# Britain and it's fucked up way of dealing with criminals.



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

I read a news article today and it sickened me.

An 11 year old boy was sentenced for raping one 11 year old girl and one 7 year old, yeah, great he was punished for his crimes.

Story here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-18837467

Then I read this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-refugee-raped-girl-12-stay-UK.html#comments

It seems that a British guy will be punished to the full extent possible that the law permits yet an asylum seeker gets granted fucking asylum.

Am I the only one who see's something wrong with this shit?


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 15, 2012)

THe problem is you live in a country with an overpopulation of PC-obsessed twats who dare not do anything that might possibly offend a minority., even if it means endangering the public.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> THe problem is you live in a country with an overpopulation of PC-obsessed twats who dare not do anything that might possibly offend a minority., even if it means endangering the public.



You got it in one. 

I'm all for foreign folk seeking asylum/moving here etc, but guys like this one who pose quite a threat should not be granted asylum.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

The guy who got asylum is sudanese. Sudan and south sudan are at war/very violent at the moment, therefore it's illegal to deport him there.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> The guy who got asylum is sudanese. Sudan and south sudan are at war/very violent at the moment, therefore it's illegal to deport him there.



So that makes it alright to put our own kids at risk? fucking bullshit.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> So that makes it alright to put our own kids at risk? fucking bullshit.



It means if you send him to sudan he'll rape kids there and possibly get killed, overall a worse result just a few thousand miles away...but I guess that's okay because the kids he'll rape there aren't british citizens right? 

He can be incacerated more effectively in the UK.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> It means if you send him to sudan he'll rape kids there and possibly get killed, overall a worse result just a few thousand miles away...but I guess that's okay because the kids he'll rape there aren't british citizens right?
> 
> He can be incacerated more effectively in the UK.



Don't pull that shit with me. I never said send him back so he can hurt kids in his own country, this country has enough problems with people like him without them moving into our country as well. Why should we have to deal with trash from another country? Why should he now get given a home and the money he needs to live here? Is that justice? He's NOT going to be incarcerated here, he just got granted asylum to fucking live here. 

I mean seriously? You think he should be granted asylum to live here because oh woe is me his country is at war, we can't possibly send the poor bastard back, he might get himself hurt or killed. Oh boo hoo, he raped a fucking kid, forgive me for not having any sympathy for the prick.

If Asylum seekers wish to move here then I welcome the one's who are not a threat to any of us. But guys like him pose a threat and I can not welcome him to my country.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Don't pull that shit with me. I never said send him back so he can hurt kids in his own country, this country has enough problems with people like him without them moving into our fucking country as well. Why should we have to deal with trash from another country? Why should he now get given a home and the money he needs to live here? Is that justice? He's NOT going to be incarcerated here, he just got granted asylum to fucking live here.
> 
> I mean seriously? You think he should be granted asylum to live here because oh woe is me his country is at war, we can't possibly send the poor bastard back, he might get himself hurt or killed. Oh boo hoo, he raped a fucking kid, forgive me for not having any sympathy for the prick.



We have to deal with trash from other countries because human rights* mean you cannot send people back to warzones, [it's especially important not to send criminals back into warzones since that's a recipe for disaster]. 

If you send criminals back into warzones they won't be rehabilitated, they'll either die or hurt more people and then die, it's not difficult maths. The law doesn't need to be about thuggish retribution, as so many british papers scream, and keeping dangerous people out of warzones is a good thing.

*The current british government seeks to exchange human rights with a bill of 'british rights'. I think this will erode the legal entitlements we experience in our country, in favour of crowd pleasing short cuts and increased surveillance.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> We have to deal with trash from other countries because human rights mean you cannot send people back to warzones, [it's especially important not to send criminals back into warzones since that's a recipe for disaster].
> 
> If you send criminals back into warzones they won't be rehabilitated, they'll either die or hurt more people and then die, it's not difficult maths. The law doesn't need to be about thuggish retribution, as so many british papers scream, and keeping dangerous people out of warzones is a good thing.



Then why the fuck was he granted asylum? why wasn't he shoved into a British prison, after all he committed a serious crime. on our soil I believe yet we grant him permission to LIVE here which means he gets all the benefits that come with it that we as tax payers pay for.

He should be in a British jail not a British home that someone in more need than him needs.

Shall we welcome some murderers while we are at it? Perhaps toss in a couple of rapists too, grant them asylum, let them live amongst us on our streets and not in jail where they belong, yeah makes absolute perfect sense to me dude.


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## Cyanide_tiger (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Then why the fuck was he granted asylum? why wasn't he shoved into a British prison, after all he committed a serious crime. on our soil I believe yet we grant him permission to LIVE here which means he gets all the benefits that come with it that we as tax payers pay for.
> 
> He should be in a British jail not a British home that someone in more need than him needs.



Not that I'm siding with Fallow here, but the article you linked said that he served 3 years in prison before they wanted to deport him, at which point he filed the appeal to be granted asylum.

I will agree that the end result is more than a bit of crap though. If this happened in the States, I'd be more concerned with ensuring this person never comes near my children than his human rights; to me, those are forfeit when you commit something as horrible as child rape.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Then why the fuck was he granted asylum? why wasn't he shoved into a British prison, after all he committed a serious crime. on our soil I believe yet we grant him permission to LIVE here which means he gets all the benefits that come with it that we as tax payers pay for.
> 
> He should be in a British jail not a British home that someone in more need than him needs.



I feel he should be in prison, but I can't concretely lobby the government to chuck him in prison because frankly the sentence we just agreed with eachother is based on a 30 minute internet discussion rather than a trial. What I can concretely say is that he shouldn't be in sudan, I think we've agreed on that now though.

On the point of british homes, we actually have more empty homes than homeless people...what's that about?



Cyanide_tiger said:


> Not that I'm siding with Fallow here, but  the article you linked said that he served 3 years in prison before they  wanted to deport him, at which point he filed the appeal to be granted  asylum.
> 
> I will agree that the end result is more than a bit of crap though. If  this happened in the States, I'd be more concerned with ensuring this  person never comes near my children than his human rights; to me, those  are forfeit when you commit something as horrible as child rape.



Point of fact, human rights are unalienable, as soon as we agree there's a debateable line that forfeits them, then that line can be moved so that say, you can execute people for tax fraud or being racists or maybe being jewish. 

The man won't be allowed to work in a job with children ever in his life.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I feel he should be in prison, but I can't concretely lobby the government to chuck him in prison because frankly the sentence we just agreed with eachother is based on a 30 minute internet discussion rather than a trial. What I can concretely say is that he shouldn't be in sudan, I think we've agreed on that now though.
> 
> On the point of british homes, we actually have more empty homes than homeless people...what's that about?



There are a lot of people who own private property but do nothing with them. there are flats above the shops in my town that have been empty for decades.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> There are a lot of people who own private property but do nothing with them. there are flats above the shops in my town that have been empty for decades.



Mhm, there's an empty businesspark in my town. If we're going to spend money hosting criminals I think we should also shell out and host regular folk in these buildings which are sitting there gathering value so that they can be sold to another person who will let them gather value.

...it's like if a wealthy person bought up all the food and let it gather value while people went hungry...oh wait, the grain mountains...


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## Cyanide_tiger (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Point of fact, human rights are unalienable, as soon as we agree there's a debateable line that forfeits them, then that line can be moved so that say, you can execute people for tax fraud or being racists or maybe being jewish.
> 
> The man won't be allowed to work in a job with children ever in his life.



The slippery-slope argument is a fallacy and the extremety of your point doesn't follow. Just because a line can be moved, that doesn't mean it's going to move to a certain point.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Cyanide_tiger said:


> The slippery-slope argument is a fallacy and the extremety of your point doesn't follow. Just because a line can be moved, that doesn't mean it's going to move to a certain point.



I used those examples because they're real life examples which _have _happened in various countries that had different ideas and standards of human treatment. I agknowledge that slippery slope is fallacious but hey it hase been well justified in this instance that if you don't say 'x under no circumstances,' people will almost certainly x under unreasonable circumstances, for instance- where x is an activity widely recognised as being dodgy. 

Human rights is a compilation of activity x's.


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## Onnes (Jul 15, 2012)

The very concept of human rights is based around the idea that people are granted rights simply for being human and that these rights cannot be denied. Privileges that are more fleeting do not fall under the term.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Am I the only one who see's something wrong with this shit?


Well, besides the fact that your second article is from the Daily Fail, you're complaining about a convicted two-time rapist getting four years, and half the arguments I've seen going on about how "wrong" this is relate to "Political correctness!" / "Goddamn Foreigners"... No, you aren't the only one who sees something wrong with "this shit". However, I'm not sure if we can actually count you / said repliers / the Daily Mail as good authority figures of "which criminal cases are loads of shit".


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## Fallowfox (Jul 15, 2012)

Onnes said:


> The very concept of human rights is based around the idea that people are granted rights simply for being human and that these rights cannot be denied. Privileges that are more fleeting do not fall under the term.



...I'm not sure what fleeting privileges you're referring to? Not being sent back to warzones isn't one of these however.


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## ADF (Jul 15, 2012)

> 'In any event, removing him would be contrary to the United Kingdomâ€™s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.â€™



Fucking EU...


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## Onnes (Jul 15, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> ...I'm not sure what fleeting privileges you're referring to? Not being sent back to warzones isn't one of these however.



I was actually agreeing with you. The UK calls their law the "Human Rights Act" precisely because it deals with human rights. There's no circumstances that nullify such rights, which is why judges don't simply deport criminals--they always have to consider whether that deportation would contravene said rights.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

ADF said:


> Fucking EU...


"Goddamn Convention on Human Rights, what good has it ever done?"


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## Furryjones (Jul 15, 2012)

Raped two kids eh? If it were up to me the bastard would be executed, screw jail time. That doesn't fix jack shit, he'll still be a rapist when he gets out. Gas him, electrocute him, hell put him up to the firing squad or hang the pervert. Rapists, especially those that do it to children, should be shown no mercy, no leniency, shouldn't even be treated as a human being. Human beings act in a civilized manner where sex is consensual, never forced.
  So to iterate, execute him, that's all he deserves.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 15, 2012)

Furryjones said:


> Raped two kids eh? If it were up to me the bastard would be executed, screw jail time. That doesn't fix jack shit, he'll still be a rapist when he gets out. Gas him, electrocute him, hell put him up to the firing squad or hang the pervert. Rapists, especially those that do it to children, should be shown no mercy, no leniency, shouldn't even be treated as a human being. Human beings act in a civilized manner where sex is consensual, never forced.
> So to iterate, execute him, that's all he deserves.


B-b-but you can't DO that bawwwww. He's HUMAN! And also a victim too :V


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## ADF (Jul 15, 2012)

Onnes said:


> I was actually agreeing with you. The UK calls their law the "Human Rights Act" precisely because it deals with human rights. There's no circumstances that nullify such rights, which is why judges don't simply deport criminals--they always have to consider whether that deportation would contravene said rights.



This mentality is part of the problem.

It's like how America names things so that they are difficult to oppose. Who could oppose the patriot act but someone who isn't a patriot? In the same way, who could oppose the European convention but someone who opposes human rights?

I am 100% behind countries being run by those who were elected to run them, to represent the interests of those who live in the country. Repeatedly the people of the UK are finding their moral core sickened by the European courts rulings on matters that doesn't concern them. They don't have to live in the countries they dictate these threats to public safety cannot be kicked out of. They don't have to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

As long as people link the European court of human rights, with human rights themselves, then dealing with the problems caused will remain difficult.



Attaman said:


> "Goddamn Convention on Human Rights, what good has it ever done?"



Example of the problem...


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

ADF said:


> I am 100% behind countries being run by those who were elected to run them,


So I assume you were in tears when the election was considered null in Egypt, and memories of the US-backed Shah in Iran haunt you still at night?



ADF said:


> to represent the interests of those who live in the country. Repeatedly the people of the UK are finding their moral core sickened by the European courts rulings on matters that doesn't concern them.


 And repeatedly it's shown that the general people _don't_ have the intelligence to know who or what they want (case-in-point: Austerity!Yay groups, the common belief that immigrants are out to take control of the UK / Europe, etc). 



ADF said:


> They don't have to live in the countries they dictate these threats to public safety cannot be kicked out of.


 Just because someone's a criminal does _not_ mean they no longer deserve the basic privileges afforded to all free persons.



ADF said:


> As long as people link the European court of human rights, with human rights themselves, then dealing with the problems caused will remain difficult.


 Please tell me this isn't going to be one of those things wherein we're told how UNESCO is obviously a secret anti-Israeli Illuminati, but in this case European Convention of Human Rights a secret anti-"True Citizen" Brotherhood.


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## ADF (Jul 15, 2012)

Attaman said:


> So I assume you were in tears when the election was considered null in Egypt, and memories of the US-backed Shah in Iran haunt you still at night?



Right off the bat, you are attempting to demonize me. You're just further proving the problem by grabbing at whatever bad examples you can get your hands on. You're attempting to make my views look extreme and for what? For wanting real democracy? For a country to be run by those who are elected by the people living under that government?

I'm not going to bother to respond to the rest of your post, as you're just out to make me look bad for my views. So instead, here's an axe murderer celebrating that the European court of human rights ruled in his favour. That thieves, murders, rapists and paedophiles have the right to elect the people who run the country; despite still serving a prison sentence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKsLcxJ2shU

Everyone is universally disgusted. Especially at the idea of the government having to pay them all compensation, if we don't give them the vote. We see prison as suspending civil liberties as punishment and this would include voting. Of course, you think we're all too stupid to hold such views and should be dictated to by a foreign organisation accountable to none of the people actually living here.

Why even bother holding elections? Since we're all too stupid to know what's good for us, let's just stick people in power that can decide what is in our interests.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

ADF said:


> Right off the bat, you are attempting to demonize me.


Says the one who, for their two posts of this thread, did nothing but demonize a European Convention and a poster.



ADF said:


> You're just further proving the problem by grabbing at whatever bad examples you can get your hands on.


How, exactly, are they bad examples? Those are _very good_ examples of "Person put in power the people don't like / person denied power that the people did like". Which, to some degree, also boils back to my second point (while the Shah propping was indeed a terrible choice, there's reason to believe that Egypt's election winner might not have been rainbows and sunshine).



ADF said:


> You're attempting to make my views look extreme and for what? For wanting real democracy? For a country to be run by those who are elected by the people living under that government?





ADF said:


> That thieves, murders, rapists and paedophiles have the right to elect the people who run the country; despite still serving a prison sentence.


So, what you're saying is that these people are not living under the British Government? Does this mean that they are distinct citizens of another nation? That they are nationless individuals?



ADF said:


> We see prison as suspending civil liberties as punishment and this would include voting.


 In your first quote you advocate a "real democracy", then talk about _stripping the rights to vote of people you dislike_. By any chance is your "real democracy" based on that of Athens?



ADF said:


> Why even bother holding elections? Since we're all too stupid to know what's good for us, let's just stick people in power that can decide what is in our interests.


 Elections hold merit when the public is properly educated, informed, etcetera. More often than not, this is _not_ the case in many democratic nations. Of course, how to fix this is a rather difficult question, since if going for a "real democracy" things like "Test someone on how much they know about the political arena" can quite handily remove a significant demographic's vote (similar to voting licenses).


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## Butters Shikkon (Jul 15, 2012)

It would appear the core issue of this thing isn't weither a foreigner should be deported or granted asylum as it is if criminals(let's say raptists) should retain their human rights. In that arena, I would say yes. As ugly as it is, we must protect the bad with the good unless we become monsters ourselves. Everyone knows the poem "They came for the Jews" right? Essentially the same idea here. As a people, we should be careful when pulling out the "toture/execute" card cuz you don't want too many of those in your deck. At times, a quick emotional response seems fitting, but its that type of thinking that creates a fascist society. And that is even scarier in my opinion.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 15, 2012)

Butterflygoddess16 said:


> It would appear the core issue of this thing isn't weither a foreigner should be deported or granted asylum as it is if criminals(let's say raptists) should retain their human rights. In that arena, I would say yes. As ugly as it is, we must protect the bad with the good unless we become monsters ourselves. Everyone knows the poem "They came for the Jews" right? Essentially the same idea here. As a people, we should be careful when pulling out the "toture/execute" card cuz you don't want too many of those in your deck. At times, a quick emotional response seems fitting, but its that type of thinking that creates a fascist society. And that is even scarier in my opinion.


Why don't you tell that to the parents? We may as well be raping children ourselves if we're going to defend this 'man'.
As for the 'monsters' bit, a famous quote is not necessarily true.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Tell that to the parents; you may as well be raping their children yourself if you're going to defend this 'man'.


 Everyone deserves fair treatment in the court of law, and in regards to being a human being. For someone who so adamantly advocates animal rights, you seem to be _more_ than eager to deny basic rights to human beings.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 15, 2012)

Attaman said:


> Everyone deserves fair treatment in the court of law, and in regards to being a human being. For someone who so adamantly advocates animal rights, you seem to be _more_ than eager to deny basic rights to human beings.


I never actually said anything about 'rights'; the term 'right' is thrown around too much in general, I think.


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## Onnes (Jul 15, 2012)

For the record, this particular individual was granted asylum due to the probability that he would be tortured or otherwise abused upon his arrival in Sudan. If you wanted to change this decision in future cases you would have to allow deportations in cases where torture was a probable punishment upon return.


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## ADF (Jul 15, 2012)

Attaman said:


> snip, because some of those statements are just outright idiotic and not worth bothering...



Again, you seem to think we are all too stupid to be allowed to make decisions on the running of our own countries. Which of course brings the question, who gets to make the decisions? What ideal alternative are you looking to?

You are looking to unstable countries to try to argue against the power of the vote, but I don't live in an unstable country, I live in the United Kingdom. We're supposed to be a representative democracy, and I utterly oppose transfers of power away from those who are accountable to its people. You might as well be living in a dictatorship if power is handed to someone with no accountability to the electorate, which is why I oppose the European Union.

Since you apparently have no problem with people who are not elected or accountable to the people of a country, dictating to them on how it is run, what more is there to say? Our ideologies are opposing. The very idea of a voting license, while well meaning, could lead to significant problems. It's giving the government the power to decide who can and cannot vote.

