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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 14, 2024 5:56:18 GMT
Interesting that Ford is top of your list when Ford shut down their last remaining vehicle plant due to EU aid to Turkey (not an EU member) to build a replacement assembly plant. The EU were a menace to production in the UK. Perhaps they were, but a much larger menace was incompetent management and anarchic labour relations.
It may be recalled that prior to Transit production moving to Turkey, Ford's entire passenger and commercial vehicle production moved from the UK to the continent. That was not something that can blamed on 'Brussels'.
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Post by Orac on Apr 14, 2024 6:54:23 GMT
I think you can draw a proper line between Europe and the bizarre egomaniac lunatics who appear to currently run the EU. I certainly do. How would you compare the lunatics who run the EU with those who run the USA and the UK, on a scale of 1 to 10? That's not a simple comparison involving one dimension. While the US takes the crown for bat-shit presently, the counter-forces in the US are more developed and part of mainstream and the US has more mechanisms to prevent a 'total and permanent political enclosure'. Both Europe and the US have a substantial and empowered 'single party', but only Europe's is really in striking distance of banning their opposition. Look at the legal struggles the US are having with Trump. This is all quite desperate, unsightly and embarrassing and would never happen in Europe - In Europe a human rights commission or some other un-accountable, midwit quango would bang a gavel and that would be that. Europe's containment mechanism is showing far less strain because it doesn't have to contend with notions like Europeans actually having individual rights as opposed to granted rights via their state. A superior disdain for these notions is well developed in mainland Europe and i think this is culturally at the root of the UK's population's disquiet with the EU However, is this really pertinent? Is it not Brexit at least understandable? |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 14, 2024 7:28:49 GMT
From this end of the telescope it appears that many of the future ills you are projecting for citizens of EU countries already exist in the UK and to a lesser extent the USA too.
The UK invented the concept of human rights and has completed the state apparatus necessary to enforce them, whether we want them or not.
When I watch French or German television I don't see persons of colour and gender in every other role. The same when I watch transmissions from the local version of Parliament.
The UK has already embraced Orwellianism to a degree which is simply unknown anywhere on the continent.
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Post by buccaneer on Apr 14, 2024 8:25:37 GMT
So this thread is a crack at the Yanks' lack of culture which is ultimately a dig at Brexit.
I suppose it takes all kinds of ludicrous angles, pent up by bitter ex-pats living on the continent to attack Brexit.
Ho hum.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2024 9:44:00 GMT
From this end of the telescope it appears that many of the future ills you are projecting for citizens of EU countries already exist in the UK and to a lesser extent the USA too. The UK invented the concept of human rights and has completed the state apparatus necessary to enforce them, whether we want them or not. When I watch French or German television I don't see persons of colour and gender in every other role. The same when I watch transmissions from the local version of Parliament. The UK has already embraced Orwellianism to a degree which is simply unknown anywhere on the continent.To be fair it was the EUphile party of Scotland headed by some sort of Islamist. Current chatter also suggests it hasn't been embraced, just imposed. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 14, 2024 17:03:02 GMT
I agree. The embracing has been done by the political elite and the opinion-forming class, with the general population largely apathetic about what has been done in their name, and cowed into resentful submission.
This process started almost sixty years ago and has proceeded apace with nary a peep of protest.
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Post by sandypine on Apr 14, 2024 21:00:22 GMT
I agree. The embracing has been done by the political elite and the opinion-forming class, with the general population largely apathetic about what has been done in their name, and cowed into resentful submission. This process started almost sixty years ago and has proceeded apace with nary a peep of protest. I disagree on the peep of protest, there have been many but the process of closing down those peeps have been well planned and excellently executed and for a long time those peeps were partially cowed into submission. The hand has been overplayed though and no longer has the same effect. It remains to be seen if we can be pulled back from the Abyss through the democratic process. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 15, 2024 7:48:29 GMT
You can probably count on one hand the number of MPs who have voted against any of the complete raft of orwellian legislation enacted beginning with the Race Relations Act of 1964.
