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French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

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191–200 of 209 posts

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm switching the subject back to tolerance and opinions, which you raised, after you tried to divert it to attacking straw men and demonstrating that you don't know the meaning of the word "fascist". Liberals don't think "believing in the concept of borders and controlled immigration is intolerance", they think calling Mexicans "rapists" is intolerance. So why don't you answer my questions? Do you tolerate what Trum…

Not allowed stances and opinions are certainly a facet of fascism, and the connection I stated earlier is sound. You may want to re-read what I wrote earlier if you think I described someone or some people as fascists. FTR I don't have a problem with consensual sexual acts (including groping).

Thank you for proving that there are actually Trump supporters out there who approve of his sexual harassment of women.

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#192
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you demonstrate your lack of understanding of the word "fascist". You're saying it's "fascist" to not tolerate Trump sexually assaulting women, just because he holds the opinion (and openly brags about it) that it's ok for him to do that because he's rich, therefore we are required to respect and tolerate his opinion. FTR, Trump was not bragging about "consensual sexual acts", he was bragging about non-consens…

Trump was quite explicit. He said "you can grab them by their pussy, they let you do anything". I don't see anything non-consensual here, he was quite explicit thay they consent.

Thank you too, for also proving that there are actually Trump supporters out there who approve of his sexual harassment of women.

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#193
post #2

As a European this comes as a huge relief, especially given the poorly-timed email leak (with Russian names in the metadata). Here's to hoping that Europe can continue working together and begin to reform itself, and not tear itself apart like some of our American 'allies' on the (alt-)right would like. Lots of challenges ahead, but we wouldn't want it to be too easy now would we?

You seem to assume that without the EU, european countries would no longer cooperate and trade with each other. I don't see that happening. The European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen treaty exist independently from the EU. Norway and Switzerland are not members of the EU, yet they trade perfectly fine with others. The EU is simply not necessary for free trade; nor is free trade its main goal. The EU as it is r…

The idea of an united europe has started from cooperation in trade with the founding of the ECSC in 1950's, thought by a handful of powerful politician and industry magnates, to solidify bonds between europeans countries and avoid any other wars. This was done without the people approving sentiment, which grew as the economic bonds were solidified. Both sentiment of cooperation and trade are essential to the construction of a european economic aera. Pro european laws and trade go hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other, and I believe they are the main driver of the european people's opinion above and beyond anything else - much like recent studies that showed that racism is driven first and foremost by discriminatory laws (which of course i can't find the reference right now.. if i do ill edit)

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#194
post #30

I can't deny it uplifted my mood quite a bit. The nationalist wave didn't flip France head enough, which is always good. It's just a start, a new hope.

A new hope would have been to start having a decline in the far-right votes.

It's not that simple. The Front National is basically the same people than 10 or 20 years ago, under the reign of JM Lepen (the infamous father), but was toned down, made left-wing friendly (taking parts of the left wing ideas), mixed with a masked nationalism (blaming not on ethnicity but on religion and terrorists). Mixed in a lot of fake news and a lot of populism. It was really very confusing for many people with poor education.

On twitter, you could hardly distinguish tweets from the Front National and tweets from the far-left (Melenchon), because of the same vocabulary and many identical ideas (on "oligarchy", "unfair media coverage", and so on).

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#195
post #152

The most successful peace project on European soil of the last 1000 years can continue. Naysayers of the EU need to learn history. It is worth every penny, every inch of inconvenience. TWO fucking world wars were started by Europe, by nations that formed the Coal/Steel Union after 45 and now enjoy the longest, uninterrupted period of peace since, like, EVER. The EU's economy is the largest in the world. You don't fuc…

It might be a little too simplistic to credit the EU for 70 years of peace. There is no major conflict directly involving two major powers for many decades (1945/WW2, or 1952/korean war if considering that China was a major power at that time, which is generous IMHO). That's not limited to Europe, this statement is valid for the whole world. Several factors can explain it: * Better living conditions (far less frequen…

"For a part, economic dependencies between countries."

You think this happened by accident in Europe? It was a forced development, by very smart people.

Coal/Steel union, EG/EWG, EU.

The US and USSR were duking it out all the time, from Cuba to Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Funny how people assume peace in Europe is the natural order. Holy shit, one of the key members put millions in gas chambers just years before its formation.

Europe went from a genocidal maniac (colonialism, holocaust, etc) to peace in no time.

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#196
post #138

HN will likely rejoice. Macron is putting a lot of faith in startups to jumpstart back the french economy. I think it's wise: France has great schools to train great engineers, but there's still this stigma that it's almost impossible to have your own tech company in France unless you're ready to deal with massive paperwork. I have no idea how true it is, but Macron clearly wants to change this mentality. It also goe…

Speaking as someone who has had companies in various countries (Japan, China, Hong Kong and France). The paperwork and complexities in France are by far the worst. Even China with it's love of red tape is at least relatively well organized and not to difficult to navigate. In France, you get to deal with organizations like the RSI and URSSAF which are incredibly incompetent, frequently make mistake, do not have phone…

Interesting. Out of curiosity, why then did you chose France over any other EU country to have your company?

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#198
post #115
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the EU is trying to do has been done in the past and it has failed. First, If we would never try what in the past has failed then we would be really in a very stagnant state. Second, the EU has not failed, the EU is still the main reason for the prosperity most of its members have gained and still continue to gain after WWII. That it has had some backlashes recently does not mean at all that it has failed. > T…

Austria Hungary has failed. The Soviet Union has failed even though everybody in it was speaking Russian, which is not the case with the EU. The EU will fail if it continues like this, with massive centralization of power. The difference is that unlike Austria Hungary and the USSR, it does not have a standing army to back its power and member states will leave when economic crisis hits and it's no longer in their bes…

Germany was build out of different german speaking principalities. Germany was problematic in the 20th century but the problems were against its neighbours, not within.

And then there are those 13 ex-colonies, now 50, which dared to want an ever closer union. They had a civil war, yes, but since then secession seems to out of the picture.

Re: French election: Macron defeats Le Pen

#200
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austria Hungary has failed. The Soviet Union has failed even though everybody in it was speaking Russian, which is not the case with the EU. The EU will fail if it continues like this, with massive centralization of power. The difference is that unlike Austria Hungary and the USSR, it does not have a standing army to back its power and member states will leave when economic crisis hits and it's no longer in their bes…

Germany was build out of different german speaking principalities. Germany was problematic in the 20th century but the problems were against its neighbours, not within. And then there are those 13 ex-colonies, now 50, which dared to want an ever closer union. They had a civil war, yes, but since then secession seems to out of the picture.

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