I'm done for tonight.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> I never actually said anything about 'rights'; the term 'right' is thrown around too much in general, I think.


No, you didn't mention rights, you merely said "defend". You did not specify whether you meant "defend" as in "offer him his day in court", "defend his right to be treated like a human being", "defend his right to not be sent home and - most probably - be tortured / abused upon arrival", or so-on.



ADF said:


> Again, you seem to think we are all too stupid to be allowed to make decisions on the running of our own countries.


 Considering my nation is considering the re-election of people who have held the global economy hostage _twice_ purely out of spite of their opposing party (and, worse, there are people who believe that this is the _proper function of the political system_), *yes*, I think that generally the majority cannot be called upon to know the difference between what it wants and what it needs. 

However, looking back, I find something interesting: When I mention people being stupid, I mention it in context of "what people want when they elect officials". You, then, twist that to make me sound like I'm advocating the abolishment of the election system.



ADF said:


> Which of course brings the question, who gets to make the decisions? What ideal alternative are you looking to?


 _I never said such a thing, you bloody git_. You are the one saying I want to abolish the voting system, _I_ merely pointed out, and I quote:



			
				ME said:
			
		

> ADF said:
> 
> 
> > to represent the interests of those who live in the country. Repeatedly the people of the UK are finding their moral core sickened by the European courts rulings on matters that doesn't concern them.
> ...





ADF said:


> You are looking to unstable countries to try to argue against the power of the vote,


 The Iran example was the US _purposefully destabilizing a country by overriding what the people wanted to get cheap oil, and how sometimes it's best to leave people with who they voted for instead of installing puppet regimes_. For fucks sake, at least _read_ what I type instead of spewing out words in the hope they relate.



ADF said:


> Since you apparently have no problem with people who are not elected or accountable to the people of a country, dictating to them on how it is run,


The irony here, with your prior posts' implications that you supported the US-backed Shah in Iran, is _astounding_.



ADF said:


> The very idea of a voting license, while well meaning, could lead to significant problems. It's giving the government the power to decide who can and cannot vote.


 _Something I very well stated as a significant problem_.


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## Butters Shikkon (Jul 15, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> Why don't you tell that to the parents? We may as well be raping children ourselves if we're going to defend this 'man'.



In a way, yes. You are correct. As morbid and hideous as it may seem, rape will always exist in "civilization". To eliminate rape altogether, one would have to aggressively hunt down and kill potential threats. Anyone who even thinks of rape activity must be destroyed as it would always leave an opening to such a situation, but what if some veiw sexuality itself as a seed for this to grow from? We must then re-program humanity to complete asexuality and non-sexual behavior. Even then, some would use rape as revenge/insult so those members of society with agressive tenacities should be exterminated as to solve this problem. How many ppl we got left? (Or for an easier method to eliminate rape: total planet suicide. No one around to rape/be raped.

It's this thought process that would quickly burn the world to ashes if you ask me. I do wish rape would never have happened or continue to exist, but life's not fair and we can't root it out without losing some of our humanity in the process.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 15, 2012)

Attaman said:


> No, you didn't mention rights, you merely said "defend". You did not specify whether you meant "defend" as in "offer him his day in court", "defend his right to be treated like a human being", "defend his right to not be sent home and - most probably - be tortured / abused upon arrival", or so-on.


Not what I was talking about; I was referring to your claim that I adamantly advocate animal rights (though it is not a_ bad _idea, as they otherwise become objects in a legal context, to be walked all over by humans hiding behind their own 'rights' ).


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## ADF (Jul 15, 2012)

Attaman said:


> I never said such a thing, you bloody git.



I'm glad the feeling is mutual. It's most irritating when someone injects extremism into everything you say in an effort to discredit it, isn't it?



> Criticise the European convention of human rights? That means you oppose all human rights!
> 
> Think countries should be run by elected people? You must support what happened in Egypt!
> 
> People who broke the law of a society to the extent that they are imprisoned; shouldn't have a say in how that society is run? You're calling them none citizens and just want to strip the rights of people you dislike!





> you supported the US-backed Shah in Iran.



For gods sake! Is it any wonder I got fed up of talking to you? I'm off to bed.


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## Attaman (Jul 15, 2012)

ADF said:


> I'm glad the feeling is mutual. It's most irritating when someone injects extremism into everything you say in an effort to discredit it, isn't it?


Hm, let me break this down in pieces:

Your first quote:


ADF said:


> > 'In any event, removing him would be contrary to the United Kingdomâ€™s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.â€™
> 
> 
> Fucking EU...


This is _very literally your entire first post in the thread_. My response was:


Attaman said:


> "Goddamn Convention on Human Rights, what good has it ever done?"



Which leads me to wonder how, pray-tell, I was "interjecting extremism" onto you? Was it perhaps the snarky tone? I did not realize snark lead to interjecting extremism. D'oh, wait, *I'm doing it again.*

Second quote which you attribute to me:


Attaman said:


> So I assume you were in tears when the election was considered null in Egypt, and memories of the US-backed Shah in Iran haunt you still at night?


This is, humorously, _completely_ different from what you claim I'm saying even out of context. Disregarding that this quote means you should have been _in uproar_ over what happened in Egypt, it was not "injecting extremism" in any fashion. Well, at least if you said "Yes, I think what happened in Egypt is a tragedy and the Shah was fucking horrifying". By going out of the way to do everything but admit (and at least strongly imply) "I support the Shah and take exception to the election in Egypt (/ am in support of the follow-up coup)", you have handily "injected extremism" on yourself perfectly well.

As for your last quote: 



ADF said:


> You're attempting to make my views look extreme and for what? For wanting real democracy? For a country to be run by those who are elected by the people living under that government?





ADF said:


> That thieves, murders, rapists and paedophiles have the right to elect the people who run the country; despite still serving a prison sentence.





Attaman said:


> So, what you're saying is that these people are not living under the British Government? Does this mean that they are distinct citizens of another nation? That they are nationless individuals?





ADF said:


> We see prison as suspending civil liberties as punishment and this would include voting.


For gods sake! Is it any wonder I got fed up of talking to you? I'm off to bed.[/QUOTE]

The implication here being _you can't say you have a real democracy wherein everyone votes wherein at the same time saying "But these citizens don't count honest to goodness"_. In that case it's either _not a real democracy_, or _you redefine what counts as a citizens / person so as to keep it an "Everyone gets a vote" system_.


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## meh_is_all (Jul 16, 2012)

The English confuse me, the cops drive little smart cars and don't carry weapons.


----------



## Bliss (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Fucking EU...


If you had any credibility left to whinge about issues you do, you would know the European Convention on Human Rights has nothing to do with EU. It was drafted and signed years before EU or it's predecessors existed on any level and has been signed by all countries in Europe except for Belarus.


----------



## Rilvor (Jul 16, 2012)

Here's an update on The Attack on Melody McDermott:



			
				sgath said:
			
		

> The two criminals in this case have been sentenced. To seven years. They'll be out sooner than that, and back to hurting people.
> 
> One of them has 77 prior convictions. You read that right, seventy-seven.
> 
> ...



Original story of the incident is here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-vicious-hate-crime-simply-dressed-goth.html

I find myself utterly perplexed when regarding Britain. Maybe it is easier to look outward than inward, as certainly injustice happens here often enough, but such shameful stories as these two criminals, I simply do not even understand.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Attaman said:


> snip



Those who break the law, shouldn't be able to elect those who make the law. That was unofficially decided as a moral aspect of the society I live in, that is why people are outraged at this ruling. When they leave prison, they can vote again. It's one of many liberties they lose as a result of going to prison, so trying to spin it as hypocrisy really isn't doing well. When you go to prison you're going to lose liberties no matter how you look at it. How could I possibly take the argument of "you're denying votes to people you don't like" seriously? 

People I don't like? Really? That they committed crimes of a suitable seriousness that they were imprisoned is just a foot note is it?

If the arguments in defence of the misrepresentation of what I have said; comes down to you being "snarky". I really don't want to hear it. The difference being I was given reason to get an anti-democracy impression from yourself, with repeated reference to you not trusting the public's judgement. You've just come out with these comments suggesting more extreme views from my statements; right off the bat.



Lizzie said:


> If you had any credibility left to whinge about issues you do, you would know the European Convention on Human Rights has nothing to do with EU. It was drafted and signed years before EU or it's predecessors existed on any level and has been signed by all countries in Europe except for Belarus.



In the 1950s to be more exact. The European trade union was established in the 1970s, but that doesn't prevent it from being used as an argument that we signed up for the EU; which arrived decades later. While not directly part of the EU, it's part of Europe, it's part of the unified structure that they are attempting to establish. Hence "fucking EU". Another example of the BS we have to put up with from egomaniacs from Europe, who have deemed themselves entitled to run Europe, without undergoing the inconvenience of being accountable to a single voter...

Society was built for the interests of those who live within it. When you remove that accountability, they're just ruling over people; with people having to accept whatever they decide. Not that I expect you to care about any of that, because I know accountability to the electorate has never been a problem for you in past discussions.


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## Bliss (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> In the 1950s to be more exact. The European trade union was established  in the 1970s, but that doesn't prevent it from being used as an argument  that we signed up for the EU; which arrived decades later. While not directly part of the EU, it's part of Europe, it's part of the unified structure that they are attempting to establish. Hence "fucking EU". Another example of the BS we have to put up with from egomaniacs from Europe, who have deemed themselves entitled to run Europe, without undergoing the inconvenience of being accountable to a single voter...


An entertaining tale, brethren. Those filthy continentals, how dare they!



> Society was built for the interests of those who live within it. When you remove that accountability, they're just ruling over people; with people having to accept whatever they decide. Not that I expect you to care about any of that, because I know accountability to the electorate has never been a problem for you in past discussions.


Unless you truly are advocating an eradication of an individual judiciary, appointed by legislature, interpreting pre-existing as well as democratically ratified laws and treaties, I have yet no idea what political fringe group you're part of.

Would thou inform us of your take on 'accountability to the electorate'? It clearly isn't one that is mainstream in modern liberal democracies.


----------



## Batty Krueger (Jul 16, 2012)

yew shur du haff aloht uv bhuk lerninz.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> An entertaining tale, brethren. Those filthy continentals, how dare they!
> 
> Unless you truly are advocating an eradication of an individual judiciary, appointed by legislature, interpreting pre-existing as well as democratically ratified laws and treaties, I have yet no idea what political fringe group you're part of.
> 
> Would thou inform us of your take on 'accountability to the electorate'? It clearly isn't one that is mainstream in modern liberal democracies.



People are put into power in government through the electorate, who has the ability to remove them next election if they do not meet the public's expectations. They're accountable to the public because they are a public servant, chosen by the public, to represent their constituency interests in government. It's that simple.

I really do not like humouring these sort of things with you, because under it all; I know you are pro EU superstate. Meaning given the chance, you would render all of this powerless by transferring most powers away from elected officials and to the central planners in the EU. Because that worked out just swell in the USSR, didn't it? I cannot take you criticising any of these subjects seriously, because given the chance, you would render governments powerless and simply caretakers to implement EU decisions. Which has led to the growth of nationalist parties in countries like Greece and your own, because they're the only ones offering people a choice.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Furryjones said:


> Raped two kids eh? If it were up to me the bastard would be executed, screw jail time. That doesn't fix jack shit, he'll still be a rapist when he gets out. Gas him, electrocute him, hell put him up to the firing squad or hang the pervert. Rapists, especially those that do it to children, should be shown no mercy, no leniency, shouldn't even be treated as a human being. Human beings act in a civilized manner where sex is consensual, never forced.
> So to iterate, execute him, that's all he deserves.



and if you calously execute someone only to discover they weren't guilty?


----------



## Ruby Dragon (Jul 16, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Then why the fuck was he granted asylum? why wasn't he shoved into a British prison, after all he committed a serious crime. on our soil I believe yet we grant him permission to LIVE here which means he gets all the benefits that come with it that we as tax payers pay for.
> 
> He should be in a British jail not a British home that someone in more need than him needs.
> 
> Shall we welcome some murderers while we are at it? Perhaps toss in a couple of rapists too, grant them asylum, let them live amongst us on our streets and not in jail where they belong, yeah makes absolute perfect sense to me dude.



But then people will bitch about the money being poured into prisons, it's already occurring here in the States.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Ruby Dragon said:


> But then people will bitch about the money being poured into prisons, it's already occurring here in the States.



In the united states 1% of your population is in prison, one of the highest rates in the western world. If you're an african american you're more likely to go to prison than college and it's only with the deflated pay of prison workers that the USA can compete industrially with nations like mexico.

The USA gets money out of prisons because it's run pretty much as back door slavery.


and adf, please don't make claims that 'the british people are sickened to their core' or 'universally oppose x', because you can never speak for us all. I'm in favour of giving prisoners the vote for instance; this does not sicken me to my core at all.


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## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> and adf, please don't make claims that 'the british people are sickened to their core' or 'universally oppose x', because you can never speak for us all. I'm in favour of giving prisoners the vote for instance; this does not sicken me to my core at all.



Many people were when the decision was made. Especially with that axe murderer gloating about it on YouTube, it sparked a debate on the European convention of human rights that lasted months if you recall. As well as that illegal immigrant (*failed asylum seeker) that killed a child in the hit and run, but couldn't be kicked out of the country because of his "right to a family life".


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Many people were when the decision was made. Especially with that axe murderer gloating about it on YouTube, it sparked a debate on the European convention of human rights that lasted months if you recall. As well as that illegal immigrant that killed a child in the hit and run, but couldn't be kicked out of the country because of his "right to a family life".



And still, it's not universal and it doesn't speak for all of us. Sometimes I have real trouble grasping what appears to be popular public reaction [though let's be fair it's usually a right wing reaction exaggerated by papers such as the mail], such as opposition to Alternative Vote, eventhough it takes 4 times as many voters to elect a liberal democrat politician than a conservative or labour politician. That's wholely unfair and AV would have fixed that, yet the argument that 'it will cost 0.2bn to reform our voting system' seemed to win, when 50bn was spent releiving banks. 
...and then there was that really odd petition for prisoners to 'only be fed bread and water,'. 

To the discussion at hand though cherry picking particular examples of nasty people doesn't justify denying an entire group of people the vote, that's an unfair and alarmist reaction. No matter how awful someone is they do still deserve a platform for their voice, because ad hominem* fallacies don't invalidate their arguments, aspirations or hopes.


For example: Mary lays out a convincing case for a new taxation system and states she thinks the spotty party provides the solution, but Jim says Mary's wrong because she was convicted of vandalism.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> And still, it's not universal and it doesn't speak for all of us. Sometimes I have real trouble grasping what appears to be popular public reaction [though let's be fair it's usually a right wing reaction exaggerated by papers such as the mail], such as opposition to Alternative Vote, eventhough it takes 4 times as many voters to elect a liberal democrat politician than a conservative or labour politician. That's wholely unfair and AV would have fixed that, yet the argument that 'it will cost 0.2bn to reform our voting system' seemed to win, when 50bn was spent releiving banks.
> ...and then there was that really odd petition for prisoners to 'only be fed bread and water,'.



Clearly I wouldn't support every opinion expressed on the news (anti AV claims were outright propaganda...). It's just in this case I agree with the general feeling the news put forward, that many people were angry at this decision. 

Rule of the mob isn't the same as democracy. There are measures in place to stop the majority discriminating against minorities, cruel and unusual punishment and so on.



Fallowfox said:


> To the discussion at hand though cherry picking particular examples of nasty people doesn't justify denying an entire group of people the vote, that's an unfair and alarmist reaction. No matter how awful someone is they do still deserve a platform for their voice, because ad hominem fallacies don't invalidate their arguments, aspirations or hopes.



They will have many opportunities to vote when they are out. They are in prison because they committed crimes against society, why should they have a say in how that society is run during their punishment period? We can elect police commissioners. Are we really going to let criminals have a say in who becomes police commissioner? 

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, I just find the idea of people serving prison sentences having a vote as ludicrous. It's not like this is some sort of cruel punishment, that we are depriving them of human needs.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Clearly I wouldn't support every opinion expressed on the news (anti AV claims were outright propaganda...). It's just in this case I agree with the general feeling the news put forward, that many people were angry at this decision.
> 
> Rule of the mob isn't the same as democracy. There are measures in place to stop the majority discriminating against minorities, cruel and unusual punishment and so on.
> 
> ...



People should have a say in how society functions, even if they are behind bars, because prisons are never the less party of said society and eventhough someone is a prisoner this doesn't inherently invalidate any views they have because as highlighted that's an ad hominem fallacy. 

It's not as if exclusively blood thirsty rapists will decide who their local police commissioner or member of parliament is.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> People should have a say in how society functions, even if they are behind bars, because prisons are never the less party of said society and eventhough someone is a prisoner this doesn't inherently invalidate any views they have because as highlighted that's an ad hominem fallacy.
> 
> It's not as if exclusively blood thirsty rapists will decide who their local police commissioner or member of parliament is.



The example you gave isn't really valid though.



> For example: Mary lays out a convincing case for a new taxation system and states she thinks the spotty party provides the solution, but Jim says Mary's wrong because she was convicted of vandalism.



Mary is out of prison and hence not subject to voting restrictions. If she is still in prison, there is also nothing restricting Mary putting forward these proposals, assuming they find people willing to listen. Prisoners not getting the vote would have no affect on Mary in your example, what she is doing is proposing a tax system; not voting. 

I'd agree taking random stuff out of their past to negate their arguments, regardless of their relevance, is an ad hominem attack. But that isn't what this is about. This is about prisoners not getting the vote "during" their sentence, while they are still serving their punishment.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> The example you gave isn't really valid though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


For the sake of all things can you assume mary is in prison? 

Mary justified her reason to vote for the spotty party, but she can't because she's in prison and the nation she lives in does not allow prisoners to vote eventhough her sentence for vandalism is in part of an abritrary nature. Her vandalism was in the past, but she's still in prison for another 6 months [though whether her sentence is 2 months 4 months or any other number is largely arbitrary] and misses an opportunity to make things change because the election happens to be in 5 months time [though if it were in 7 she would have voted anyway]. 

