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Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

bbc.com

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Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#501

Post by saturn8601 »

snarf21 wrote: post #484
saturn8601 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then, in a country of 300 plus million people like the U.S., there is a demand for getting election results as soon as possible, because without quick results, it opens the window for bad actors to claim the election was rigged. That's part of the reason why there was a motivation for digital systems. Furthermore, the U.S. In particular does a lot more than just voting for candidates. Often the ballots have refer…

The issue is that the people claiming things are rigged are the same ones creating this opportunity and it has nothing to do with digital voting. I live in PA and the current law is that mail-in votes can't be even started to be counted until after the polls have closed. (This law had good intent so that a potential fraudster couldn't know exactly how many votes they needed.) During Covid, Democrats tried to get this…

All those ideas you suggested seem great. I'm sure they'd be better than the current status quo. Now, how difficult would it be to implement any of those ideas versus going state by state and convincing the local legislator to just swap out voting machines? The money is going to the same voting machine vendors anyway who probably have sway with the government and the local legislator wont get in trouble for going outside the norms(ex. No one ever got fired for buying IBM). Fortunately, some of these companies have had to deal with the pressure from the public and update the design of their voting machines to what I've described earlier.

The U.S., it should be clear by now, is just this patchwork of random laws and people blocking radical change at various levels. And everyone who wants to move forward is forced to find some other avenue to get some half baked solution in place just so they can get around the historical blocks. We see this in everything from zoning, to deploying Internet, to even fixing this system. There's just too much inertia to not change things.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#502

Post by runarberg »

inglor_cz wrote: post #498
runarberg wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this speaks volumes about how far right the Overton window has shifted in Europe, if my run-of-the-mill leftist critique of the EU sounds so novel. I actually blame Brexit for this. Before Brexit being anti-EU for anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist reason was kind of a litmus test for a left wing political candidate. Note this is also true of Iceland. The debate was mostly about nationalism and economy, and th…

I'd say that your critique of the EU would have been quite run-of-the-mill in the early 2000s, but nowadays, this corner of the left has mostly shrunk away and became somewhat marginal. As for the voters and their questioning: yeah, people will give inconsistent answers quite often, especially when you pry into the details. But the majority sentiment has been against more immigration for some time now, and that major…

Note that questions about immigration tend to be quite general and ideology based as well. People are usually asked, “do you support immigration from...” but if you ask them “do you want people from ... to be disproportionately deported” I am pretty sure you‘ll get different support numbers.

That aside, the public opinion about immigration are severely tainted, partially because of systemic racism at a government level inside Europe. There is a lot of room for cognitive dissonance if the cops keep arresting black people or Muslims and you know from experience cops have been nothing but kind and never wrong.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#503

Post by ExoticPearTree »

somenameforme wrote: post #493
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the question becomes, since Mexico is really really huge, why doesn’t the Mexican governemt do anything about these caravans? Not to mention that Mexico is pretty narrow at its southern end.

The border between Mexico and Guatemala is more than 500 miles long. Another issue is think about what's involved in stopping a thousand young males, plenty of them ready to fight. The reason these groups come in 'caravans' is because it makes it difficult to stop them without resorting to inhumane actions. And a thousand is fairly small relative to the size some of them reach. Another issue is money. Imagine you spe…

> The reason these groups come in 'caravans' is because it makes it difficult to stop them without resorting to inhumane actions.

There is nothing inhumane shooting at people trying to illegally cross your borders. You can mine the forest there, build some fences with sensors and stuff. Solutions exist, my question is why no one is implementing them?

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#504

Post by GlacierFox »

runarberg wrote: post #292
GlacierFox wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Another problem is border fascism. Europe has open borders internally, but very closed borders externally. The external borders are being militarized and increasingly hostile towards immigrants and asylum seekers. European politicians are showing increasingly fascistic behavior towards the borders. It is bad, and inhumane, and it is braking Europe apart." What planet are you living on? Border fascism? What? 70,000 '…

What I have experienced is being in an international relationship and having to have to go through the (legal) immigration process twice. First by my married spouse immigrating to Iceland, and then again by me, and Icelandic citizen moving to the USA. What I have heard are people being deported from Europe, immigrants unable to move to the place they want to seek better life, asylum seekers sent back to the dangerous…

"Immigrants, no matter how many millions, can never cause the same harm to a fellow working European as a politician who stripes away your human rights."

See this is the point where you're so out of touch with reality it's truely perplexing.

