tricky_tree said:
You seem to be basing your view on a political alliance (us and America) on a few idiot's youtube comments. The US isn't in the habit of airing it's discussions with us and nor is David Cameron so unless you're part of either government, you don't know how it's working.
Almost nobody likes the EU, I know French, Germans, Spanish, Italians, and Austrians, all of them hate it. Lets not forget that Ireland voted against it, as would we if we were given the choice.
And our say in it is minimal. An example, recently they passed a law saying member countries could not ban the burkha. Whatever your feelings on the matter this is wrong. Everyone knows France are discussing it, the Swiss like the idea, the Belgians have (I think) and in Italy a woman was fined for wearing one in a public place. So despite 2 of the most powerful countries in the EU supporting a ban, they have decided to ignore their views completely, with no debate, no 'well if we look it at from their point of view...' don't tell me this is anything other than a failed attempt at uniting a continent that has been at war with each other since recorded history.
We have about as much power in the EU as any major European country does, possibly more considering our political ties to America and our military power. Like any European nation, we have one representive on the 27 member EU commission, which acts as the executive branch of the EU and proposes leglistation. This leglistation is ratified by the EU parliment, it's MEP's voted for by us and other Europeans. Further more there is the EU council, which is again another leglsative body with one representive per country, in order for anything to become law that the commison proposes, it must pass the elected EU parliment and the council.
This myth that the EU is a "foregin" organisation which sets laws for us to obey without our consent is just plain false, peddled by the Daily Mail and readily lapped up by the worringly gullible people whom are too lazy to read up on politics themselves and look beyond what they are fed by the papers. We are, along with other European's, making these laws which we all agree to follow. If you don't like these laws, then write your own MEP.
I think one the main problems with the EU is it's lack of popular support from the ground. It's a governmental organisation without the cultural ties which legitmises it making laws for the people to follow. The European nations on the other hand, have a culture and a language of their own of which is tied to the government of those countries. No common shared European culture has emerged which would legitmise the EU to the people, because "European" culture is virtually synomous with Western Culture, and shared with America and the Commonwealth, and so what makes European culture "exclusive" is drowned out by the greater cultural power of the Western Civilisation. Furthermore, there is no common European language, which would greatly aid the emergence of a common European culture, however the problems of having one European language are obvious. But, due to the lack of a European culture of which people from Scandinavia to Iberia can relate to, the EU rests on dodgy foundations, and this feeds on its unpopularity.
yoyo13rom said:
I think you;re being too modest.
If you guys haven't jump started the evolution of industry back in 18something-something, I doubt we'd have all these marvellous technology today.
Oh, and you say that you're just a small island that doesn't rule, or have power over anything.
Well you guys kinda rule the world, culturally speaking.
I mean English is one of the most spoken languages in the world if not the most spoken(I'm not 100% sure here), and many, many countries try to aspire to English standards(those how go for the US standards, just think that your;s are harder to get to).
Every kid out there wants to learn English(and then maybe an other language)
Heck, the internet's main language is English.
You've "concurred" the world culturally to say the least.
I think few of us would disagree that our historical impact on the world has been tremendous, the problem that has faced us English since the collapse of the Empire is where we do we stand now? What kind of country are we? Nearly everyone agrees that the Commonwealth has no real power and is really just a symbolic relic of the Empire, and the debate drifts between concerns about us being "America's lapdog" or under the supposed thumb of the EU. Our identity in the EU is confused because of our cultural ties to America and the Commmonwealth, i've even heard one or two Brit's on this forum deny the fact we are Europeans.
Personally, my opinion is that England, or Britain, is one of the three major European powers, sitting alongside France and Germany and we should consider them our equals. However, Britain has an interesting perk, we did the most to spread European culture around the world, making European culture global, and now generally known as "Western Culture". This act of making European culture a global culture will have historical significance which will echo through the millena ahead, and it means that Britain is what "ties" Europe to America and the rest of the Western world.
So, Britain is one of the three major European powers, and our unique perk is that we are what ties Europe to the rest of the Western world. I think that that should be Britains role in the 21st century, a European nation which connects Europe to the rest of Western Civilisation.
On topic: Speaking as an Englishman about the English, i think that when King Vortigern of the Romano-Britons invited Anglo-Saxons mercaneries to fight the Celts, i don't think he quite realised what he was letting himself, and the rest of the world in for, when he decided not to pay them. After all, whom would have thought that these barbarian mercaneries from Germany, Danemark and the Netherlands would have responded by taking over the entire country, subjugate the British Isles and then form the worlds largest Empire?
The moral of the story is never forget to pay your mercaneries, otherwise some unforseen consiquences may occur, which will be a good deal worse than what happens in Mercaneries 2.
