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Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

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Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#661

Post by mike_hearn »

tpm wrote: post #605
ericmay wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a strange framing that itself usually comes from a standpoint of moral superiority. When you sign agreements with a governing body, like the EU on freedom of movement, and you break that agreement then there's consequences. And I don't mean that in an underhanded agressive way, but just literally you've broken the terms you had negotiated. I don't think so. Even in the case where the Swiss or UK are breakin…

The EU didn't break any agreement. > the Swiss are to be the recipient of some draconian action "we'll show them" It's quite clear that the EU-Swiss agreements were negotiated as a whole and one side just can't suddenly pick parts of it that it will reject.

Sure it did. Spain just gave 500,000 "undocumented migrants" a residence permit. They can now freely move throughout the continent. That sort of act was never envisioned when the Swiss agreed to FoM with the EU, which for most of its history was used only by a tiny minority of people all of whom had a similar culture.

The EU/Swiss agreements don't have to be negotiated as a whole. The whole guillotine clause schtick exists only to try and transfer as much power to the EU Commission as possible. Nothing stops European countries being reasonable and looking for ways to work with each other on whatever areas they can agree; it's a deliberate ideological choice to refuse.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#662

Post by mike_hearn »

izacus wrote: post #362
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bilateral are a package and the EU doesn't want CH to pick and chose It really depends who is in power where when and if the 10mm limit is crossed. If there is a conservative in Paris or Berlin, chances are Switzerland can simply abrogate Schengen.

Where do you pull this kind of nonsense from? This didn't work out for much bigger UK and UK isn't sorrounded by EU.

How did it not work out? A lot of things the EU claimed were red lines ended up being crossed. Look at the Horizon programme. Supposedly an inviolable "privilege" tied to FoM, the UK called the EU's bluff, left, and UK is now back in Horizon anyway.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#663

Post by TrappedInCorner »

garte wrote: post #652
TrappedInCorner wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I migrated with my parents at 3 years old to a neighboring EU country from another EU country. I agree with you strongly. As a migrant myself, I've become very critical about immigration in recent years. I've come to realize just how naive we europeans had become. Also just how penalized the idea of 'I want my country to maintain its culture, and I want my countrymen to look like me, smell like me and behave like me'…

This does not make sense. How can you differentiate between "good" migrants (apparently you yourself) and "bad" ones? Shouldn't you remove yourself because you're a migrant to increase the quality of life for the "natives"?

And to the fallacy of my argument you are hinting at, it truly is one of the difficulties. I think as a migrant your contribution should be to assimilate and assist with the country's interests. You must not be a freeloader. If the country wants to get rid of migrants, then thats it, they will stamp you out. Welcome to reality. In the meanwhile I will do my best, like everyone else should, to be a 'good migrant', which usually means: learn the language, treat people with respect, don't commit crimes, do not not abuse the welfare system, learn the cultural norms, take part in cultural activities and list goes on.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#664

Post by mike_hearn »

joxdosba wrote: post #657
mike_hearn wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same as Britain, which didn't suffer any economic damage from leaving the EU. Look at current trade ratios, GDP and other core stats vs neighbouring France. No difference. The EU single market is apparently not as important as it's cracked up to be. The EU has sanctioned Switzerland before and it didn't matter. And the Swiss economy is very strong.

One of those is an island, the other is a landlocked country that would quite literally starve to death if the EU decided to stop facilitating its access to international markets. Switzerland exists purely at the mercy of the EU, it lacks the military capabilities to fight its way out to the sea and force an alternate reality. The day Switzerland is able to conquer the north of Italy is the day they get to meaningful…

Uh, that escalated fast! I really hope you're not European with threats like that.

EU tried all this bullshit with the UK too. Threatening to cut off electricity supplies and so on. The mask really fell, but in the end they didn't do it, they didn't even respect their own supposed red lines like cooperation on academic research. They meekly invited the UK back into their academic collaboration a few years later despite claiming at the time that it was a "privilege" tied to everything else by the laws of physics. So the idea an organization that weak is going to try and genocide an entire country over FoM is ridiculous.

At any rate, there's nothing about being an island that automatically stops a crazy genocidal EU trying to starve another country. If I recall history correctly, less than 100 years ago a big European country was attempting to starve Britain to death by systematically sinking its cargo convoys. Then just a few decades later east Germany was trying to starve Berlin by shutting down rail links. Note: both attempts failed.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#665

Post by broken-kebab »

soraminazuki wrote: post #526
pstuart wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in general tend to be very tribal -- it's in our DNA. When it's about "yay community!" its kinda nice but most the time it's "other tribe bad". I think this is a core to a lot of legislation. Not having a tribe to belong to I find the whole thing simultaneously amusing and horrifying looking in from the outside.