The reality is that mary's conviction of vandalism is irrelevant to her justified reason to vote, but she's ignored as a nonsense punishment eventhough her view is still useful.

Ignoring people's ability to articulate a view is a nonsensical punishment which doesn't provide any good to prisoners' preparation for reintroduction into standard society.


----------



## Attaman (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Those who break the law, shouldn't be able to elect those who make the law.


 Then you _aren't speaking of a real democracy_. I don't understand how "Don't allow everyone a vote" is a _requisite_ for a "Real Democracy". Furthermore, if I may ask, _how_ is giving another... .17% of the population the right to vote going to completely overturn the legal system (the percent of England & Wale's population that is currently imprisoned, based on census numbers and the Independent's numbers for prisoners last year)? 



ADF said:


> That was unofficially decided as a moral aspect of the society I live in, that is why people are outraged at this ruling.


 No, you seem to be - taking in context your later posts in this thread - outraged that "foreigner / illegal immigrant" is considered a separate thing in its own right, and not a _multiplicative_ to penalties. Yes, there are people outraged by the ruling, but I've noticed some very key things about the people who are outraged (hints: The article's in the DailyMail [and the only other semi-credible one I can find is on Huff-Po: The rest are in places like "Immigration Watch", Telegraph, etc], the people outraged are also - conveniently - the people who think there's an overburdening PC that's allowing "dem foreigners" to get away with stuff, and everyone in this thread who's frothing at Sani is also conveniently ignoring the literal child-rapist and McDermott cases), and to be frank there's some rather bright flags being thrown up.

On that note, I'd like to bring up that you're _confirming_ what I said earlier. Even if we assume you're 100% right, that I'm the uneducated one, and that your conclusion is solidly backed by literal facts... there's no doubt other people in the UK who share my opinion (because that's what it'd be if the facts were firmly in your favor). You know what that means? _People are voting in your nation who don't have any idea what the facts are_, which falls firmly into the "repeatedly it's shown that the general people don't have the intelligence to know who or what they want" comment.



ADF said:


> so trying to spin it as hypocrisy really isn't doing well.


It is when you're advocating a "Real Democracy", unless in this case "Real Democracy" is to Democracy what "Real Christian" is to Christianity.



ADF said:


> When you go to prison you're going to lose liberties  no matter how you look at it. How could I possibly take the argument of "you're denying votes to people you don't like" seriously?


 By, I 'unno, *not stating you'd like a nation wherein everything was decided purely by the vote of the people, then say "Except these people they don't count".*



ADF said:


> People I don't like? Really? That they committed crimes of a suitable seriousness that they were imprisoned is just a foot note is it?


 Apparently it is, considering the main thing you've been whinging about this (page 2) and the next page is "Goddamn Foreigners", with their crimes being _icing_ instead of the focus. Furthermore, again, when you're advocating a "real democracy", you typically have to treat people as people. Now, I may be a bit off with my facts, I mean I haven't visited a prison since... I can't recall ever, but I'm fairly certain that a prisoner also counts as a _person_.

Oh darn it, I'm using snark again. I wonder what sort of extremism I injected into you above. Bah, _again_.



ADF said:


> If the arguments in defence of the misrepresentation of what I have said; comes down to you being "snarky".


 They _don't_. They come down to you reading "John Runs" and responding as though I said "Paul Jumps". I quite clearly pointed out how all three of the "misrepresentations" I've given are, at best, a misinterpretation by _you_ of what I said, and at worst either you _directly stating something then trying to backpedal_, or _you making shit up in an attempt to save face_. I notice you still haven't admitted that you made up the claim of me calling for the abolishment of the electoral system in the UK, or the claim that I was using the Iran puppet-Shah as an example of "Government of the People" failing (hint again: It _wasn't_, if you knew a smidge about that portion of history you'd know it was _the United States overthrowing a beloved national leader_ to install a dictator that would sell the US oil for cheap), or that I was trying to argue against a voting system in general, or that...

Oh, hey, I can quite clearly back up you directly stating what I'm trying to do, and _have_ shown each of those times that you're basically just floundering and grabbing a handful of words in the hope they were used in a fashion you think they were used.



ADF said:


> I really don't want to hear it. The difference being I was given reason to get an anti-democracy impression from yourself,


 _By asking you if you were upset that Democracy / the opinion of the people was thwarted twice?_ By stating something that _you yourself admit is true_ (that many people do not have the intelligence to be expected to vote in an appropriate / informed manner) but that _we can't move to a voter aptitude system / registration system as it's full of problems_?



ADF said:


> You've just come out with these comments suggesting more extreme views from my statements; right off the bat.


 No, I haven't. _You've_ made up extreme views for me ranging from "Attaman doesn't want the UK to use a vote-based system any more" to "Attaman was in support of the Iranian puppet-Shah" (if not through direct statement, by _repeatedly refusing to read what you're talking about_) to "Attaman wants serving criminals to be a determining vote in what laws are made" (despite them making up less than .2% of the total population!). _I_, meanwhile, have been responding to "Fucking EU" (in response to the EU following the Convention of Human Rights), "I want a real democracy but think these people shouldn't get votes", and "Yes that literal child rapist and head smasher are bad, but LOOKIT FOREIGNER NOT BEING SMASHED BY LAW".


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> For the sake of all things can you assume mary is in prison?
> 
> Mary justified her reason to vote for the spotty party, but she can't because she's in prison and the nation she lives in does not allow prisoners to vote eventhough her sentence for vandalism is in part of an abritrary nature. Her vandalism was in the past, but she's still in prison for another 6 months [though whether her sentence is 2 months 4 months or any other number is largely arbitrary] and misses an opportunity to make things change because the election happens to be in 5 months time [though if it were in 7 she would have voted anyway].
> 
> ...



To put it simply, tough. If she wanted to vote, she shouldn't have committed the crime.

I was criticised earlier for referring to the thieves, murderers, paedophiles etc. that would be given the right to vote. But using idealistic scenarios like Mary, just because it's a positive rather than a negative, is no more a valid argument. The reality is there will be a lot of average people in prison with criminal acts, with a minority of Mary's and Hirst's.

I do not supports convicted criminals, in prison, getting the vote. There are lots of arguments for or against, but that's my position. You're of course free to disagree.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Attaman said:


> snip



I really cannot be bothered dealing with you today. If I start now that's it, that's my day absorbed into not only addressing this wall of text (and the ones that will undoubtedly follow); but also the irritating misrepresentations/exaggerations of my responses. And what would be the point? What would there to be gain?

I'm just dropping it now and saving myself from a lot of pointless bickering.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> To put it simply, tough. If she wanted to vote, she shouldn't have committed the crime.
> 
> I was criticised earlier for referring to the thieves, murderers, paedophiles etc. that would be given the right to vote. But using idealistic scenarios like Mary, just because it's a positive rather than a negative, is no more a valid argument. The reality is there will be a lot of average people in prison with criminal acts, with a minority of Mary's and Hirst's.
> 
> I do not supports convicted criminals, in prison, getting the vote. There are lots of arguments for or against, but that's my position. You're of course free to disagree.



I'm free to disagree? What a privelege that I have your permission to think, of course people in prison aren't free to express that but you get the idea.


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm free to disagree? What a privelege that I have your permission to think, of course people in prison aren't free to express that but you get the idea.



Read into that a little too much I think.

What we have is the current system standard, inmates not getting the vote, against the ECHR dictating otherwise after that axe murderer won his case.

We'll see which ends up winning.


----------



## KigRatel (Jul 16, 2012)

This country really does disappoint me sometimes; there's simply too much red tape involved.


----------



## Attaman (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> I really cannot be bothered dealing with you today.


 So I assume you won't, then, admit to making stuff up when you said I was pro-Shah and against the idea of the UK holding elections?



ADF said:


> but also the irritating misrepresentations/exaggerations of my responses.





Attaman said:


> ADF said:
> 
> 
> > > 'In any event, removing him would be contrary to the United Kingdomâ€™s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.â€™
> ...


 Behold! My "irritating misrepresentation / exaggeration" of ADF's comments! And it only gets better from there. 



ADF said:


> Think countries should be run by elected people? You must support what happened in Egypt!





			
				What Fucking Happened in Egypt said:
			
		

> Enjoy a sample.
> 
> Thousands of protesters gathered for a third day in Cairo's Tahrir Square, cauldron of the revolution that overthrew Mubarak 16 months ago, to demand that the officers who replaced him keep their word and hand over to civilians by July 1.
> 
> The ruling military council has taken several steps in the past week to avoid giving up authority - dissolving the Islamist-led parliament and setting strict limits on the new president's powers. Prominent Islamists have nonetheless dampened talk of violence, for all their promise of permanent town square vigils until their demands are met.


Again, we see the "irritating misrepresentation / exaggeration" of ADF's comments, and I'm saying that if ADF thinks countries should be run by elected people, they should... not be run by elected people!



ADF said:


> People who broke the law of a society to the extent that they are imprisoned; shouldn't have a say in how that society is run? You're calling them none citizens and just want to strip the rights of people you dislike!





ADF said:


> You're attempting to make my views look extreme and for what? For wanting real democracy? For a country to be run by those who are elected by the people living under that government?


And then, same post:


ADF said:


> That thieves, murders, rapists and paedophiles have the right to elect the people who run the country; despite still serving a prison sentence.


How about seventeen posts later?


ADF said:


> Those who break the law, shouldn't be able to elect those who make the law.



To go back, and bold for emphasis:


ADF said:


> You're attempting to make my views look extreme and for what? For wanting *real democracy*? For *a country to be run by those who are elected by the people living under that government*?


Look! We see the misrepresentations / exaggerations inherent in the system! I obviously have been taking ADF completely out of context! Now, how about we see what's been going on in regard to my posts, and ADF's responses...



ADF said:


> to represent the interests of those who live in the country. Repeatedly the people of the UK are finding their moral core sickened by the European courts rulings on matters that doesn't concern them.





Attaman said:


> And repeatedly it's shown that the general people don't have the intelligence to know who or what they want (case-in-point: Austerity!Yay groups, the common belief that immigrants are out to take control of the UK / Europe, etc).





ADF said:


> Of course, you think we're all too stupid to hold such views and should be dictated to by a foreign organisation accountable to none of the people actually living here.
> 
> Why even bother holding elections? Since we're all too stupid to know what's good for us, let's just stick people in power that can decide what is in our interests.





Attaman said:


> Elections hold merit when the public is properly educated, informed, etcetera. More often than not, this is not the case in many democratic nations. Of course, how to fix this is a rather difficult question, since if going for a "real democracy" things like "Test someone on how much they know about the political arena" can quite handily remove a significant demographic's vote (similar to voting licenses).





ADF said:


> Again, you seem to think we are all too stupid to be allowed to make decisions on the running of our own countries. Which of course brings the question, who gets to make the decisions? What ideal alternative are you looking to?
> [...]
> Since you apparently have no problem with people who are not elected or accountable to the people of a country, dictating to them on how it is run, what more is there to say? [...]



Yay! Look, ADF got my point perfectly! "The average person doesn't have the intelligence to know who / what they want" = "Attaman has no problems with propped-up dictators and thinks that the UK should lose its election-based system because everyone there's too stupid to make its own decisions". Huzzah! A triumph for understanding in a thread of misrepresentations!


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

God, he posted another wall.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Read into that a little too much I think.
> 
> What we have is the current system standard, inmates not getting the vote, against the ECHR dictating otherwise after that axe murderer won his case.
> 
> We'll see which ends up winning.



Witholding votes from prisoners is both contrary to the list of human rights the UK has agreed to enforce and makes little independant sense on its own- especially as a punishment since a large number of inmates are politically apahetic [as is the rest of the UK].


----------



## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> *Witholding votes from prisoners is both contrary to the list of human rights the UK has agreed to enforce* and makes little independant sense on its own- especially as a punishment since a large number of inmates are politically apahetic [as is the rest of the UK].



There really isn't anything else to discuss. It's not a black and white issue.

As I said earlier, we disagree and that isn't going to change. You're not going to convince me that someone who has committed crimes worthy of imprisonment should have a say in how society is run; during their stay in prison. They can vote in any election they want when they have served their punishment, when political decisions are more relevant to their lives than when they were locked up. Imprisoning them is a far more significant restriction on their liberties than not being able to vote during elections, to say the latter is a breach of their human rights while the former is fine; would be a strange argument to me. At the end of the day, they're there to be punished.

You are of course free to hold a different opinion. By that I mean I agree to disagree, not what you interpreted before.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> There really isn't anything else to discuss. It's not a black and white issue.
> 
> As I said earlier, we disagree and that isn't going to change. You're not going to convince me that someone who has committed crimes worthy of imprisonment should have a say in how society is run; during their stay in prison. They can vote in any election they want when they have served their punishment, when political decisions are more relevant to their lives than when they were locked up. Imprisoning them is a far more significant restriction on their liberties than not being able to vote during elections, to say the latter is a breach of their human rights while the former is fine; would be a strange argument to me. At the end of the day, they're there to be punished.
> 
> You are of course free to hold a different opinion. By that I mean I agree to disagree, not what you interpreted before.




If you think there's no chance I'll convince you why were you bothering with discussion? .-. I think your attitude that prison 'is for punishment' is a bit vindictive, I think the aim should be to reform people and encourage them to appreciate the value of the society they live in and the useful part they can play- more like the norwegian system [which has a lower reoffending rate than our own], I see retributional approaches as just too emotionally entangled- though if you can prove to me that prisoners and the victims of their crimes psychologically benefit from more punishing sentences and that the associated reoffending rate is decreased, you could persuade me.

[point of fact at title, 'britain' is irrelevant, as these laws operate not exclusively in our country but in every country in the EU and which obeys human rights, we just don't hear about the 'outrage' from estonian or austrian versions of the daily mail online]


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## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> If you think there's no chance I'll convince you why were you bothering with discussion? .-.



Because you keep responding to me, apparently with the intent of converting me to your way of thinking; by continuing to make arguments against it. Despite repeated attempts on my part to just say "agree to disagree". 

That's the problem with online discussions, no one agrees to disagree online, someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Even on a political/legal issue where it's not black and white. You haven't got a face and body language that usually leads to people just dropping it after a while in face to face discussions. As a result conversations continue longer than they should, arguments are repeated but with variations that suggest different meanings, and it ends up just arguing until people burn out. For instance I totally recognise that prison is more about rehabilitation than punishment. But since I have had to keep repeating my position in reaction to your continued arguments against the subject, the wording has gone that way, and you've picked it up to spark another direction for the discussion/argument to continue.

So can we please agree to disagree? Because we're both aware of each others position on the matter and neither of us are budging.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> Because you keep responding to me, apparently with the intent of converting me to your way of thinking; by continuing to make arguments against it. Despite repeated attempts on my part to just say "agree to disagree".
> 
> That's the problem with online discussions, no one agrees to disagree online, someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Even on a political/legal issue where it's not black and white. You haven't got a face and body language that usually leads to people just dropping it after a while in face to face discussions. As a result conversations continue longer than they should, arguments are repeated but with variations that suggest different meanings, and it ends up just arguing until people burn out. For instance I totally recognise that prison is more about rehabilitation than punishment. But since I have had to keep repeating my position in reaction to your continued arguments against the subject, the wording has gone that way, and you've picked it up to spark another direction for the discussion/argument to continue.
> 
> So can we please agree to disagree? Because we're both aware of each others position on the matter and neither of us are budging.



I'm sorry for justifying my comments in light of the fresh criticisms you provided?

'if you can prove to me that prisoners and the victims of their crimes  psychologically benefit from more punishing sentences and that the  associated reoffending rate is decreased, you could persuade me.'


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## ADF (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm sorry for justifying my comments in light of the fresh criticisms you provided?
> 
> 'if you can prove to me that prisoners and the victims of their crimes  psychologically benefit from more punishing sentences and that the  associated reoffending rate is decreased, you could persuade me.'



I don't think they would benefit from punishment for the sake of punishment. I was hoping to get that across in the earlier post when I said I recognise prisons are more about rehabilitation than punishment. Hence the lack of need to convince you of a position I don't hold. The reason you got the impression I was saying that earlier; is because I said they're there to be punished. That's what prison is, it's a punishment "as well" as rehabilitation. While punishment isn't the sole function of prison, there is a element of that, after all you're depriving them of basic liberties everyone enjoys in a modern society. But because I left it at "they're there to be punished", you've come to the conclusion that I must automatically reject the idea that it's for rehabilitation, *simply because I didn't happen to mention that*.

Hence a demonstration of why this discussion should just be dropped, before it further devolves into arguing over interpretations and meanings. All the important areas have already been covered at this point.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

ADF said:


> I don't think they would benefit from punishment for the sake of punishment. I was hoping to get that across in the earlier post when I said I recognise prisons are more about rehabilitation than punishment. Hence the lack of need to convince you of a position I don't hold. The reason you got the impression I was saying that earlier; is because I said they're there to be punished. That's what prison is, it's a punishment "as well" as rehabilitation. While punishment isn't the sole function of prison, there is a element of that, after all you're depriving them of basic liberties everyone enjoys in a modern society. But because I left it at "they're there to be punished", you've come to the conclusion that I must automatically reject the idea that it's for rehabilitation, *simply because I didn't happen to mention that*.
> 
> Hence a demonstration of why this discussion should just be dropped, before it further devolves into arguing over interpretations and meanings. All the important areas have already been covered at this point.


I'm not accusing you of solely thinking prisoners should be punished, as I did use the word 'more', it's fair to describe your attitude as more punishing than mine, I'm not trying to describe it as totally so, so relax.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halden_Prison

It's examples such as this one which persuade me towards a more leniant attitude to prisons, and yup, norwegian prisoners vote. Whilst reoffending rates are calculated slighty different between nations the norwegian rate is significantly lower, beyond the 'noise floor' if you will, so that's why I thought a prison model more like theirs would be superior to the current one [whether or not you identify your views with the current system] :]

You don't need to reply, and I don't want you to think I'm trying to misrepresent your view.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Witholding votes from prisoners is both contrary to the list of human rights the UK has agreed to enforce and makes little independant sense on its own- especially as a punishment since a large number of inmates are politically apahetic [as is the rest of the UK].



