the economic crisis, it happened in the migration crisis, it even happened back in the balkan war that needed the US to come in and actually do something before a deal was made. It is simply not a workable system when every country is looking our for its own interests and you need them all to agree before doing anything. It's why the UN has never had anything but symbolic value.

    In terms of labour value, I think that free movement is a wet dream for the monied establishment (the wealthy people who own large businesses, and multiple properties) -- it ensures that there is always a large pool of people competing for jobs at the bottom and that their workers therefore have no natural bargening position. It also ensures an increasing population and therefore greater demand for products/services/property without any added expense to themselves.

    On the other hand, for the same reasons, I can't see any government actually doing anything to reduce migration. They will likely just increase it from outside the EU in the event of brexit, despite what they say (how many decades worth of political manifestos have promised to reduce migration?).

    I could go on, but on pretty much any subject I can see a strong for and against argument.
     
  3. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    One of the things to keep in mind with things like the EU (and many things in life) is that often you don't really know what benefits it is providing until it's gone.

    Because the thing is that when things are functioning well, you don't know about it - it becomes a part of life. For example, the ease of access for economic/travel purposes between the member countries is something people may take for granted. Meanwhile, I get annoyed trying to go between Canada and the US sometimes - and even trying to close my Canadian accounts and transfer over my investments has been a bureaucratic quagmire. Don't even get me started on the VISA/immigration process... I am a fairly intelligent individual who can read legalese and fill out forms - but I honestly can't imagine the average person navigating that stuff. So stuff like that makes it much easier to work, do business and travel - which provides a comparative advantage vs non-member states. (Of course, there's the caveat @badgerale mentions about whether this kind of "globalization" is good for "regular folk" or not, but that's a much bigger discussion.)

    Now, it doesn't mean it's WORTH keeping something, but the presence of negatives alone shouldn't be the sole determinant - especially when the positives may be being glossed over on a day-to-day basis.

    Even in relationships, one of the keys to a successful one is remembering the positives and not take every day things for granted.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2016
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  4. Comissar

    Comissar I need me some PIE!

    Speaking from the Scientific and Health perspectives (my two main areas of interest in the debate), Health experts are pretty much all in agreement (upward of 85%) that exiting will damage the NHS. A lot of the systems that help keep the NHS running originate from EU laws. While exiting the EU doesn't automatically mean that those protective laws will be stripped away, I find it telling that the people leading the Brexit campaign are also people vastly in favour of privatising the NHS (and are on record saying as much). I find it brutally dishonest for the Brexit campaign to be using the NHS logo to promote a move that the NHS itself is not in favour of. Fun fact as well, the use of the logo is being done illegally, but the Brexit campaign is just straight up refusing to remove it from its self-branding.

    From the science perspective, there is not a single University in the UK that is in favour of Brexit. A majority of scientists (comparable numbers to health experts) also wish to remain. In this case, it's not so much about systems becoming damaged by our exit as it is about loss of access to easy collaborations with EU science. The UK is a world leader in science. Our researchers regularly collaborate with other scientists at a global scale, and our papers often have high impact within the scientific community. A big part of what makes this possible is being able to work easily within the EU without the restrictions of closed borders.

    Speaking about the Brexit claims, I'm going to start with the much touted £350 million per week claim (based on research by 'Full Fact' that provided a figure of £55 million per day). It's just not accurate, and the study that they cite for it actually rescinded their support of the number, issuing a correction that the Brexit campaign have elected to ignore. The amount we do pay (net contribution, after accounting for rebates and received funding) is £6.3 billion per year, or £17 million per day. To put this in perspective, that's 26p per person, per day. To further put this in perspective, this is less than the amount we annually spend on VAT exemptions and totals just 0.37% of the total tax spendings (source - taxresearch.org.uk)

    upload_2016-6-14_20-10-37.png

    But honestly, I think the thing that's really sealed how I feel about the Brexit camp is the way they're treating their campaign. They're determined to lead by emotion, and I feel like that's really exemplified in this quote from Michael Gove - "I think the people in this country have had enough of experts". There's so much wrong with that statement that I cannot do the explanation of the issues justice. Fortunately, I don't have to because someone else already summed it up quite nicely.

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qw276pOBgSU

    Not the original Gove interview unfortunately, but still audible.


    https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu/videos/796975057071172/

    From the Scientists for EU facebook page, couldn't see it on youtube.
     