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Post by sandypine on Apr 15, 2024 10:08:46 GMT
You can probably count on one hand the number of MPs who have voted against any of the complete raft of orwellian legislation enacted beginning with the Race Relations Act of 1964. That largely lies in presentation. It is/was always presented as the right thing to do and on the face of it the moral credentials are sound. Those moral credentials do not stand up to close inspection however as positive action and the current identity politics, actions and teachings remove that moral premise. It has come too far whether by design or accident is a moot point but diversity seeking is actually built on the premise that identities have different attributes. It is alomst volte face from the old concept of being colour blind. Most of us now do not buy into it. What we can do about it remains to be seen. The left used to teach that we were all equal and colour was only skin deep. Now they teach that colour is as deep as it can be and that any variation from male, white straight Christian is positive as that was the basis of a corrupt society. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 15, 2024 10:30:21 GMT
With DEI now the state religion in the UK I'd say it's all over. There's no going back.
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Post by sandypine on Apr 15, 2024 12:07:51 GMT
With DEI now the state religion in the UK I'd say it's all over. There's no going back. There is no going back, there is however correction possible, the powers ranged against correction are pretty hefty but if countries like Hungary can stand against the narrative, and they are under severe pressure, then there may be hope. I think in the main the British people see through the facade in general terms but are still in thrall to the two party system and the ever more limited choices that presents. |
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Post by oracle75 on Apr 15, 2024 16:29:22 GMT
Well, apart from some desultory and pedantic nit-picking there doesn't appear to be much opposition so far to the proposition that the United States is a cultural desert, in comparison to Europe. So let's proceed further and hope that something more substantial may emerge, in particular from those dedicated Brexiteers and other committed Atlanticists for whom this is, or should be, an important question that merits serious attention as a key element in their world-view. Longer-term members, especially those who were active on the old forum, may recall that I have been very keen on citing Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. Murray, it may be recalled is an American political scientist who co-authored 'The Bell Curve'. His book includes a set of what he calls 'Inventories of Significant Figures' in the fields of literature, music, art, philosophy, and the sciences —some 4000 or so men and a few women from around the world, ranked according to their eminence. Since the present discussion relates to culture, we will pass over the sciences, in searching how many those significant figures in the cultural domain identified by Murray turn out to be American. So here's the answer: Significant figures in Western Art: 479, of which 25 are American Significant figures in Western Literature: 835, including 55 Americans Significant figures in Western Music: 522, with 14 Americans Significant figures in Western Philosophy: 155, 4 Americans Does any of this serve to refute the proposition that America is a cultural desert? I'd say probably not. Steady Dan. You can only count the last two hundred years. It is not easy to write a Nobel Literature prize in a log cabin. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 15, 2024 16:55:52 GMT
The Nobel prize for Literature has only been awarded since 1895. Americans have had as good a shot at it as anyone else.
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Post by oracle75 on Apr 15, 2024 17:22:04 GMT
The Nobel prize for Literature has only been awarded since 1895. Americans have had as good a shot at it as anyone else. You get my point. Many of the cultural assets you list in Europe are from centuries ago. They were already there when the first pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. However the US has done well in popular music developing jazz, soul, blues, rock and roll. I could make a case for the cultural global pillar that is denim as in jeans etc. There is much of value in American literature, including Mark Twain, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salinger Bradbury, Faulkner, Toni Morrison and that one shot wonder, Margaret Mitchell. I have no argument that both sides of the Atlantic have together created one of if not THE dominant cultural traditions un your terms...what you register with your senses. I would also say that there has been a healthy exchange of cutlures, but that what is of European or American expression is as clear as the difference between chocolate and strawberry. I staunchly remain a remainer and am enjoying the win. And there is NO exchange or sharing of UK and American cultures which would allow Brit to write with the same voice as an American, or that an American could ever write like Ian McEwan. The cultures that inspire them are just too different. To be fair you have to eliminate all the European buildings and monuments pre 1800 ans that includes many palaces and religious buildings. Happily we can enjoy each other's due to a couple of American college students and his garage. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Apr 15, 2024 17:33:26 GMT
To respond to your points in detail will entail the repetition of many points I have already made in response to other readers.
Suffice to say, we have to deal with the situation as it actually exists, not how we might wish it be were the circumstances different.
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