Voting is not a human right, it's a fucking privilege, get it right. Fuck me sideways everything is a human right to some people ain;t it.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Voting is not a human right, it's a fucking privilege, get it right. Fuck me sideways everything is a human right to some people ain;t it.



Actually it is a human right...that's why it's on the list of human rights and why many developed countries follow this law voluntarily already. 

Of course there are no intrinsic or innate human rights, it's just the ones this planet has happened to agree on include the right to vote and to have political influence.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Actually it is a human right...that's why it's on the list of human rights and why many developed countries follow this law voluntarily already.
> 
> Of course there are no intrinsic or innate human rights, it's just the ones this planet has happened to agree on include the right to vote and to have political influence.



Just because someone say's it's a human right doesn't mean it is. I class thinks like needing to breath, eating, drinking, toilet, medical, clothing and bathing as basic human rights, anything else to me is a privilege.

Anyway, why has the thread derailed into a debate about human rights?


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Of course there are no intrinsic or innate human rights, it's just the ones this planet has happened to agree on .


Somebody said it for me, but not the person I expected.
But I also think that rights can be abused by the holder just as easily as they can be violated by another, to a point where said rights may be forfeit.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Just because someone say's it's a human right doesn't mean it is. I class thinks like needing to breath, eating, drinking, toilet, medical, clothing and bathing as basic human rights, anything else to me is a privilege.
> 
> Anyway, why has the thread derailed into a debate about human rights?



Because angry daily mail readers generally bash on human rights because of the examples specifically presented by a journalism company to make them irrate in order to view their website and scapegoat all our problems to foreign countries? ...the same company which claimed soup, air, being a man, woman, having children, not having children, deoderant and facebook cause cancer? 

Just a wee hunch.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Because angry daily mail readers generally bash on human rights because of the examples specifically presented by a journalism company to make them irrate in order to view their website and scapegoat all our problems to foreign countries? ...the same company which claimed soup, air, being a man, woman, having children, not having children, deoderant and facebook cause cancer?
> 
> Just a wee hunch.



Personally I don't read news papers. It was just something I read in The Sun that day and used the first articles online I came across that reported on it.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Personally I don't read news papers. It was just something I read in The Sun that day and used the first articles online I came across that reported on it.



I find a lot of british citizens say things such as 'boo human rights', 'make prison horrible' and 'political correctness gone mad!' without considering the wider implications if we removed legislation based on vindictive slants of newspaper stories. 

It wouldn't be a nice world to live in, whilst a murderer might be deported back to their kurdish homeland [and presumeably the problem stops existing once it's sufficiently far away] as a result there would also be very unsavoury things; the gherka wouldn't have their right to british nationality despite the fact many of them were killed in wars the UK had them fight in as just one example. These laws, despite making some britons very angry on specific cases, are in place with very good cause.


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## Attaman (Jul 16, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Anyway, why has the thread derailed into a debate about human rights?


 Human rights, when it was brought up, was actually relating more to the prisoner's right of safety, fair trial, etcetera. Voting was brought up less as a result of "human rights" (initially, anyways) and more a debate of "real democracy" and "should someone in prison be allowed to vote in a democratic society?" between me, ADF, and Fallow (Onnes and a few others jumped in at some points, but it was mostly two pages of us three bickering).    


Kit H. Ruppell said:


> But I also think that rights can be abused by the holder just as easily as they can be violated by another, to a point where said rights may be forfeit.


 I don't care if someone raped their way through an orphanage before slaughtering the lot of them, they are _still_ a human being and shall be afforded such basic privileges as "right to a trial," "not be slaughtered in a horrifically brutal fashion," "focusing on rehabilitation / punishment-and-detainment instead of throwing to pack of wolves," and so-on.


Randy-Darkshade said:


> Personally I don't read news papers. It was just something I read in The Sun that day and used the first articles online I came across that reported on it.


Ah, yes. The Sun. Home of such journalistic marvels as "Norway's 9/11: Al-Queda Massacre". A piece of advice: If you generally find the story only bounced around places such as The Sun, DailyMail, "ImmigrantWatch", and so-on, it's likely a sensationalist piece of work with minimal / no peer review or sourcing.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 16, 2012)

Attaman said:


> I don't care if someone raped their way through an orphanage before slaughtering the lot of them, they are _still_ a human being and shall be afforded such basic privileges as "right to a trial," "not be slaughtered in a horrifically brutal fashion," "focusing on rehabilitation / punishment-and-detainment instead of throwing to pack of wolves," and so-on.
> .


It is amazing how cruel 'kindness' can be. If this is what you would actually prescribe in such a situation, you may as well be his accomplice.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> It is amazing how cruel 'kindness' can be. If this is what you would actually prescribe in such a situation, you may as well be his accomplice.




'I advice we give murderers a fair trial'. 

'You might as well be his accomplice!'

Honestly...


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 16, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> 'I advice we give murderers a fair trial'.
> 
> 'You might as well be his accomplice!'
> 
> Honestly...


You would seriously care what happens to the filth in Attaman's hypothetical scenario? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 16, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> You would seriously care what happens to the filth in Attaman's hypothetical scenario? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.



That's the moral line which separates me from being the filth in attaman's hypothetical scenario. ._.


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## Jashwa (Jul 16, 2012)

How can you possibly be against fair trials? Fair trial=\=letting the person go or approving of their actions.

Fair trial=making sure they actually did it and prosecuting them accordingly. 

In Atta's case, the dude would get the highest sentence possible if he did it.


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## Rilvor (Jul 17, 2012)

Kit H. Ruppell said:


> You would seriously care what happens to the filth in Attaman's hypothetical scenario? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.



How curiously strange that you would think this way; This is not how proper law works Kit. Is not justice supposed to be blind? Is not Law the very element of neutrality?

It would seem to me something is clouding your vision, what I cannot say. Vengeful behavior is not law, you should know this.


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## Bliss (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> People are put into power in government through the electorate, who has the ability to remove them next election if they do not meet the public's expectations. They're accountable to the public because they are a public servant, chosen by the public, to represent their constituency interests in government. It's that simple.


Funny how that is _precisely_ how EU works. Parliament, directly elected by the public, which appoints the executive government responsible to it.



> I really do not like humouring these sort of things with you, because under it all; I know you are pro EU superstate.


Without doubt you do not; because I just don't buy it.



> Meaning given the chance, you would render all of this powerless by transferring most powers away from elected officials and to the central planners in the EU. Because that worked out just swell in the USSR, didn't it? I cannot take you criticising any of these subjects seriously, because given the chance, you would render governments powerless and simply caretakers to implement EU decisions. Which has led to the growth of nationalist parties in countries like Greece and your own, because they're the only ones offering people a choice.


_You do not know my personal opinions at all._ More so, they should not matter. Except to a person whose all arguments derive from misguided populism, ad hominem, slippery slope and, as demonstrated in this very thread, not-a-fucking-idea-what-I'm-talking-about.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> Funny how that is _precisely_ how EU works. Parliament, directly elected by the public, which appoints the executive government responsible to it.



Any arguments of the EU being democratic went flying out of the window, when they started replacing the heads of states with unelected bankers; because the elected leaders weren't doing as they were told. That and of course when countries wanted a vote on the Lisbon treaty, they were told to sod off; because the EU "doesn't bow to populism". Nor have I forgotten you being an apologist for the Ireland referendum, when they voted no and the EU told them to vote again to *give the right answer this time*.

It took years of fighting and campaigning just to change the insane fish discards policy of the EU, even a celebrity chef had to dedicate an entire television series to raising awareness on this one issue. Even then it is a bureaucratic nightmare and won't happen until 2018. How much more damage to our fish stocks have to be done before this policy is reversed? This is just one, just one example of the central planning nonsense we have to put up with from the EU. We have to wait till 2018 to stop doing something that is killing off our fish stocks, because even the people at the very top of our elected government *have no control over it*.

All of this from a union we never voted to join. I know you like to try and spin the 1970s vote for a trade agreement between European countries, decades before the EU was established, as being a vote to join the EU. But quite frankly I think you were deluded making that argument, nor do I think you actually care whether or not we were ever given a choice.

The EU has accelerated the process of establishing the United States of Europe, it doesn't even try to hide that's the objective these days. As a requirement of law, any additional transfers of power to the EU automatically results in a referendum in my country. They are required by law to hold a referendum. If the political class try to dodge this one, as they have tried to dodge it numerous times, there will be hell to pay.

The EU and anything like it is inherently anti democratic, because it takes power further away from the average person on the street who has to live under their decisions. What's the vote of one country when compared to 27 member states, most of which couldn't give a flying fuck what the English citizen cares about? The only people who should be deciding how this country is run, are people who are actually accountable to the taxpayer. Not people who demand a near 7% budget increase, when they haven't had their budget signed in well over a decade, when England is under austerity measures right now. The EU is utterly disconnected from the real world and out to save its own ass, no matter how many countries they have to put into debt servitude to help keep it all together.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

...oh dear, putting the EU asside, the rules of human rights they enforce, such as a fair trial, are in fact good, and it's been shocking to see people actually try to argue against giving people a fair trial in this thread. 

With relevance to the initial topic I think it's well justified to not deport people to warzones, 
with reference to the ensuing off shoot it's also not justified denying prisoners the vote as a punishment when most british citizens are politically apathetic and countries which value the human rights of the prisoner generally have improved reoffending rates, such as the scandinavian nations. 

Those are worthwhile laws to enforce whether or not it's the 'eu superstate united states of eurasia' that's trying to persuade our country to enforce them- we should enforce these evidently beneficial laws anyway.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

The European arrest warrant means they can pluck whoever they want from anywhere in Europe and imprison them. For as long as needed without charging them with a crime, without any right to appeal against it, regardless of the prison standards of the country they are being taken to. Simply because one European country says "we want them".

You have rights, until they say you don't.

Foreign terrorists, murderers and paedophiles have more human rights than an average Joe living in Europe. Because if someone wants to stick me in a sub standard prison system while they *investigate something to charge me with*, I'm off, I have no protection.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> The European arrest warrant means they can pluck whoever they want from anywhere in Europe and imprison them. For as long as needed without charging them with a crime, without any right to appeal against it, regardless of the prison standards of the country they are being taken to. Simply because one European country says "we want them".
> 
> You have rights, until they say you don't.
> 
> Foreign terrorists, murderers and paedophiles have more human rights than an average Joe living in Europe. Because if someone wants to stick me in a sub standard prison system while they *investigate something to charge me with*, I'm off, I have no protection.



I noticed the video was from 2011 so I bothered looking up current policy. 

No they can't extradite you for an investigation, only a criminal prosecution or enforcement of a custodial sentence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant


I'm not defending the EU, since I don't think I know enough about that organisation, I'm just pointing out you're wrong and exaggerating the truth to bash europe.

[in addition most of the comment is wrong if you read the article, eg prison conditions _do_ matter etcetera]


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I noticed the video was from 2011 so I bothered looking up current policy.
> 
> No they can't extradite you for an investigation, only a criminal prosecution or enforcement of a custodial sentence.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Arrest_Warrant
> ...



Just because it says on paper that it isn't supposed to happen, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There are a lot of things the EU isn't supposed to do on paper, yet that didn't prevent them from breaking their own rules; when the bailouts started. They stick the rules through the shredder when it's convenient. A lot of the economic problems in Europe today wouldn't have taken place if they obeyed what was written in the rules of membership, but even Germany didn't stick to the fiscal rules.

They say they cannot be taken for investigation, yet no evidence has to be presented to any court to demonstrate a crime has been committed. They just say they did it and our side have to take their word for it.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> Just because it says on paper that it isn't supposed to happen, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There are a lot of things the EU isn't supposed to do on paper, yet that didn't prevent them from breaking their own rules; when the bailouts started. They stick the rules through the shredder when it's convenient. A lot of the economic problems in Europe today wouldn't have taken place if they obeyed what was written in the rules of membership, but even Germany didn't stick to the fiscal rules.
> 
> They say they cannot be taken for investigation, yet no evidence has to be presented to any court to demonstrate a crime has been committed. They just say they did it and our side have to take their word for it.



So what does this have to do with denying prisoners the vote and deporting criminals to warzones? Am I meant to say 'okay we should do that because an authority called he EU has failed to provide those same rights to some innocent people,' ? Because that would be nonsense. 

Just read the article before making the assertion and recognise 'they break all the rules anyway' isn't a valid excuse to make an assertion that's clearly been contradicted- if you just repeat 'ah but whatever is stated they do what I say they do' that's not productive in any form or at all relevant really.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> So what does this have to do with denying prisoners the vote and deporting criminals to warzones? Am I meant to say 'okay we should do that because an authority called he EU has failed to provide those same rights to some innocent people,' ? Because that would be nonsense.



The thread is about injustice in the UK, the example being given that we cannot extradite a paedophile because of his human rights. That the people of the UK can be extradited on any grounds, with no evidence given, to a prison system of questionable quality is *very* relevant to the subject. That both of these are operating in the same country is a subject worth looking at.



> Just read the article before making the assertion and recognise 'they break all the rules anyway' isn't a valid excuse to make an assertion that's clearly been contradicted- if you just repeat 'ah but whatever is stated they do what I say they do' that's not productive in any form or at all relevant really.



The problem here is I have seen years of injustice, UK campaigns to bring people home from sub standard foreign prisons; because the European arrest warrant is seen as a gold standard in this country. The word is the bond, no evidence necessary. So they then rot in prisons for years where none of the guards speak English, without ever being told what their crimes are because they're 'unofficially' under investigation. I have seen all this, I know it to be true. But because I cannot simply Google up memories and show them to you, that the stories have become lost in the search engines, you accuse me of making stuff up to demonise the EU.

That is frustrating.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> The thread is about injustice in the UK, the example being given that we cannot extradite a paedophile because of his human rights. That the people of the UK can be extradited on any grounds, with no evidence given, to a prison system of questionable quality is *very* relevant to the subject. That these conflicting standards are operating in the same country is a subject worth looking at.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



We can't extradite a paedophile to a warzone. [that in itself is a terrible idea, as if people living in warzones need a net influx of violent criminals, there doesn't exist an infrastructure to cope with that in darfur, sudan]
We can extradite someone to face a fair prosecution to a safe european country. 

OH MY GAWD WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO!? 

 I'm accusing you of exaggerating because you're 
-not providing evidence to back up your claims
-specifically repeating assertions about legal documents, which when I find those documents turn out to be false. 

And even if the EU was unfairly extraditing individuals, guess what, I'd want that to stop but would never use it as an argument that we should hence unfairly extradite more individuals to darfur of all places.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> We can't extradite a paedophile to a warzone. [that in itself is a terrible idea, as if people living in warzones need a net influx of violent criminals, there doesn't exist an infrastructure to cope with that in darfur, sudan]
> We can extradite someone to face a fair prosecution to a safe european country.
> 
> OH MY GAWD WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO!?
> ...



False by whose standards? Reality or the one created by the people who created those documents? The sort of people who said the Euro was stronger than ever when deep into the crisis; and that the crisis was over last year.

If on paper rules are reality, then no bailouts have taken place in the Eurozone because that's against the rules. That and member states are within the debt parameters set by membership standards, the Eurocrisis is just a myth.



Fallowfox said:


> And even if the EU was unfairly extraditing individuals, guess what, I'd want that to stop but would never use it as an argument that we should hence unfairly extradite more individuals to darfur of all places.



I'm not using it as an argument to extradite people to warzones. I'm telling you that if this system stays in place, the public are going to become increasingly angry with the system. They're seeing their relatives extradited without any crime being proven, while convicted child rapists are being protected. Regardless of the complexities, people see that as an injustice.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> False by whose standards? Reality or the one created by the people who created those documents? The sort of people who said the Euro was stronger than ever when deep into the crisis; and that the crisis was over last year.
> 
> If on paper rules are reality, then no bailouts have taken place in the Eurozone because that's against the rules. That and member states are within the debt parameters set by membership standards, the Eurocrisis is just a myth.
> 
> ...




Ad hominem fallacy doesn't independantly prove that whatever you say is right and that whatever's written in the actual european arrest warrant is irrelevant. If you want to do that you could find examples of individuals unfairly extradited and then show that this statistically is significantly more likely to happen under european union authority than other comparable international societies. 

If we agree that extraditing people to warzones is injust okay that finishes the argument. Your opinion that people have, in general, a stunted understanding of the concept of justice [whilst probably having some truth, in light of the fact people here have argued against fair trials] is irrelevant and so is moaning about Europe.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Ad hominem fallacy doesn't independantly prove that whatever you say is right and that whatever's written in the actual european arrest warrant is irrelevant. If you want to do that you could find examples of individuals unfairly extradited and then show that this statistically is significantly more likely to happen under european union authority than other comparable international societies.



As I said, I frustratingly have to drop it. Because despite remembering campaigns to get people back, even UKIP fighting to get people back, finding online records is another thing.



Fallowfox said:


> If we agree that extraditing people to warzones is injust okay that finishes the argument. Your opinion that people have, in general, a stunted understanding of the concept of justice [whilst probably having some truth, in light of the fact people here have argued against fair trials] is irrelevant and so is moaning about Europe.



You're basically arguing tough, deal with it. But I'm telling you now, regardless of how unjust you may think it is, there is only so much of this the public will be willing to take. They see the years long fight to extradite that identified terrorist supporting cleric (Abu Hamza al-Masri), because they were concerned about his treatment; despite reassurances he wouldn't be mistreated. They see that failed asylum seeker running over a child in that hit and run, then not being extradited; because he had a kid with someone during his trial. Not forgetting the paedophile example in this thread.

All while any of us can be plucked from home on a whim. 

As these continue to pile up, how long do you think people are going to tolerate the present system, regardless of your strong feelings for it? I'm not making an argument to send people to warzones, before I'm accused of that again. I'm saying as these bastards continue to be protected, but not our family and friends, something is going to snap.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

People see a handful of daemonic assylum seekers, presented by media corporations which border on xenophobia and alarmism, but are not made aware of the greater number of assylum seekers and extraditions which go right. 

