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EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

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Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have a point but you're discrediting yourself by using extreme hyperbole. Authoritarianism would be you and your family getting picked up and interrogated sometime at night for this critical comment you just made. And saying "crime is legal" when referring to cars parked on the sidewalk or you having had a bad experience with a neighbours dog? I think if you reflect a little you'd realise that these are the k…

Thats some mighty hyperbole, not everybody is breaking some minor (or not so minor) laws 50x a day. Or a year. Societies where there is high amount of respect towards each other and rules tend to perform much better over long time, ie Switzerland. Its a pleasure to live in such society especially when coming from more messy ones, triple that with small kids.

> Thats some mighty hyperbole, not everybody is breaking some minor (or not so minor) laws 50x a day. Or a year.

How do you know? Do you know of all of the protected species of bug in your country for instance?

In my town there are laws about using profanity in public. I'm sure they would be deemed illegal if charges were brought but the law is still on the books.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens if you criticise the government in these safe countries?

Generally nothing. In Singapore, there are some risks.

> As of March 2023, Emirati authorities continued to incarcerate with no legal basis at least 51 Emirati prisoners who completed their sentences between 1 month and nearly 4 years ago. The prisoners are all part of the grossly unfair “UAE94” mass trial of 69 government critics, whose convictions violated their rights to free expression, assembly, and association. UAE authorities used baseless counterterrorism justifications to continue holding them past their completed sentences. Some prisoners completed their sentences as early as July 2019.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/unite...

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/10/uae-reporters-un-cl...

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#243
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I jokingly refer to this as the Catholic principle: "sin first - confess and repent later" as it's a common theme in countries that are/were traditionally Catholic, including my own. It's really just places culturally untouched by Calvinism, Puritanism and the like, all of which put emphasis on order. The last thing to attempt bringing order to them were various forms of authoritarianism and they didn't last. I think…

Maybe I'm a Calvinist. I'm definitely happier in the Netherlands. My general experience was that Irish laws existed mostly for show and if you followed them you were a chump. Unless you wanted to smoke a joint now and then, of course. Ireland supposedly cares about nature too, but you can still buy truckloads of turf off the side of the road in Offaly. Good luck getting those rules enforced. When we still lived in Du…

> I think when you're threatening your neighbours and letting dangerous dogs loose on other people's land where there's kids or sheep then authoritarianism is called for.

You jumped straight to authoritarianism? How about trying self-defense?

Boy you really are a Calvinist

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely is an embodiment of class/accent/skin colour privilege.

What did I miss in the GP comment that points to the decisions being made on class, accent, or skin color?

My suspicion is that leaving things like e.g. qualification for social benefits to the judgment of whoever happens to be talking to the claimant introduces the possibility of bias entering the decision.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#245
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People still use tea bags even though they're a top source of microplastics.

People still use tea bags even though what they contain is a byproduct of tea production and barely counts as tea.

To me, sounds like it's a great thing that we waste less agricultural output and have goods available at different price points.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens if you criticise the government in these safe countries?

what happens if you criticize the government with regard to certain topics in the UK on social media? https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...

Which topics?

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if…

> but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years. Why are they still farming? It sounds like an awful crop.

Because it's fields+trees that have been there for decades, and even if there's no profit few years, it still pays for the salaries of the workers and expenses of maintaining the fields. If you stop it, things die and then it's more expensive to restart.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if…

This is a common complaint in the EU, since enforcement is by ones own government, everyone believes that they are the only ones being held to account. It may or may not be true in general, but it sure gives that impression

Sorry if it was not clear, this is about Spain/EU enforcement in Spain vs EU enforcement in Morocco, where we import tons of fruits from. I think it's plenty obvious that the enforcement level will be different at the source.

Edit: I've asked that myself multiple times. There's also some stubbornness there as well TBF.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens if you criticize the government with regard to certain topics in the UK on social media? https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...

Which topics?

Racist ones? I only skimmed the article.

Re: EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a Calvinist. I'm definitely happier in the Netherlands. My general experience was that Irish laws existed mostly for show and if you followed them you were a chump. Unless you wanted to smoke a joint now and then, of course. Ireland supposedly cares about nature too, but you can still buy truckloads of turf off the side of the road in Offaly. Good luck getting those rules enforced. When we still lived in Du…

Last year I was in a Samsung shop when one couple remarked to me that it was the second time they came to buy the same phone for the wife in a month. Then naturally I asked for the reason why, I thought they like it so much to buy a second one. Apparently the couple just recently come back from a trip in Ireland and lost the new Samsung phone there. Someone has stolen the wife's baggage from the bus when it's doing t…

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