I still can't believe we have hundreds of years of documented history to learn from, yet human intelligence is still blinded by bigotry.

The irony is that virtue-signalling (which your comment certainly is) is a shared identity declaration. Which is a part of the same inherent human predisposition to form groups which we call "tribalism" when we like to don't like it.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#666

Post by bluebarbet »

tpholland wrote: post #428
bluebarbet wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting statistics and I for one will back up your analysis. But the Alpine woolly mammoth in the room is that, in 21st-century Europe, "cultural and religious diversity" does not, for most people, imply a heterogeneity of Germanophones and Francophones, or Protestants and Catholics. It means something else.

Sorry if cultural history and facts are a bit dull. I don't really want to argue about *something else* though; let's leave that to the *something else*ists.

It's not that the facts you presented are dull. It's that given the massive extra-European population influxes since WWII, the "cultural diversity" of any given West-European country (including Switzerland) is now far broader than the linguistic and religious distinctions you keep mentioning. You surely know this.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#667

Post by pjmlp »

mike_hearn wrote: post #655
joxdosba wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Probably the same as Britain, which didn't suffer any economic damage from leaving the EU. Look at current trade ratios, GDP and other core stats vs neighbouring France. No difference. The EU single market is apparently not as important as it's cracked up to be. The EU has sanctioned Switzerland before and it didn't matter. And the Swiss economy is very strong.

So the stories with empty supermarkets, lack of lorry drivers, loss of EU related HQ to mainland or Ireland were all fake?

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#668

Post by 4gotunameagain »

inglor_cz wrote: post #650
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That avoids accusations of bigotry which Europe has convinced itself doesn't exist within its domains.

Europeans, with some exceptions (the UK, Germany, maybe Sweden), generally care way, way less about accusations of bigotry than Americans do, and the Swiss are one of the most DGAF nations in this regard.

I mean.. Some of them even proudly eat dogs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#Switzerland

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#669

Post by mike_hearn »

pjmlp wrote: post #667
mike_hearn wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same as Britain, which didn't suffer any economic damage from leaving the EU. Look at current trade ratios, GDP and other core stats vs neighbouring France. No difference. The EU single market is apparently not as important as it's cracked up to be. The EU has sanctioned Switzerland before and it didn't matter. And the Swiss economy is very strong.

So the stories with empty supermarkets, lack of lorry drivers, loss of EU related HQ to mainland or Ireland were all fake?

I guess? I mean, I'm sure there's a non-zero number of companies that relocated HQ on paper as that's easy to do, but it doesn't show up in GDP or trade stats. There aren't any problems with imports/exports either. Actually trade ratios between EU/rest-of-world have continued on their long term trend, you wouldn't know anything had happened if you look at the zoomed out view.

There was transient disruption around the time of exit, which might be where those stories you remember came from? Maybe someone found a photo of an empty shelf and blamed leaving the EU instead of COVID for some reason. But forms and stamps aren't very effective weapons and people quickly adapted to the new systems.

Brexit is one of those topics that resulted in a firehose of propaganda by the pro-EU global establishment because what it represented terrified them. It undermined deeply held visions of the future in which all of humanity was destined to be united under one world government. So you can easily find a long string of false or nonsensical claims about it if you look. For example, there are a bunch of academic papers claiming economic impact from Brexit. But if you look carefully, they show a loss of growth vs fictional countries that don't exist, or they assume the EU would have experienced sudden dramatic growth out of nowhere and stuff like that. It's all just sophisticated forms of lying.

Re: Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M

#670

Post by elektrontamer »

garte wrote: post #652
TrappedInCorner wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I migrated with my parents at 3 years old to a neighboring EU country from another EU country. I agree with you strongly. As a migrant myself, I've become very critical about immigration in recent years. I've come to realize just how naive we europeans had become. Also just how penalized the idea of 'I want my country to maintain its culture, and I want my countrymen to look like me, smell like me and behave like me'…

This does not make sense. How can you differentiate between "good" migrants (apparently you yourself) and "bad" ones? Shouldn't you remove yourself because you're a migrant to increase the quality of life for the "natives"?

It makes perfect sense. Differentiating between a good and bad ones is the easiest thing ever.

1. Are they a net benefit to the country's finances? Do they pay more than enough taxes to cover the public services they use and then some. Or are they just a leech on the welfare system and a burden to society in general.

2. Do they integrate well into the society? Do they commit crimes?

3. To whom is their allegeince? The society they live in or the one back home? Do they promote the interests of their own ethnic group at the expense of the natives?

The first two are already available to state, tax, crime, welfare records. The third can be found out with a simple investigation.

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