And no we can't be 'plucked on whim,', not unles you believe that everything written in the european arrest warrant is lies lies lies. 

I don't support the present system, we're denying prisoners the vote, we have a high reoffending rate in comparrison to other european nations etcetera, I just think it can be improved in a different direction to what you seem to favour. If there _is_ an inequality between the treatment of european union citizens and exgenous citizens I expect something to be done to improve the treatment for the losing party, though I'd also like to see more huamnisation for both. 

I suspect that's probably what you want too anyway- only you already believe there's a massive inequality and that most things europe touches are poisoned metaphorically.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Europe and the European Union are two separate entities. Just because I criticise the EU; doesn't mean I have something against Europe itself. That criticising the EU is an attack on Europe is simply Europhile propaganda.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> Europe and the European Union are two separate entities. Just because I criticise the EU; doesn't mean I have something against Europe itself. That criticising the EU is an attack on Europe is simply Europhile propaganda.



I was using europe as a synonym, I'm not accusing you of disliking a subcontinent. ._. Sheesh, you're very keen to accuse me of mispresenting your view, but if I say 'europe' rather than 'european union' suddenly I'm a europhillic propaganda spinner.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> Any arguments of the EU being democratic went flying out of the window, when they started replacing the heads of states with unelected bankers; because the elected leaders weren't doing as they were told. That and of course when countries wanted a vote on the Lisbon treaty, they were told to sod off; because the EU "doesn't bow to populism". Nor have I forgotten you being an apologist for the Ireland referendum, when they voted no and the EU told them to vote again to *give the right answer this time*.
> 
> It took years of fighting and campaigning just to change the insane fish discards policy of the EU, even a celebrity chef had to dedicate an entire television series to raising awareness on this one issue. Even then it is a bureaucratic nightmare and won't happen until 2018. How much more damage to our fish stocks have to be done before this policy is reversed? This is just one, just one example of the central planning nonsense we have to put up with from the EU. We have to wait till 2018 to stop doing something that is killing off our fish stocks, because even the people at the very top of our elected government *have no control over it*.
> 
> ...





ADF said:


> God, he posted another wall.



:V

Though I must admit, I do particularly enjoy this bit:



ADF said:


> All of this from a union we never voted to join.


Good heavens, look at this EU disapproval!


EDIT: 





Fallowfox said:


> I was using europe as a synonym, I'm not accusing you of disliking a subcontinent. ._. Sheesh, you're very keen to accuse me of mispresenting your view, but if I say 'europe' rather than 'european union' suddenly I'm a europhillic propaganda spinner.


Don't worry, I'm apparently completely against the ability to vote in the UK, want chief policy deciders to be still-serving criminals, and think the US-installed Puppet Shah was a brilliant idea.


----------



## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> Good heavens, look at this EU disapproval!



Oh, the EU Commission wrote a report. Not bothering to read because the EU is a propaganda machine, they see what they want and try to push the agenda of the union. It's disgusting that they are trying to break the law by getting pro-EU views taught in schools, plus it's distasteful to spend millions on pro-EU propaganda centres; when most member states are in economic trouble.

Whatever that report is saying, here's public opinion without the EU goggles.



Fallowfox said:


> I was using europe as a synonym, I'm not accusing you of disliking a subcontinent. ._. Sheesh, you're very keen to accuse me of mispresenting your view, but if I say 'europe' rather than 'european union' suddenly I'm a europhillic propaganda spinner.



I said it was Europhile propaganda, not that you were a Europhile pushing that propaganda.

Looks like we both had a bit of a misunderstanding.


----------



## Bliss (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> Any arguments of the EU being democratic went flying out of the window, *when they started replacing the heads of states with unelected bankers; because the elected leaders weren't doing as they were told*.


Are you able to give even _one_ example? Or is it just your memory that you can't google? ~

Then again, I recall we've been through this previously with your ironic refusal to accept how nationals parliaments choose their own leaders and who to depose.



> That and of course when countries wanted a vote on the Lisbon treaty, they were told to sod off; because the EU "doesn't bow to populism".


Every country voted to ratify it.



> Nor have I forgotten you being an apologist for the Ireland referendum, when they voted no and the EU told them to vote again to *give the right answer this time*.


I have no reason to apologise for anything at all. You are the one who whines the Irish voted wrong. Are people allowed to change their opinion or not? Make your mind for goodness' sake!



> All of this from a union we never voted to join.


Like the United Kingdom? :V



> I know you like to try and spin the 1970s vote for a trade agreement between European countries, decades before the EU was established, as being a vote to join the EU. But quite frankly I think you were deluded making that argument, nor do I think you actually care whether or not we were ever given a choice.


You have been given the choice every fifth year for the last forty years, then; yet it curiously seems that the electorate doesn't agree with you.



> The EU and anything like it is inherently anti democratic, because it takes power further away from the average person on the street who has to live under their decisions. What's the vote of one country when compared to 27 member states, most of which couldn't give a flying fuck what the English citizen cares about?


This coming from an Englishman is so hypocritical I should be speechless. Not to mention, in regards to EU, having 10% allocation of MEP seats and being the second or third most powerful member state in the Union.



Attaman said:


> Good heavens, look at this EU disapproval!


Not to mention the UK scored the highest number of people who have no idea how EU works (60%). This, as expected, corresponds with a negative view.


----------



## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> snip



So we've forgotten the whole "The fuck Greece is getting a vote on the bailout, get him out and put Monti in" have we? Again?

I'm not arguing with you over things we have already argued over *many times* in the past. There is no point because *you are a Europhile*. I might as well be asking a member of the soviet union whether they have met their targets, you buy into and push the super state agenda. You think career politicians denying their people a say and pushing the country into the EU; is evidence that everyone supports the EU. Government =/= the people, David Cameron has demonstrated that when he keeps refusing to deliver the vote he promised; despite the huge public support for a referendum.

I don't respect your views, nor anyone else's that supports the EU, because you buy into it all. Like those career politicians declaring the Euro a success, even as it's collapsing all around them. Delusions of grandeur, that if everyone just does as they are told and stop asking questions; everything will work out.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Errgh how can this thread have been *so *derailed into EU propaganda and conspiracy? 

ADF if there's a report you should actually check its source before refusing to read it. In this case it was the gallup organisation, which isn't the EU, so the report isn't EU propaganda- the EU didn't write it. 

So, why is there a dissonance between the report from gallup attaman posted and your public opinion poll from the telegraph? Could it be because the EU has inserted propaganda into the report, or is it because the gallup report dates pre-recession and the telegraph's is post-recession? 

x3

Until you research your viewpoint it will continue to lack relevance and sound extremist, being easily dismantled by a google search. The EU isn't the USSR and no I'm not saying this to sympathise with 'europhiles' I have no strong views about the EU either way, only the knowledge that refusing to read information because you've assumed it's propaganda is closeminded drivle.


----------



## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Errgh how can this thread have been *so *derailed into EU propaganda and conspiracy?
> 
> ADF if there's a report you should actually check its source before refusing to read it. In this case it was the gallup organisation, which isn't the EU, so the report isn't EU propaganda- the EU didn't write it.



If it's got the European commissions logo on it, they're backing it and it's probably propaganda.



Fallowfox said:


> So, why is there a dissonance between the report from gallup attaman posted and your public opinion poll from the telegraph? Could it be because the EU has inserted propaganda into the report, or is it because the gallup report dates pre-recession and the telegraph's is post-recession?
> 
> x3



That or the crisis has accelerated the EU's integration plans, so it is showing its true nature.

If you suggested they were trying to build the United States of Europe in 2008, people would laugh at you and call you a conspiracy theorist. Now it's openly admitted and is being pushed as necessary to "save Europe". 

We don't want the Euro and we never voted to join the EU, but the political class want us in "the big club" created by/for career politicians to suit their interests. We can be damned, because they know what's good for us and we just need to be compliant.

Cameron pre election - "I give you this cast-iron guarantee, if you vote Conservative; I'll give you a vote on Europe".

Cameron post election - "I think we're better off in Europe".



Fallowfox said:


> Until you research your viewpoint it will continue to lack relevance and sound extremist, being easily dismantled by a google search. The EU isn't the USSR and no I'm not saying this to sympathise with 'europhiles' I have no strong views about the EU either way, only the knowledge that refusing to read information because you've assumed it's propaganda is closeminded drivle.



I fully researched my perspective on the EU, just because I cannot conjure up my entire experience of the EU for presentation on demand; doesn't mean I haven't researched the subject. Lizzie is just trying to create that impression, as always, because they're pro-EU.


----------



## Harbinger (Jul 17, 2012)

England, where human rights protects you when you take away someone elses for life.


----------



## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> Oh, the EU Commission wrote a report. Not bothering to read because the EU is a propaganda machine, they see what they want and try to push the agenda of the union. It's disgusting that they are trying to break the law by getting pro-EU views taught in schools, plus it's distasteful to spend millions on pro-EU propaganda centres; when most member states are in economic trouble.
> 
> Whatever that report is saying, here's public opinion without the EU goggles.


 You know what? This article is _hilarious_ in two ways.

First, you try to cite me as being biased with a Gallop survey that was commissioned by the European Commission, then you use the Telegraph (which is, conveniently, bounced around a lot [that very article] between Infowars, TruthIsContagious, NWOTruth, etc) commenting on a _The Sun_ Survey (you know, the paper behind such unbiased Journalistic Marvels as "Norway's 9/11: Al-Queda Massacre") as an "unbiased" counter.

Second, in that _very same article anyways_:



> However, if Mr Cameron is able to carry out his promise to renegotiate Britain's role within Europe, a significant majority would support staying in the EU, by 42 per cent to 34 per cent. The rest are unsure.



Also, for something most especially delicious:



> The worst thing about membership according to voters is immigration from Eastern Europe, at 45 per cent,



EDIT: 





Harbinger said:


> England, where human rights protects you when you take away someone elses for life.


Internet Tough Guys, fail to recognize irony when it's spewing from their mouth.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> If it's got the European commissions logo on it, they're backing it and it's probably propaganda.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No, a logo is not sufficient grounds to accuse gallup, renowned for its accuracy in USA presidential polls, of corruption and political motive. 

You suggesting they want to build the united stated of europe in 2012 makes me chuckle, the most I've heard is some politicians in brussels ask for centralised economic control of eurozone countries- which we're not among. 

and big surprise that politicians don't live up their promices. x3


Be honest now you did not fully research your views- which include 'anything with a yellow star logo is propaganda'. It's not hard to 'conjure' up evidence, such as the evidence I researched and brought to the table to demonstrate the superior norwegian prison system and to disprove your claims about that the EAW.

Actually bother quoting sources if you want anybody to be convinced.




Harbinger said:


> England, where human rights protects you when you take away someone elses for life.




Providing an accused murderer with a fair trial and not trying to extract an confession through torture? Hmm how misled our nation is.


----------



## Ren-Raku (Jul 17, 2012)

Your title: Its*


----------



## Harbinger (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> EDIT:
> Internet Tough Guys, fail to recognize irony when it's spewing from their mouth.



Whats ironic about that?
I havent read all this thread, i was just commenting how its funny that when someone commits a crime against someone human rights laws make sure the criminal isnt mistreated or deported. And its not exactly fair when they abused rights of the victims.


----------



## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

Harbinger said:


> Whats ironic about that?


Well, considering how disregarding the criminal's human rights could take their human rights away for life as well...



Harbinger said:


> I havent read all this thread, i was just commenting how its funny that when someone commits a crime against someone human rights laws make sure the criminal isnt mistreated or deported. And its not exactly fair when they abused rights of the victims.


 They are _still human beings_. I have to wonder what sort of environment people were brought up in that it is _ever_ alright to dehumanize someone.


----------



## Harbinger (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> Well, considering how disregarding the criminal's human rights could take their human rights away for life as well...
> 
> They are _still human beings_. I have to wonder what sort of environment people were brought up in that it is _ever_ alright to dehumanize someone.



I just think its fair, if someone shows no regard for another person why should we show regard to them after they've purposely hurt or killed someone else?


----------



## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> snip



The telegraph is irrelevant, they're just reporting on information released by YouGov; a totally separate entity from themselves.

Cameron is a closet Europhile, he constantly dangles a carrot for the Eurosceptics with promises of referendums and repatriating powers; but he will never deliver in any noteworthy manner. This is the man who faked outrage at a EU budget rise, marched into Brussels, then came back with his head held high; because he had a slight reduction to it. Keeping in mind the outrage was over it going up at all; when most of Europe is in recession and governments are having to make cutbacks. This year it's going up by nearly 7%!

What's hilariously bad is he thinks voters have the memory of a goldfish, because he's now hinting that he'd allow a referendum. Provided the Conservatives are voted into government to be able to deliver it of course. Ok, what happened the last time? He cannot take back that he said "I think we're better off in Europe" on countless occasions after the election. Essentially saying stuff everyone else, I know better than you; and I'm not giving you the say I promised you. Not only will people remember that, but it has cost him MPs that have fled to UKIP.



Fallowfox said:


> No, a logo is not sufficient grounds to accuse gallup, renowned for its accuracy in USA presidential polls, of corruption and political motive.



As I said, maybe the opinion was more neutral/positive when we were distracted by the boom; and most people wasn't aware of the nature of the EU. Hence a significant change when all this became apparent. But I have seen so much propaganda come out of the EU, I simply don't trust any information with their stamp of approval these days. Even if it's from a honest company, it could still have its meaning skewed.



Fallowfox said:


> You suggesting they want to build the united stated of europe in 2012 makes me chuckle, the most I've heard is some politicians in brussels ask for centralised economic control of eurozone countries- which we're not among.
> 
> and big surprise that politicians don't live up their promices. x3



Then you haven't been paying attention. That the EU is evolving into the United States of Europe is such a mainstream topic, that it's mentioned on the BBC frequently when discussing the future of the Eurozone. 

Just because we're not in the Eurozone, doesn't mean the fate of losing our sovereignty and becoming a component of the USEU wasn't in the plans. There were various instances where we nearly joined the Euro, with only a few key people deciding to keep us out. If the Lib Dems got any power back then, we'd look worse than Greece right now. The Lib Dems are so deluded that they still want us to join the Euro, just after the Eurozone has "recovered" from this mess, which if it does; we're talking decades.

The problem with Cameron's failure to deliver on his "cast iron guarantee" isn't simply a matter of a politician failing to delivery their promise. It was a major policy that the Tories campaigned on, it was the Eurosceptic vote. Doing a 180 on that has not only destroyed all faith in him by Eurosceptic voters, but it has caused real damaged his party. The Conservatives have lost MPs over this and continue to do so, as Euroscetic members lose patience and jump ship. As a result, UKIP are now a threat. UKIP don't have to get MPs in to force a referendum vote, they just have to leach enough votes from the Conservatives to prevent them from getting in. That is what will make them take UKIP and the referendum seriously.



Fallowfox said:


> *Be honest now you did not fully research your views*- which include 'anything with a yellow star logo is propaganda'. It's not hard to 'conjure' up evidence, such as the evidence I researched and brought to the table to demonstrate the superior norwegian prison system and to disprove your claims about that the EAW.



Be honest now, you're not informed. You don't care enough about the subject to have paid attention to what the EU gets up to over the years; and hence don't recognise all the problems they have caused.

Now doesn't that sound demeaning? Snobby? Like I'm talking down to you? So imagine how I felt when when you said that.

Of course I have seen enough for me to be fully confident in my views. Not being able to regurgitate every news clip, every article I've read, reference every problem they have caused on demand; is not evidence I haven't researched the subject. For instance here's a clip on that businessman being subject to the European arrest warrant I referred to earlier. 

Do you have any idea how long it took to get the search terms just right; in order to find something on it? Yet despite all the time it took to find just that, previous discussions with people like Lizzie have taught me that all the effort spent can be negated by just one thing... "Ew, it's a UKIP channel, video invalid". So it's hardly motivating to spend hours hunting down references for events that were public knowledge at the time, when from my experience they're just discarded on a whim. Like Attaman attempted just now, when they tried to discredit an article containing figures from an independent source, just because they had a beef with the newspaper reporting on it. Oh and referring to loony conspiracy sites that also reference the newspaper in the past, as if that's relevant.


----------



## Rilvor (Jul 17, 2012)

Harbinger said:


> I just think its fair, if someone shows no regard for another person why should we show regard to them after they've purposely hurt or killed someone else?


Because a big circle of men smacking each other in the back of the head goes nowhere.

I don't like the things I am seeing at all. The story I posted earlier was of a man and his accomplice who assaulted a young woman just because of how she dressed. This man has SEVENTY SEVEN prior convictions, and he was sentenced to a mere 7 years.

But I still think the man deserved a fair trial, even if I think what he got out of it was complete garbage.


----------



## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> The telegraph is irrelevant,they're just reporting on information released by YouGov; a totally separate entity from themselves.


 Then the fact it's reporting information from a _The Sun_ survey does not come into the picture at all? You accuse me of using a biased source, then post one from the same paper that was so absolutely giddy at the thought of an Al-Queda attack in Norway that it didn't even bother to do fact-check before publishing such.



ADF said:


> Cameron is a closet Europhile, he constantly dangles a carrot for the Eurosceptics with promises of referendums and repatriating powers; but he will never deliver in any noteworthy manner. This is the man who faked outrage at a EU budget rise, marched into Brussels, then came back with his head held high; because he had a slight reduction to it. Keeping in mind the outrage was over it going up at all; when most of Europe is in recession and governments are having to make cutbacks. This year it's going up by nearly 7%!


 And this has to deal with _your_ source saying that people would be in favor of remaining in the EU if some things (most likely, considering the biggest complaint, _immigration policy_) were changed? :3c



ADF said:


> Be honest now, you're not informed.


I think we're done here.

Will ask this, though: Does this mean you admit that the people in the UK don't know who / what they want or need? :3c I mean, you can't call Fallow uneducated / uninformed in one breath, and the next say "He knows exactly what the UK needs".