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  5. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath


    There is a danger here that you are making some arguments similar to the ones you are condemning. That you are showing what we have, and then presenting that as the sum of what would be lost.

    But something changing or being replaced isn't the same as something being lost. Whether we have a net gain or loss depends completely on what replaces it. The agreements you talk about wouldn't necessarily change, no matter what interested parties say.

    Which is the problem for me, we don't know what sort of things would be replacing EU agreements, laws, institutions. So it becomes pretty difficult for me to take any 'we get this' or 'we give that' argument seriously, even when it is not presented in the deliberately misleading way that you rightly point to.
     
  6. Comissar

    Comissar I need me some PIE!

    The thing is, exiting is full of far too many question marks and 'just trust us' type answers. If everything will carry on as normal after exiting, then why exit in the first place? If things will be worse, as a significant majority of experts believe will be the case, then exiting makes no sense. A lot of EU law and regulation is based around workers protections and rights, including things like paid maternity leave, minimum holiday time for workers, and rules protecting part time work.

    The simple fact of the matter is that we don't know what will happen to those laws and regulations if we leave. Rather than having the EU guarantee a minimum standard of living conditions for workers across the entirety of Europe, the UK will be looking to the government to maintain the standards. The same government with a health minister who is trying to push through legislation that's creating untenable working conditions for Junior Doctors, and is willing to keep hiking the price of university education.

    EU money has also been used to help in reconstruction projects. Liverpool is a perfect example of this. Prior to 1994, Merseyside was ranked as one of the worst places to live in the entirety of Europe. Funding was available in the UK to do something about it, but got funnelled elsewhere instead and left the area ignored. EU funding began in 1994, with a total of £2328 million spent on the city as of 2013 entirely through EU funds, and another £450 set to follow by 2020 at the latest. Liverpool is now the city of culture, largely as a result of EU funding.

    Essentially, we cannot know for sure what we will gain from exiting the EU. For the UK, it's an unprecedented move. We can look to Switzerland to get an idea of it, they had a referendum some years back and chose to exit. They since suffered major economic downturn whilst still being bound by EU trade regulations because their trade partners were primarily within the EU, but they no longer have the same voice they had to try and negotiate better deals. Essentially, they traded in their standing within Europe in exchange for 'sovereignty'.

    While we can't know what we will gain or lose by exiting, we already know the very real benefits of remaining. The case for exiting needs to be strong for it to be a reasonable one, it cannot rely on rhetoric and must rely on data and expert opinion. The vote is probably the most important one that will be seen across the UK for this generation, and the consequences of exiting must be seriously considered beyond the erroneous ideal of 'taking back control'.
     
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  7. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath

    I am right with you and probably more on distrusting our government to do what is best for us, or even registering that the rest of the country exists other to serve their own quasi-artistocracy. But I'm trying to put that out of my mind since this isn't about a particular government.

    That said, i'm edging towards remain, i'm just not really comfortable with either position.
     
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  8. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    Damn comi you're sexy when you write them posts
     
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  9. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi



    Where is the real O'Reilly and what have you done with him?

    The fact that O'Reilly is now being described by conservatives as a "leftist" is... disturbing.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2016
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  10. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Obama = Secret Muslim?
    Trump = Secret KGB?
     
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  11. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

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  12. profhulk

    profhulk Forum Royalty

    Wow this document contains most of the things trump has addressed in the last 30 years.
     
  13. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    It's documents like that that make me go, "Huh, I guess these guys don't really have anything after all."

    It's the kind of document where you'd expect some sort of non-public information or whatever... but everything is basically just stuff you can find on the internet. Sure, it's aggregated into one document, but it's all pretty mundane.

    As Trump himself said, "What do I know? I only know what's on the internet."
     
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  14. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Trump probably looked at it and went, "Ok, so they googled me?
     
  15. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    you can't really find secret dirty laundry on a person who has his heavily skidmarked tighty whiteys hanging in full view.
     
  16. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    O'Reilly has always been one of the more moderate folk on Fox News. Or compared to most right media.


    But to say that he's leftist, ouch
     
  17. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    who was belgian? trump says you live in a beautifull city.

     
  18. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

  19. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

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  20. Geressen

    Geressen Forum Royalty

    okay, drunken misogynistic idiocy aside did the trump supporters actually say "shouldn't of" and is he reporting factually or did the reporter not write 'shouldn't have' correctly?
     

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