Both things are horrifically damaging to a country and it's residents. Thanks for outlining the things you've 'heard'. I see my country tearing itself apart at the seams and there's people like you say there with a shrug of the shoulders telling us we're all fascists.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#505

Post by bluGill »

rozab wrote: post #317
bluGill wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to join the EU to use the euro. There are countries that use the U.S. dollar even though they're not the U.S. Sometimes it's just de facto use the dollar. There is technically a local currency and people use it when forced to but they would prefer the dollar. If you're a small country, something like the dollar or the euro is probably your best bet because of the stability it affords. The advantage to…

This means giving up all the advantages of central banking and is generally only done informally by countries experiencing hyperinflation without capital controls. It's a marker of a failed state. I remember in live TV debates for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Yes leader insisted that Scotland could not be prevented from using the Pound sterling. It's technically true, but a very, very bad idea.

They don't give up the advantages of central banking at all.

What they give up is political control of their bank. There are advantages to having political control, but often political control is abused - which is why failed states have given up on it as part of their efforts to rebound. The US and EU both have controls in place to limit the power of politicians from making changes for political reasons.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#506

Post by bluGill »

xvedejas wrote: post #349
rozab wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means giving up all the advantages of central banking and is generally only done informally by countries experiencing hyperinflation without capital controls. It's a marker of a failed state. I remember in live TV debates for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Yes leader insisted that Scotland could not be prevented from using the Pound sterling. It's technically true, but a very, very bad idea.

Montenegro unilaterally uses the euro and it doesn't seem to otherwise be a failed state. Besides this being a "marker", what do you think are the actual problems caused? Like why does a small country need its own capital controls when there is a very stable currency available nearby?

The reason for your own currency is you can set your own interest rates to fit your local economy. If you are in a local recession while others are doing well you might want lower interest rates, while others need them higher. Both places are trying to make the same balance of inflation vs stimulating the economy - but they need different answers.

I'm not convinced it is worth it. Generally world economies are tightly tied anyway and so what is right for large currencies is close enough for everybody. The less coupled you are to the world the more important it is that you can be different.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#507

Post by muyuu »

pas wrote: post #500
muyuu wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

their voting power would be essentially zero and the policy opt-ins very significant no doubt in my mind I'd vote no in their place

there are members with veto power (for things that require unanimity) https://michalovadek.github.io/eu-veto-tracker/

which is obviously getting progressively reduced for the things that matter and more things moved to different forms of majority, and for good reasons too because the EU is already dysfunctional enough as is

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#508

Post by skue »

happymellon wrote: post #465
amenghra wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in... There are so many treaties besides EU.

I don't, this is so hard to read. What is the blue box underneath the "updated"? The left is "Europe" but below isn't labeled. This is just unnecessarily hard to read.

That box is very clearly labeled “The council of Europe”. The label is on the left side of the box, right under the “Europe” label you mention.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#509

Post by bArray »

vidarh wrote: post #463
bArray wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no mandate for or against a specific relationship to the EU Then do you not support another vote that provides this option? > how drastically opinions have shifted since There is a way to conduct a poll that represents the engaged electorate - have another vote.

I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options. It's pretty clear from polls that support to rejoin is far stronger than the support for Brexit was (in June, it was 55% for vs. 34% against, vs. 59% in support of a closer relationship and 20% against, and 29% supporting the current relationship). But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship -…

> I'd fully support a vote if rejoining was one of the options.

Of course it would be, but people would need some kind of understanding on what basis that would be on.

> It's pretty clear from polls [..]

I think there is only one way to know for sure.

> But in the meantime it is also entirely unambiguous that there is a clear mandate for a closer relationship [..]

People of the UK do not hate Europe, but there is evidence to suggest that people of the EU do not view the people of the UK favorably [1]. But I think the point of sovereignty and cost is a big one.

[1] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/yougov-survey-eu-crisis-uk-1209146...

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#510

Post by bArray »

phatfish wrote: post #499
bArray wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was just an exercise in testing the mood of the nation, don't you see? Just like a general election, if the electorate vote the wrong party, it is perfectly fine to just ignore the result. The vote was non-binding due to the sovereignty of parliament [1]. It means that if a war broke out or the economy crashed, they would not be forced to continue at great detriment to the UK. But it doesn't mean that the vote was…

Fair enough, the "advisory" nature of referendum in the UK does have clear reasoning that i wasn't fully aware of. However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave. My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referen…

> However the idea of it being "advisory" was itself exploited, and used to make people think that Brexit would't happen anyway, even if the vote was to leave.

It could be argued also the other way, maybe people didn't engage or chose to continue because they were led to believe it wasn't possible to leave the UK.

> My suggestion was not that the referendum shouldn't stand because it was "advisory", but that there should have been rules applied around a referendum that could affect peoples lives so much. But, there are no such rules it seems, the majority in the Commons gets to decide that.

I think it was fumbled because nobody involved in enacting it were actually supportive of it, and the semi-permanent state (i.e. civil servants) were largely not in support.

> It was a referendum of the the right sort of British citizen.

I have more general thoughts about this, I think a country should be very careful about who or who can't vote.

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