----------



## Judge Spear (Jul 17, 2012)

PPL PLZ!!!!!1



ADF said:


> That's the problem with online discussions, no one agrees to disagree online, someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Even on a political/legal issue where it's not black and white. You haven't got a face and body language that usually leads to people just dropping it after a while in face to face discussions. As a result conversations continue longer than they should, arguments are repeated but with variations that suggest different meanings, and it ends up just arguing until people burn out. For instance I totally recognise that prison is more about rehabilitation than punishment.



You know, I'm not taking sides mainly because I'm an idiot to politics and the many complicated world matters you guys are arguing about. But, this, on a completely unrelated note, is some raw ass logic that I can agree with. 
I try to stay out of or quickly end Internet arguments because people tend to get sensitive fast. It goes in line with what you said here, but I think it's the lack of tone. You have to really talk to people for a looooooong time on the Internets before you get their tone.



Rilvor said:


> How curiously strange that you would think this way; This is not how proper law works Kit. Is not justice supposed to be blind? Is not Law the very element of neutrality?
> 
> It would seem to me something is clouding your vision, what I cannot say. Vengeful behavior is not law, you should know this.



More smart words the simpleton that is me can understand and fully agree with. I know why Kit feels the way he does. I know or think I know why most people want to see others die in movies no matter what, but cry like the first time they saw Mufasa die when any animal is killed. Vengeance and revenge feel great, but to advance as a people we have to get past those wicked desire so we CAN cry again when people die in the movies..... That was stupid, but you're smart enough to catch my drift. -_-


----------



## Zydrate Junkie (Jul 17, 2012)

I learnt that our great country has some pretty bullshit laws on just about anything, wherever it be someone being murdered or just some trivial crap that only a few people care about.


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Ren-Raku said:


> Your title: Its*



Wrong. Learn grammar before picking at someone else for it.



Zydrate Junkie said:


> I learnt that our great country has some  pretty bullshit laws on just about anything, wherever it be someone  being murdered or just some trivial crap that only a few people care  about.



"Great Country" My fat ass. This country can't even organize the Olympics without completely fucking it up. I can't get into the Olympics because this country is an embarrassment.


----------



## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Man it sure is easy to win arguments when you employ the tactic of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling EVERYTHING IS PROPAGANDA AND BIASED AND LIES. I wish I would've thought of that. 



Ren-Raku said:


> Your title: Its*


Ren-Raku welcome back I love you have my babies


Randy-Darkshade said:


> Wrong. Learn grammar before picking at someone else for it.


"Britain and it is fucked up way of dealing with criminals." is what your title says now, Randy. It's is the shortened form of 'it is' while 'its' is the possessive pronoun.


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> Man it sure is easy to win arguments when you employ the tactic of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling EVERYTHING IS PROPAGANDA AND BIASED AND LIES. I wish I would've thought of that.
> 
> 
> Ren-Raku welcome back I love you have my babies
> ...



I call bs cause never in my life have I heard that It's is a shortened version of it is. I was always taught it was It's.


----------



## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Here you go, Randy. Or you can just google "it's vs its"


----------



## OssumPawesome (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> Here you go, Randy. Or you can just google "it's vs its"



your being such a ass


----------



## Takun (Jul 17, 2012)

Don't listen to them, their being ass's.


----------



## Batty Krueger (Jul 17, 2012)

Lol woooooow.  
England is lacking in berk lernins.


----------



## Aleu (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I call bs cause never in my life have I heard that It's is a shortened version of it is. I was always taught it was It's.



You were taught wrong.

Irony really.


----------



## OssumPawesome (Jul 17, 2012)

Takun said:


> Don't listen to them, their being ass's.



who would of thought


----------



## Takun (Jul 17, 2012)

OssumPawesome said:


> who would of thought




Pretty much rediculous.


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Takun said:


> Pretty much *rediculous*.





I hope that was deliberate.


----------



## Takun (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I hope that was deliberate.



I call bs cause never in my life have I heard that rediculous is spelled ridiculous. I was always taught it was rediculous.


----------



## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy, how many of the posts before yours had mistakes? Did you really think he was being serious?


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Oh adf, you accuse others of being unfair for not trusting your newspapers but think you're fully justified in assuming anything with an EC logo is propaganda. The accusations being woven really are becoming tall tales now ._. [and this isn't an attempt to make you feel bad, I cannot take them seriously- call me brainwashed by allmighty europe if you will]

Finding evidence is easy when the article I referenced actually had a criticism section naming the RTI as a source you could investigate- and I find their concerns convincing, though I think your idea that the EU is some sort of emerging aggregate state bent on continental domination is just too much and lack relevance. 

When we were referring to the actual discussion topics of this thread I used non eu nations as examples anyway, such as norway, so it's funny the eu got dragged into this, since the policy never belonged independantly to them. x3


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Takun said:


> I call bs cause never in my life have I heard that rediculous is spelled ridiculous. I was always taught it was rediculous.



Well, I wasn't lieing. I had never heard of it before. Never even heard it mentioned way back when I was in high school in English classes.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Well, I wasn't lieing. I had never heard of it before. Never even heard it mentioned way back when I was in high school in English classes.



I did, but most people hadn't. Not like it matters significantly or is even relevant. 

On a tangent that's on topic...why should we give criminals respect and human treatment? Because if we were to take an eye for an eye the world would be blind.


----------



## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Well, I wasn't lieing. I had never heard of it before. Never even heard it mentioned way back when I was in high school in English classes.


I think you're lying.


----------



## Takun (Jul 17, 2012)

Please stop.  This is too much.  I can't... I can't keep up.


----------



## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Oh adf, you accuse others of being unfair for not trusting your newspapers but think you're fully justified in assuming anything with an EC logo is propaganda. The accusations being woven really are becoming tall tales now ._.
> 
> Finding evidence is easy when the article I referenced actually had a criticism section naming the RTI as a source you could investigate- and I find their concerns convincing, though I think your idea that the EU is some sort of emerging aggregate state bent on continental domination is just too much and lack relevance.
> 
> When we were referring to the actual discussion topics of this thread I used non eu nations as examples anyway, such as norway, so it's funny the eu got dragged into this, since the policy never belonged independantly to them. x3



Sorry but I agree with ADF. I do not want to be in the EU, I mean, they just built a 350 million new HQ when the euro is in deep shit. Do those in brussels not use their heads or are they bullshitting us about the Euro being in shit? Either they are stupid for spending money they "allegedly" don't have, or they are bullshitting us about all this Euro debt etc. Cause I'm pretty certain no one can pull that kinda money out of their ass. 

I personally find it odd and rather stupid that they are willing to spend such a huge amount of money on a new HQ during a time when the Euro and general economy is shit.



Fallowfox said:


> I did, but most people hadn't. Not like it matters significantly or is even relevant.
> 
> On a tangent that's on topic...why should we give criminals respect and  human treatment? Because if we were to take an eye for an eye the world  would be blind.



Because if they knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of their crimes, like vandalizing their property, pissing up their wall, decorating their wall with graffiti etc etc etc, it may deter them from doing it in the future. 

I was told on sunday about someone who had their bicycle stolen, three months later the thief knocks on their door, he'd returned the bicycle and apologized for taking it. If someone did that to me and returned the stolen goods with an apology I'd accept it and wouldn't even consider reporting it to police.


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Sorry but I agree with ADF. I do not want to be in the EU, I mean, they just built a 350 million new HQ when the euro is in deep shit. Do those in brussels not use their heads or are they bullshitting us about the Euro being in shit? Either they are stupid for spending money they "allegedly" don't have, or they are bullshitting us about all this Euro debt etc. Cause I'm pretty certain no one can pull that kinda money out of their ass.
> 
> I personally find it odd and rather stupid that they are willing to spend such a huge amount of money on a new HQ during a time when the Euro and general economy is shit.



350m is hardly anything in the terms of international spending, it wouldn't make a difference. Nations work in tens of billions, hundreds of millions are comparitively less significant, randy. 

To put this into context there are about 800m people in europe, so 350m is a miniscule amount of their combined wealth. 

Individual nations spend as much and more than this on say...purchasing new nuclear missiles [like the UK is doing now] all the time.


----------



## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy lures you in with criminals and grammar mistakes and then once you're hooked he hits you...


BAM BICYCLE THREAD MOTHERFUCKERS


----------



## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Sorry but I agree with ADF. I do not want to be in the EU,


 Curiously, however, most people (who participated in surveys, anyways) _do_ want to be in the EU. Whether they want to be in under the same terms as now, or remain within under different terms, the fact remains that the majority (in my 2008 source, and ADF's 2012 one) wants to remain in the EU or is undecided / apathetic on the matter. 



Randy-Darkshade said:


> Because if they knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of their crimes, like vandalizing their property, pissing up their wall, decorating their wall with graffiti etc etc etc, it may deter them from doing it in the future.


 Gee, it's almost like people believe that you cannot treat someone in a humane fashion but, at the same time, either punish them for their actions or reform them in their behavior. At least we have seen that this is an undeniable tru-



			
				Fallowfox said:
			
		

> Lol Norway


 QUIET YOU! DON'T BRING YOUR FACTS INTO THIS!


----------



## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

"Because if they knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of their  crimes, like vandalizing their property, pissing up their wall,  decorating their wall with graffiti etc etc etc, it may deter them from  doing it in the future. 

I was told on sunday about someone who had their bicycle stolen, three  months later the thief knocks on their door, he'd returned the bicycle  and apologized for taking it. If someone did that to me and returned the  stolen goods with an apology I'd accept it and wouldn't even consider  reporting it to police."

Your anecdote is unrattifiable so I'm going to leave it out. 

making a psychological assumption about people's behaviour doesn't equate to successful policy, whereas actual evidence* shows a higher success rate in decreasing reoffending rates when prisoners are treated more humanely and as part of society rather than indepted to it or being made to repay it. 

There was a reason gandhi said those words I quoted, and his ahimsa approach did liberate india, so he might just know a thing or two.

*Compare the rates of reoffending between scandiwegian nations and more conservative nations like the UK and USA.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> I think we're done here.



I don't think you quite picked up on what I was doing there, the second sentence pretty much explains I was recreating the feeling of the statement I made bold. As Pachi-O pointed out by quoting me earlier, the intended meaning of that bit has been misinterpreted and hence resulted in a reaction that furthers the arguing. 



Attaman said:


> Will ask this, though: Does this mean you admit that the people in the UK don't know who / what they want or need? :3c



My position is simply that your vote has to mean something, that electing who runs your country; means you have a say in how your country is run. Some people here have tried to radicalise that by suggesting I'm arguing for populism, rule of the mob, but I'm really just referring to democracy. The EU is an anti democratic organisation because it constantly transfers an ever increasing list of powers away from members states; and to the politicians at Brussels. All the sudden the entirety of your vote comes down to one say amongst 27 member states, which is a growing number. 

Even then, the EU is an organisation established by politicians; for politicians. It's an entirely political construct with no basis in the real world, disregarding the incompatibility of member states to what they are attempting to create (hence Greece). So the views of politicians doesn't necessary represent the views of the population, as getting a career orientated politician to vote against the EU; is like trying to get a turkey to vote for Christmas. They put the interests of the political construct ahead of that of their own people, because the EU empowers politicians and gives them a well paid cosy position. You don't need to even be an elected party to represent your country in Brussels, UKIP have no members in government; but they have positions representing the UK in Brussels. What a great deal, being paid to be a politician and having a say in how things are run; without the inconvenience of having to be elected back home.

We need a say in how our country is run, voting needs to actually change things. So long as our politicians consider Brussels a higher authority than their electorate; we might as well be living under Soviet Union 2.0. Because it's bureaucratic, none democratic, state central planning all over again. Where the politicians in charge have delusions of grandeur where everything they touch turns to gold, declaring success where there is blatant failure; because the EU cannot do wrong. If you take away people's ability to change things through the democratic process, as we are seeing now; extremist parties are gathering support in Europe. Because they're the only ones offering a choice. That's how the Nazi's got in; in Germany. The mainstream parties offered no real choices, so they turned to the parties that did.

These nutters wouldn't have gotten 7% in Greece if the mainstream parties were actually offering choices, instead of allowing the country to be plundered by foreigners (for its own good of course) in the name of protecting the EU whole. Because what's happening in Greece right now is all about protecting the EU, every economic measurement says they should have defaulted years ago; but the EU cannot allow that to happen. Because that may cause contagion/a chain reaction throughout the Eurozone and they want to protect the Euro currency at all costs. They've totally forgotten that they are public servants, not architects sacrificing components to preserve their structure.

I do not want to be part of an organisation that would sacrifice entire countries to perpetual austerity/debt servitude in order to protect their pet project.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> 350m is hardly anything in the terms of international spending, it wouldn't make a difference. Nations work in tens of billions, hundreds of millions are comparitively less significant, randy.
> 
> To put this into context there are about 800m people in europe, so 350m is a miniscule amount of their combined wealth.
> 
> Individual nations spend as much and more than this on say...purchasing new nuclear missiles [like the UK is doing now] all the time.



You missed my point entirely. That 350 million could have been invested into creating jobs for us fucking jobless, but no, a swanky new fucking HQ for them is far more important. Those fucking bastards haven't got to suffer like we have.


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## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> You missed my point entirely. That 350 million could have been invested into creating jobs for us fucking jobless, but no, a swanky new fucking HQ for them is far more important. Those fucking bastards haven't got to suffer like we have.


No, _you_ missed the point Randy. 350 million, as fallow was pointing out, is almost nothing in the general scope of things. 


Also, it did go to creating jobs. Who do you think _designs and builds  _everything that does into a giant building like that? Who supplies the power, the water, the food, etc?


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> You missed my point entirely. That 350 million could have been invested into creating jobs for us fucking jobless, but no, a swanky new fucking HQ for them is far more important. Those fucking bastards haven't got to suffer like we have.



and about *9BILLION *could have been invested in new particle accelerators [cern only cost 2.6bn] but the UK is spending it on an olympic event that will only perhaps make a short term prophet rather than revolutionising the world. 

Those fucking bastards!

Do you see now?


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> No, _you_ missed the point Randy. 350 million, as fallow was pointing out, is almost nothing in the general scope of things.
> 
> 
> Also, it did go to creating jobs. Who do you think _designs and builds  _everything that does into a giant building like that? Who supplies the power, the water, the food, etc?



It's only temporary work, and it's also only work for those in the building trade, no good to people like me is it. No good to someone like me who needs a permanent job. 350m is still a substantial sum of money to flunk on a building when we allegedly don't have any money. It might not be substantial to them in Brussels but to someone like me it is. That kind of money would help a lot of businesses out as well as help many get started.



Fallowfox said:


> and about *9BILLION *could have  been invested in new particle accelerators [cern only cost 2.6bn] but  the UK is spending it on an olympic event that will only perhaps make a  short term *prophet* rather than revolutionising the world.
> 
> Those fucking bastards!
> 
> Do you see now?



I see that you used the wrong version of Profit. Perhaps one shouldn't pick at my grammar when one makes cock ups in grammar themselves. 

Don't even get me started on the bullshit Olympics, this country can't even organize that without a string of cock ups to go with it. I wouldn't be surprised if other countries have heard it all in the news and are laughing at us.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> I do not want to be part of an organisation that would sacrifice entire countries to perpetual austerity/debt servitude in order to protect their pet project.


Fun fact: Euro's not the EU's pet project, it's Germany's. One that was made almost specifically to do what it's doing now (though preferably without the "Euro member collapsing" and more "Member funneling yet more money into Germany").


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> No, _you_ missed the point Randy. 350 million, as fallow was pointing out, is almost nothing in the general scope of things.
> 
> 
> Also, it did go to creating jobs. Who do you think _designs and builds  _everything that does into a giant building like that? Who supplies the power, the water, the food, etc?



This is an organisation that doubled its entertainment budget AFTER the financial crash, therefore when they should have known better. This is the organisation demanding a near 7% budget rise, when most of the Eurozone is in recession, despite never having their budgets officially signed, while demanding member states "get their finances in order". That Â£350 million came from taxpayers struggling to put food on the table during these hard times, when we are seeing essential social services being cut. 

In other words, they're completely detached from the real world, which average people are going to pick up on and get very angry about.


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## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> This is an organisation that doubled its entertainment budget AFTER the financial crash, therefore when they should have known better. This is the organisation demanding a near 7% budget rise, when most of the Eurozone is in recession, despite never having their budgets officially signed, while demanding member states "get their finances in order". That Â£350 million came from taxpayers struggling to put food on the table during these hard times, when we are seeing essential social services being cut.
> 
> In other words, they're completely detached from the real world, which average people are going to pick up on and get very angry about.


How dare they waste everyone's average of less than a euro on a new headquarters~


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It's only temporary work, and it's also only work for those in the building trade, no good to people like me is it. No good to someone like me who needs a permanent job. 350m is still a substantial sum of money to flunk on a building when we allegedly don't have any money. It might not be substantial to them in Brussels but to someone like me it is. That kind of money would help a lot of businesses out as well as help many get started.



350m is small change in the eyes of nations, randy, and don't you think it would be better spent on medical research or telescopes? Physics projects especially are tragically underfunded and they reward us with ever-lasting increases in our insight rather than jobs for the sake of jobs. 

The UK, in this time of economic trouble, spends similar amounts on lots of pointless things- as do all nations and groups of nations, this isn't something significant or exclusive to the EU.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> How dare they waste everyone's average of less than a euro on a new headquarters~



Was it really necessary to spend it during these hard times? Could it have not waited until the recession had ended? I'm pretty sure those snooty cunts in power could have waited for a new HQ.



Fallowfox said:


> 350m is small change in the eyes of nations,  randy, and don't you think it would be better spent on medical research  or telescopes? Physics projects especially are tragically underfunded  and they reward us with ever-lasting increases in our insight rather  than jobs for the sake of jobs.
> 
> The UK, in this time of economic trouble, spends similar amounts on lots  of pointless things- as do all nations and groups of nations, this  isn't something significant or exclusive to the EU.



So how do you expect people to survive without a job Einstein? You make it sound like putting food on the table and keeping a roof over one's head is not important. 

Of course the cash could have been split between creating jobs and medical research.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> It's only temporary work, and it's also only work for those in the building trade, no good to people like me is it. No good to someone like me who needs a permanent job. 350m is still a substantial sum of money to flunk on a building when we allegedly don't have any money. It might not be substantial to them in Brussels but to someone like me it is. That kind of money would help a lot of businesses out as well as help many get started.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I didn't pick at your grammar...I said it didn't matter. ._.

Okay I won't get you started on the olympics, but I hope you've seen that seemingly irrational expenditure of millions of pounds is a systematic property of all nations, not only the EU, so we can't fairly call the EU useless because it's no different to the rest.



Randy-Darkshade said:


> Was it really necessary to spend it  during these hard times? Could it have not waited until the recession  had ended? I'm pretty sure those snooty cunts in power could have waited  for a new HQ.



Who cares if they buy themselves a new house with less than 50 of my pence, my own country is buying nuclear bombs with about 50 of my pence and supporting a monarchy with about 50 of my pence.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> This is an organisation that doubled its entertainment budget AFTER the financial crash, therefore when they should have known better. This is the organisation demanding a near 7% budget rise, when most of the Eurozone is in recession, despite never having their budgets officially signed, while demanding member states "get their finances in order".


 Fun fact: There's several solutions to "economic crash" / "depression". "Cut funding and programs significantly" is _not_ one of them.



ADF said:


> That Â£350 million came from taxpayers struggling to put food on the table during these hard times, when we are seeing essential social services being cut.


 Fun fact: That Â£350 million comes to at almost half a Â£ per person. Also, if you're trying to argue "think of the people", last I was told having to buy materials, hire labor, and so on was good.



ADF said:


> In other words, they're completely detached from the real world, which average people are going to pick up on and get very angry about.


 So angry that _the majority of the UK still wants to be in it or has no general opinion on the matter. Using your own sources_.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> How dare they waste everyone's average of less than a euro on a new headquarters~



The UK is paying 50 million "a day" to be a member of the EU, while we're firing soldiers and running children's heart transplant centre lotteries at hospitals. And for what? So they can build themselves another HQ? Families in Greece are having to share their children's cancer medicines with other families kids, because it is being rationed. And the EU gives its MEPs a 85% budget increase in their entertainment expenses last year?

There isn't words to truly express my feelings towards these people.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Can I get this straight please? You may not like the EU, you might hate them or think they're controling chemtrails, but this has absolutely nada to do with the laws and policy of humane treatment of criminals, as was the initial discussion. 

It's not only EU states that treat or refuse to treat criminals humanely, it's the world over, and bashing at the EU hence won't actually provide any traction to that topic.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I didn't pick at your grammar...I said it didn't matter. ._.
> 
> Okay I won't get you started on the olympics, but I hope you've seen that seemingly irrational expenditure of millions of pounds is a systematic property of all nations, not only the EU, so we can't fairly call the EU useless because it's no different to the rest.
> 
> ...



Are you being this thick deliberately? It doesn't matter how much of your tax they used to buy it, they still wasted the money when it could have been put to better use.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Are you being this thick deliberately? It doesn't matter how much of your tax they used to buy it, they still wasted the money when it could have been put to better use.



I'm pointing out that the EU wasting a small amount of my cash is insignificant in context because in general small amounts of my cash are systematically wasted domestically all the time, so what's the different in that respect between EU and UK? None. 

Furthermore this is a very irrelevant tangent to pursue.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm pointing out that the EU wasting a small amount of my cash is insignificant in context because in general small amounts of my cash are systematically wasted domestically all the time, so what's the different in that respect between EU and UK? None.
> 
> Furthermore this is a very irrelevant tangent to pursue.


Similarly debatable whether it was "wasted". Again, this isn't _Starcraft_. You don't just get the resources, buy a single worker, and wait a few minutes for them to construct a new building. To get that new HQ requires acquiring the land, acquiring the materials to make the building, hiring people to transport the materials, getting the floorplan designed, having people start working on developing the floorplan, make sure that the facility is powered, make sure that it's actually accessible by those who are to be attending it...


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> think they're controling chemtrails.



I'm pretty sure you just pulled a logical fallacy there, making up conspiracy theory beliefs in an effort to discredit, I'm just too irritated at Attaman to even bother looking it up.



Attaman said:


> snip



It's ok for the political elite to piss away other people's money on frivolous luxuries for themselves during hard times, so long as if you divide it by the population; it seems like a insignificant amount?

If you're attempting to troll, congratulations, because I'm done talking to you.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm pointing out that the EU wasting a small amount of my cash is insignificant in context because in general small amounts of my cash are systematically wasted domestically all the time, so what's the different in that respect between EU and UK? None.
> 
> Furthermore this is a very irrelevant tangent to pursue.



That small amount soon adds up and makes a huge difference. What you can't seem to fucking grasp is, that money could have been put to better use, like help Greece out for example instead allowing a first world country slowly deteriorate into a third world country. All the EU is doing is taking our fucking money, making stupid demands and not giving anything in return.

Also, I'm not the one who turned this thread into a political debate.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> It's ok for the political elite to piss away other people's money on frivolous luxuries for themselves during hard times, so long as if you divide it by the population; it seems like a insignificant amount?


 _How is the majority of the 350,000,000 production cost going towards the EU members commissioning the building, and not the people who are actually responsible for providing the materials / delivering the materials / making the building?_ This isn't C&C, you can't just go "I want this one!", point at a spot, and have a solitary drone work for free to raise up a building.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> That small amount soon adds up and makes a huge difference. What you can't seem to fucking grasp is, that money could have been put to better use, like help Greece out for example instead allowing a first world country slowly deteriorate into a third world country. All the EU is doing is taking our fucking money, making stupid demands and not giving anything in return.
> 
> Also, I'm not the one who turned this thread into a political debate.



You're missing there's no difference between the EU and control states selected for comparrison. I agree money should as much as possible be spent towards a common good but not that the EU is some money grabbing organisation because it's no different to the controls.

[in science a test subject is compared to a control subject, compare the EU to controls such as non EU states, the EU doesn't show a significant tendency to gobble up money for luxurious palaces in comparrison to other states- although the vatican certainly does x3]


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 17, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> You're missing there's no difference between the EU and control states selected for comparrison. I agree money should as much as possible be spent towards a common good but not that the EU is some money grabbing organisation because it's no different to the controls.



I just think the main priority at the moment should be to sort out the current economy in Europe.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I just think the main priority at the moment should be to sort out the current economy in Europe.



Well good, because 350m *isn't* a main expenditure. x3


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I just think the main priority at the moment should be to sort out the current economy in Europe.


Spending money _helps to lead to a recovery_. If you put a stranglehold on money, workers don't get paid, goods can't (or won't) be bought, etcetera. Of course, there's such a thing as "too much spending". However, that HQ is in no way an example of such.


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## ADF (Jul 17, 2012)

Attaman said:


> _How is the majority of the 350,000,000 production cost going towards the EU members commissioning the building, and not the people who are actually responsible for providing the materials / delivering the materials / making the building?_ This isn't C&C, you can't just go "I want this one!", point at a spot, and have a solitary drone work for free to raise up a building.



I'm only going to say this one last thing and call it a night; because I've had quite enough for today...

Economics 101.

All the money state organisations get is from taxing the productive economy. In other words that Â£350 million they spent into the private sector, first had to be taxed from the private sector. The overall wealth pool has remained the same, they have just redistributed the money from one entity to another. But in order to earn back that Â£350 million into the private sector, they have consumed resources and labour. So as a whole, the private sector is worse off.

So the EU pissing away other people's money on frivolous spending will not benefit the economy.


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## Attaman (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> The overall wealth pool has remained the same, they have just redistributed the money from one entity to another.


 May I ask how this, then, is significantly different from the "social services" you were harping on about being cut? "Damnit Attaman, instead of the money coming from tax payers to pay people, the money's coming from tax payers... to pay people!"


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## Onnes (Jul 17, 2012)

Economic activity is a function of both money supply and the velocity of money. The more often money is exchanged the stronger the economy, that in particular means increased demand. (Which is, of course, what you want when you have a recession of insufficient aggregate demand.) Governments have the power to force money to be spent by taking it through debts or taxation and then putting it into projects. Government creates demand when the private sector fails to do so.


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## Jashwa (Jul 17, 2012)

ADF said:


> But in order to earn back that Â£350 million into the private sector, they have consumed resources and labour. So as a whole, the private sector is worse off.


By this logic, any spending the EU could've done to help the people like you and Randy want it to would also make the private sector worse off. 


And you're treating the private sector as a homogeneous group instead of a group with fewer wealthy members and more poor members. The taxes don't effectively do nothing because the rich pay more in taxes than the working class, so therefore it's a redistribution of wealth instead of just taking and giving back the same to every person.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 17, 2012)

Anyway you slice it 350m is an incy amount of money in terms of what is collectively the world's most powerful economy. It's like complaining a penny out of a pound has been spent in a way you say is unfit, because government infrastructure is of course worthless. x3 

But the real weirdness of this is, this isn't something you can use to say 'look how horrid the eu is', becuase our domestic expenditure on arguably pointless ends is far greater, so the eu's small expenditure is pretty much no different to the expenditures which happen in every single state world over, so it's difficult to argue this is a significant or incriminating property of the eu.


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## Ren-Raku (Jul 18, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> BAM BICYCLE THREAD MOTHERFUCKERS









Also, for anyone who disagrees...


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## Rilvor (Jul 18, 2012)

Pachi-O said:


> Vengeance and revenge feel great, but to advance as a people we have to get past those wicked desire so we CAN cry again when people die in the movies..... That was stupid, but you're smart enough to catch my drift. -_-



I understand what you mean completely. I wish more people would understand this. Not simply agree with it blithely, but understand it.

I know this is off-topic, but you really should lay off demeaning yourself while posting. I know most people do it as an attempt at humor, but save for certain comedic geniuses, it is a very jarring thing to read that tends to pull some out of what you're saying.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Anyway you slice it 350m is an incy amount of money in terms of what is collectively the world's most powerful economy. It's like complaining a penny out of a pound has been spent in a way you say is unfit, because government infrastructure is of course worthless. x3
> 
> But the real weirdness of this is, this isn't something you can use to say 'look how horrid the eu is', becuase our domestic expenditure on arguably pointless ends is far greater, so the eu's small expenditure is pretty much no different to the expenditures which happen in every single state world over, so it's difficult to argue this is a significant or incriminating property of the eu.



You still can;t grasp the fact that it could have been spent elsewhere, you're living in this little dream world of yours where 350m is just pennies. It's not, like I already said, putting it into the economy would make a difference. But for some reason you can;t get that into your thick skull.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> You still can;t grasp the fact that it could have been spent elsewhere, you're living in this little dream world of yours where 350m is just pennies. It's not, like I already said, putting it into the economy would make a difference. But for some reason you can;t get that into your thick skull.



Do you know what the debt of unpaid loans to spanish banks is? It's 155bn. 0.35bn is a drop in the ocean.

But the point actually is that spending money in this way isn't an exclusive trait of the EU, so it's an invalid reason to criticise the EU in comparrison to a hypothetical independant UK- which spends 9bn on an olympic event a third of a billion on nuclear weapons, and refuses to spend 0.2bn reforming our voting system 'because it's too large a sum'. 

Yes huge amounts of money would make a difference to some people if they were aggregated within a small population- but that would be unlikely to benefit you anyway because you would be very unlikely to be part of such a populace. x3 For instance the EU _has_ been supporting UK communities, though many of them have been in impoverished parts of Wales, not the rather more afluent England.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Attaman said:


> May I ask how this, then, is significantly different from the "social services" you were harping on about being cut? "Damnit Attaman, instead of the money coming from tax payers to pay people, the money's coming from tax payers... to pay people!"



You're essentially equating money going to hospitals, firemen, policeman, transport infrastructure maintenance etc. as being the same as it being spent outside of the country, far from the taxpayers it was taken from, for the "entertainment expenses" of a EU MEP or for a shiny new HQ when they already have one...

Anyone else would see the problem with this, but the people in this thread seem to lack that. I don't know if they're serious or trolling at this point.



Onnes said:


> Economic activity is a function of both money supply and the velocity of money. The more often money is exchanged the stronger the economy, that in particular means increased demand. (Which is, of course, what you want when you have a recession of insufficient aggregate demand.) Governments have the power to force money to be spent by taking it through debts or taxation and then putting it into projects. *Government creates demand when the private sector fails to do so.*



Let me explain it again.

The money the government has to spend on anything. Regardless of whether it was taxed, printed or loaned. Has to be extracted from the economy. The government creating growth in sector A by spending money there; would have to come at the cost of extracting money from sector B, C, D, E, F etc. It would have to come by extracting money from the consumer, who then has less disposable income to support business sectors they actually care about.

Worse yet, you're risking capital misallocation.

If sector B is food, the public isn't going to particularly benefit by the government redistributing that disposable income to something like housing. Housing prices are already too high, the reduced demand would be healthy; as it would reduce housing prices and eventually demand would return at a more affordable none bubble price. But no, the government is instead keeping house prices expensive by propping up the housing industry, while depriving consumers of disposable income they would otherwise have spent on food. So are we therefore surprised that food aid banks doubled in the UK last year? Because people increasingly are struggling to pay for their* inflated mortgage*, driving to work and putting food on the table.

The government cannot create demand, it can only reallocate it from one area to another.



Jashwa said:


> By this logic, any spending the EU could've done to help the people like you and Randy want it to would also make the private sector worse off.



I don't want the EU to spend any money to help unemployed people, because every job they create using taxes has to destroy *at least* one job in the private sector; due to extracting money from the economy. Those jobs likely being none productive government jobs, which costs more to maintain than private sector jobs and don't increase the economies productivity.

Governments can create all sorts of jobs, but they have to be paid for; and that money comes by taking it away from existing businesses and existing jobs. It comes from taking disposable income from consumers, who would have otherwise spent it on products and services they want; and fuelled job growth in those areas.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Do you know what the debt of unpaid loans to spanish banks is? It's 155bn. 0.35bn is a drop in the ocean.
> 
> But the point actually is that spending money in this way isn't an exclusive trait of the EU, so it's an invalid reason to criticise the EU in comparrison to a hypothetical independant UK- which spends 9bn on an olympic event a third of a billion on nuclear weapons, and refuses to spend 0.2bn reforming our voting system 'because it's too large a sum'.
> 
> Yes huge amounts of money would make a difference to some people if they were aggregated within a small population- but that would be unlikely to benefit you anyway because you would be very unlikely to be part of such a populace. x3 For instance the EU _has_ been supporting UK communities, though many of them have been in impoverished parts of Wales, not the rather more afluent England.



I don't like the UK either, if I was able to move out of this godforsaken shithole of a country I would.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I don't like the UK either, if I was able to move out of this godforsaken shithole of a country I would.



Overall I enjoy living in the UK, eventhough I criticise a lot of its properties. If I was going to live in another country I'd probably want to live in a germanic or nordic country.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> The government cannot create demand, it can only reallocate it from one area to another.



You just have no clue do you? You literally choose to ignore the last hundred years of economic thinking and throw out all thought into demand-side economics.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Onnes said:


> You just have no clue do you?



Feel free to elaborate on why I'm "clueless", given I gave an explanation.

There isn't some magic cloud in space the government can stick a tube up to and pull wealth down to the economy... State spending cannot stimulate growth in the economy, when the source of that money was the economy in the first place. To use one common analogy. Trying to stimulate the economy with government spending; is like treating a patient by extracting blood from one arm, spilling some of it, then injecting it into the other.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> Feel free to elaborate on why I'm "clueless", given I gave an explanation.
> 
> There isn't some magic cloud in space the government can stick a tube up to and pull wealth down to the economy... State spending cannot stimulate growth in the economy, when the source of that money was the economy in the first place. To use one common analogy. Trying to stimulate the economy with government spending; is like treating a patient by extracting blood from one arm, spilling some of it, then injecting it into the other.



State spending can stimulate growth in the economy if it's done correctly. For example a hypothetical country exists of small businesses which are keen to expand but cannot themselves buy the infrastructure to do so on their own. Government taxation can collect a small portion of each business's disposal income and use it to organise and build infrastructure those businesses want to expand, like roads and ports in areas that would otherwise be unable to afford them.

edit, a good example is spending money effectively on education, which provides good opportunities and therefore prosperity long term.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> State spending can stimulate growth in the economy if it's done correctly. For example a hypothetical country exists of small businesses which are keen to expand but cannot themselves buy the infrastructure to do so on their own. Government taxation can collect a small portion of each business's disposal income and use it to organise and build infrastructure those businesses want to expand, like roads and ports in areas that would otherwise be unable to afford them.



Again, you have extracted wealth from one entity in order to hand it to another. You're redistributing resources, reducing one businesses ability to grow through taxation; in order to encourage growth elsewhere. Secondly, those businesses were successful because people wanted to use their products and services. You're diverting finances from something the public want to support, in order to prop up a business the public does not want to support, hence why they needed propping up in the first place. It's the government moving resources around, because they think they know what businesses the public want to support better than the public do.

I gave an example of how this can go wrong with the housing/food example. Another example I recall hearing about is when a government helped a group get home insurance, because insurance companies charged too high a premium; due to the high risk of natural disasters in the area. Because the government propped up housing insurance, the town grew. But eventually became an aid zone when a natural disaster hit. That the high insurance premiums were a indicator not to build there in the first place didn't seem to occur to anyone in government.



Fallowfox said:


> edit, a good example is spending money effectively on education, which provides good opportunities and therefore prosperity long term.



Education isn't the same as propping up a business, as it's a basic requirement of a modern functioning economy to have a workforce educated to a minimum level. It's like road infrastructure, it's hard to run an economy without roads.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> Again, you have extracted wealth from one entity in order to hand it to another. You're redistributing resources, reducing one businesses ability to grow through taxation; in order to encourage growth elsewhere. Secondly, those businesses were successful because people wanted to use their products and services. You're diverting finances from something the public want to support, in order to prop up a business the public does not want to support, hence why they needed propping up in the first place. It's the government moving resources around, because they think they know what businesses the public want to support better than the public do.
> 
> I gave an example of how this can go wrong with the housing/food example. Another example I recall hearing about is when a government helped a group get home insurance, because insurance companies charged too high a premium; due to the high risk of natural disasters in the area. Because the government propped up housing insurance, the town grew. But eventually became a aid zone when a natural disaster hit. That the high insurance premiums were a indicator not to build there in the first place didn't seem to occur to anyone in government.



Actually the combined benefit of new infrastructure exceeds the negative aspect of taxation because even businesses which have been taxed can benefit from new infrastructure to a greater extent than the tax. For example Â£5 from several million people is collected, it doesn't do much harm to an individual. However the train line it's used to construct allows new opportunities so they make more than Â£5 back, and because investment isn't static a lot of people will want to take advantage of new opportunities regardless of relative interest in the area beforehand. [that's why regneration can extend the life time and productivity of an area]

Of course government investment can have good _and_ bad effects, and often has a mixture depending who you are [most commonly the environment suffers as a result of industrial growth], but the fact that there can be good has been demonstrated, so your claim that state spending can't stimulate growth has been dismantled.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Actually the combined benefit of new infrastructure exceeds the negative aspect of taxation because even businesses which have been taxed can benefit from new infrastructure to a greater extent than the tax. For example Â£5 from several million people is collected, it doesn't do much harm to an individual. However the train line it's used to construct allows new opportunities so they make more than Â£5 back, and because investment isn't static a lot of people will want to take advantage of new opportunities regardless of relative interest in the area beforehand. [that's why regneration can extend the life time and productivity of an area]
> 
> Of course government investment can have good _and_ bad effects, and often has a mixture depending who you are [most commonly the environment suffers as a result of industrial growth], but the fact that there can be good has been demonstrated, so your claim that state spending can't stimulate growth has been dismantled.



I support infrastructure as I've mentioned. If the government didn't build the transport infrastructure, there would be toll stops all over the place. People would have to buy fire insurance like the old days and policing would be a nightmare. 

But there is a line between building roads so businesses can move their goods around and people can get to work, and propping up failing businesses by taking money away from the successful ones.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> I support infrastructure as I've mentioned. If the government didn't build the transport infrastructure, there would be toll stops all over the place. People would have to buy fire insurance like the old days and policing would be a nightmare.
> 
> But there is a line between building roads so businesses can move their goods around and people can get to work, and propping up failing businesses by taking money away from the successful ones.



...so your actual claim is 'state spending on busienesses which turn out to fail cannot generated growth,' ?


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> There isn't some magic cloud in space the government can stick a tube up to and pull wealth down to the economy... State spending cannot stimulate growth in the economy, when the source of that money was the economy in the first place. To use one common analogy. Trying to stimulate the economy with government spending; is like treating a patient by extracting blood from one arm, spilling some of it, then injecting it into the other.



You are making the silly assumption that all saved money must be spent immediately. The whole issue with a decrease in aggregate demand is that people stop spending money on all goods and services, and I mean all of them. The money isn't destroyed, nor the supply, people just stop spending it out of fear and inefficiency. That is where the government comes in. The government can directly create demand through spending precisely because private actors fail to do so--because demand is depressed the government is not actually competing with the private sector because the private sector is afraid to spend money in the first place. (And even if demand weren't low, what governments invest in tends to be much different than private companies; no one can claim that privatizing infrastructure, healthcare, or security would be more efficient, yet that is the conclusion of your argument.) Much of this is also deficit spending, which means any final penalty to the private sector through taxation is spread over many, many years whereas the economics benefits to the depressed economy are immediate. You get demand when you need it and defer spending cuts and tax increases to when the economy has exited the recession.

Let's get some links: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/crowding-in/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...ty-of-another-liquidity-trap-brad-delong.html

Having typed this I realize just how bizarrely off topic this thread has gone. Thus I'll end my thoughts here.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

On the derailed topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQj1qlsjVoM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcPNXuhAnEs&feature=related

thoughts on these videos? I thought the current discussion glanced around these.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> ...so your actual claim is 'state spending on busienesses which turn out to fail cannot generated growth,' ?



I've explained what I'm saying in detail over several posts, my argument speaks for itself.



Onnes said:


> You are making the silly assumption that all saved money must be spent immediately.



Now where did I make that claim? 



Onnes said:


> The whole issue with a decrease in aggregate demand is that people stop spending money on all goods and services, and I mean all of them. The money isn't destroyed, nor the supply, people just stop spending it out of fear and inefficiency.



Actually money is constantly being created/destroyed every day, but that's a different topic entirely.



Onnes said:


> That is where the government comes in. The government can directly create demand through spending precisely because private actors fail to do so--because demand is depressed the government is not actually competing with the private sector because the private sector is afraid to spend money in the first place.



I've already been through this, the governments money comes by taking it out of the economy, they cannot spend money in one area; without first taking it away from another area. If I extract Â£100k from the economy, then spend Â£100k into the economy, the economy isn't better off; it's just gotten its money back. Worse yet, the economy has spent labour and resources to earn that Â£100k back; so it's worse off in the end.

Recessions happen, that's a consequence of how our system is set up. State powers trying to manipulate the economy out of downturns is what got us into this severe economic mess in the first place. They leap frogged over a recession when the nasdaq bubble burst by slashing interest rates, which created the housing/credit bubble that burst in 07/08. Not forgetting the sheer stupidity of taking down glass steagall in 1999 so financial services could "innovate".



Onnes said:


> (And even if demand weren't low, what governments invest in tends to be much different than private companies; no one can claim that privatizing infrastructure, healthcare, or security would be more efficient, yet that is the conclusion of your argument.)



There is no logical connection between the government not being able to stimulate an economy/business by spending into it with money it took out the economy/business, and arguing the private sector is more efficient at essential infrastructure/healthcare.



Onnes said:


> Much of this is also deficit spending, which means any final penalty to the private sector through taxation is spread over many, many years whereas the economics benefits to the depressed economy are immediate. You get demand when you need it and defer spending cuts and tax increases to when the economy has exited the recession.



As many countries are finding these days, when you're in a debt crisis; credit rating agencies tend to look down on you going on a debt binge. Resulting in credit rating downgrades, increased credit costs and the Eurozone speaks for itself. Governments get loans by selling bonds, the problem being someone has to actually want to buy them. You could pull a UK/US and have your central bank buy a large chunk of your own bonds, but that's very dangerous in that you are effectively funding government spending by simply creating the money to do it. Which rarely, if at all, ends well.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

I'm the first to admit I don't confidently understand economic theory, but your comments appear an oversimplification even to me. For example extracting a sum of money from the economy and then spending it in a specific way could potentially improve the structure of that economy, because structural properties do influence the prosperity and ability of an economy to sustain itself, so it's unfair to assume it must _always_ be worse off in the end if money is taken and redistributed.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm the first to admit I don't confidently understand economic theory, but your comments appear an oversimplification even to me. For example extracting a sum of money from the economy and then spending it in a specific way could potentially improve the structure of that economy, because structural properties do influence the prosperity and ability of an economy to sustain itself, so it's unfair to assume it must _always_ be worse off in the end if money is taken and redistributed.



There is nothing oversimplified about it. Gross domestic product grows when there is an increase in economic activity, where as the government investing in company A by taxing company B is just moving existing wealth around. The receiver of the money may feel they have an increased capability to expand and employ, but that came at the cost of restricting growth somewhere else. Someone else cannot expand and employ as much as they could because that money was taken from them. If you have Â£100 and Â£20 was taken away and given to someone else, that's still Â£100 worth of buying power. The available buying power has not increased, it has just been redistributed.

The only way wealth redistribution would result in growth is if the economy was in some sort of extreme, such as in a 3rd world country where a small elite control almost all the wealth. Preventing a range of products and services from being developed among the population to cater to people with disposable income. While income inequality is getting worse, we're nowhere near that bad.


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## Jashwa (Jul 18, 2012)

Onnes, don't worry about it. Topic drift is fine and there's no hope of going back to the original topic at this point.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> Now where did I make that claim?



You've implicitly assumed that the velocity of money is constant and that savings is equal to investment. Natural consequences. 
(This is an acid-trip version of Say's law which implies that supply creates demand and that aggregate demand is fixed.)



> I've already been through this, the governments money comes by taking it out of the economy, they cannot spend money in one area; without first taking it away from another area. If I extract Â£100k from the economy, then spend Â£100k into the economy, the economy isn't better off; it's just gotten its money back. Worse yet, the economy has spent labour and resources to earn that Â£100k back; so it's worse off in the end.



And as I've already explained, you are wrong. First, the money taken is always in the form of debt that is paid off over a long period of time. Which is to say the immediate negative impact to the economy is just about null, as the time horizon for payment is quite long, and in the recession case would never be initiated until a later date. Spending to increase demand is immediate, payment isn't. You also assume that the private sector is actually being efficient in the first place, which it certainly is not as evidenced by the whole recession thing. There is no "crowding out" when the money isn't being invested in the first place.



> There is no logical connection between the government not being able to  stimulate an economy/business by spending into it with money it took out  the economy/business, and arguing the private sector is more efficient  at essential infrastructure/healthcare.



You just made the argument that government spending cannot be more efficacious than private spending. It only stands to reason that this would so too apply across all sectors. You realize I'm not even the first poster to point this out to you, right? 



> As many countries are finding these days, when you're in a debt crisis; credit rating agencies tend to look down on you going on a debt binge. Resulting in credit rating downgrades, increased credit costs and the Eurozone speaks for itself. Governments get loans by selling bonds, the problem being someone has to actually want to buy them. You could pull a UK/US and have your central bank buy a large chunk of your own bonds, but that's very dangerous in that you are effectively funding government spending by simply creating the money to do it. Which rarely, if at all, ends well.



Except that the debt downgrade happens no matter what you do, as evidenced by half the eurozone that seems to be tanking despite forced austerity. It's the whole problem of entering a GDP death spiral. The inefficiencies of the depressed markets lead to highly positive spending multipliers (1.5 is a common assumption) which mean that decreases in spending lead to even greater decreases in GDP which lead to decreases in tax revenue which then lead to decreases in spending ad infinitum. And do you want to know what happened to US interest rates after the downgrade? They decreased. Real interest rates went fucking negative! If you ask anyone in the US they'll say the biggest economic concern now is demand and unemployment, not future debt payments, because people are actually paying us to take their money and any decent investment by the government should produce more value than simply inflation.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> edit, a good example is spending money effectively on education, which provides good opportunities and therefore prosperity long term.



Of course. lets educate students for jobs that are not there once they have left school and/or college, yeah that makes sense.


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## Jashwa (Jul 18, 2012)

I don't think Onnes and Fallowfox realize they're wasting their time and effort arguing with someone who isn't open to accepting that his ideas aren't infallible.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> There is nothing oversimplified about it. Gross domestic product grows when there is an increase in economic activity, where as the government investing in company A by taxing company B is just moving existing wealth around. The receiver of the money may feel they have an increased capability to expand and employ, but that came at the cost of restricting growth somewhere else. Someone else cannot expand and employ as much as they could because that money was taken from them. If you have Â£100 and Â£20 was taken away and given to someone else, that's still Â£100 worth of buying power. The available buying power has not increased, it has just been redistributed.
> 
> The only way wealth redistribution would result in growth is if the economy was in some sort of extreme, such as in a 3rd world country where a small elite control almost all the wealth. Preventing a range of products and services from being developed among the population to cater to people with disposable income. While income inequality is getting worse, we're nowhere near that bad.






Different states of economic distribution have different associated probabilities of sustainable success. 
Changeing one state to another by redistributing the wealth within that system therefore may increase the probability of sustainable success in some cases, like in the example you said but also in a range of tamer permutations. 



Jashwa said:


> I don't think Onnes and Fallowfox realize they're   wasting their time and effort arguing with someone who isn't open to   accepting that his ideas aren't infallible.




Hmmm actually after reading randy's comment on education you're likely right. 

It's hence not impossible and government investment isn't automatically a bad thing- in turn we haven't talked about taxation and expenditure towards the environment for instance, rather than only business margin hopes.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> I don't think Onnes and Fallowfox realize they're wasting their time and effort arguing with someone who isn't open to accepting that his ideas aren't infallible.



Oh, I certainly know it. I've done this before, after all. I think of it more as a way to actually use all the reading I've done on economics and finance over the past years. I mean come on, how often do I actually get to bring up Say's law? The only thing better would be an active spider thread. That being said my interest declines factorially with each post so don't worry about me sustaining this silly thing forever--you'll be lucky to see another post out of me on that particular subject in here. 

Fallowfox probably still has to learn the terrible reality of a never-ending argument on these forums.


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## Lobar (Jul 18, 2012)

ADF said:


> Now where did I make that claim?



It's one of the ways you've oversimplified your model.  You're arguing that the government can't create growth by spending on thing A because they must first take just as much from the economy that was going to be spent on better thing B, when more realistically it was just sitting in Scrooge McDuck's vault for him to swim around in (savings).

Other ways you've oversimplified is by assuming a balanced budget instead of deficit spending to be repaid after a return to prosperity, and ignoring the value of assets created by spending, which is part of the economy too.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 18, 2012)

Jashwa said:


> I don't think Onnes and Fallowfox realize they're wasting their time and effort arguing with someone who isn't open to accepting that his ideas aren't infallible.



Me or ADF? 


Also I will elaborate on my previous post.

Yes, spending money on education is a good thing, I wasn't denying that (or didn't mean to anyway) but what use is gaining education, especially in specific employment fields when there is little call for it? It was all in the news that college and university students are pulling out these expensive student loans, gaining all the education they need for their career choice, then leaving to find they can't find a job in said career, end up in a part time job with a debt on their backs before they have even started living alone and fending for themselves.

The government needs to invest money into creating jobs for everyone. I have a friend who is a self employed roofer, work in the building trade is so crap at the moment that sometimes he is up to a month with no work. 

Welfare is another issue here. the government is now cracking down on welfare scammers, personally I think they should have done it years ago because so much tax money is lost each year to welfare scammers, eh I'm going off on a different tangent now.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

Onnes said:


> Oh, I certainly know it. I've done this before, after all. I think of it more as a way to actually use all the reading I've done on economics and finance over the past years. I mean come on, how often do I actually get to bring up Say's law? The only thing better would be an active spider thread. That being said my interest declines factorially with each post so don't worry about me sustaining this silly thing forever--you'll be lucky to see another post out of me on that particular subject in here.
> 
> Fallowfox probably still has to learn the terrible reality of a never-ending argument on these forums.



On the forum I originate from there is a debate called 'does god exist' that has over 600 pages, and which I have over 1000 posts in, mostly trying to convince young earth creationists that whether or not there's a god the loch ness monster definitely can't be used as the clincher. x3

Anyway I'm not incredibly knowledgeable on economics, having only glanced across its surface in a Geography AS level, so I can't really go into any more depth in this discussion without just pulling stuff out of my arse.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Anyway I'm not incredibly knowledgeable on economics, having only glanced across its surface in a Geography AS level, so I can't really go into any more depth in this discussion without just pulling stuff out of my arse.



The obvious joke is that that is all economics is.
(At least as physicists see it.)


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## Fallowfox (Jul 18, 2012)

Onnes said:


> The obvious joke is that that is all economics is.
> (At least as physicists see it.)



I took physics and a few of the people in my class wanted to become bankers...the mentality they had was 'I wanna get rich I don't care how or why and thenI'm going to retire at 40 and move to a tax haven,'. *

weirdly banking is the third biggest employer of qualified physicists.

*I think it's exactly this attitude which ends up causing problems and poverty.


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## ADF (Jul 18, 2012)

Onnes said:


> You've implicitly assumed that the velocity of money is constant and that savings is equal to investment. Natural consequences.
> (This is an acid-trip version of Say's law which implies that supply creates demand and that aggregate demand is fixed.)



All I've stated is that Â£100 is Â£100, however you share it out. It doesn't suddenly acquire Â£110 worth of buying power or more; simply because government moved it from one owner to another. To increase wealth you need to increase economic activity, GDP growth, which redistributing money between companies isn't going to do.

We've already seen the state taking control of economic activity, picking winners and losers depending on who gets the financing. Central economic planning does not work. The average boots on the ground person knows far better where to spend their money than government does, because economies are built around supplying products and services to the customer. The product and services that are desirable will be the companies that get the public's disposable income. The government deciding differently is just going to lead to capital misallocation, as areas of the economy the consumer doesn't want to spend their money in are propped up.



Onnes said:


> And as I've already explained, you are wrong. First, the money taken is always in the form of debt that is paid off over a long period of time. Which is to say the immediate negative impact to the economy is just about null, as the time horizon for payment is quite long, and in the recession case would never be initiated until a later date. Spending to increase demand is immediate, payment isn't.



The Eurozone is collapsing under the weight of its own debt, because countries are unable to generate enough growth to manage the debt load. The USA goes into crisis mode every time the debt ceiling is reached, because the country cannot function without piling on ever higher amounts of debt. Even then total US unfunded liabilities, future debt the US will have to take on to fund spending promises, is $119.7 trillion. That's more than 1.5x the GDP of the entire planet combined...

The total debt to GDP of my country, the UK, is 580%...

The world hasn't the capacity to loan its way out of this economic crisis. We're already drowning in debt. It's because of this inability by countries to manage their mounting debt load, that there is a sovereign debt crisis and countries are getting downgraded. 



Onnes said:


> You also assume that the private sector is actually being efficient in the first place, which it certainly is not as evidenced by the whole recession thing. There is no "crowding out" when the money isn't being invested in the first place.



I don't assume the private sector is inherently efficient, efficiency has nothing to do with the points I am arguing. The UK has a long track record of business letting the government down (NHS computer system, NHS trusts, Olympic security etc.) so believe me; I don't think business is automatically more efficient. 



Onnes said:


> You just made the argument that government spending cannot be more efficacious than private spending. It only stands to reason that this would so too apply across all sectors. You realize I'm not even the first poster to point this out to you, right?



The businesses that do well are the ones we the customer, you and me, choose to spend our money at. They're the ones that get to grow and expand, that's how we know the money is being spent to grow something we actually care about. That isn't the case when government taxes some of our disposable income/successful businesses profits; in order to spend it supporting other businesses. I back the government taxing to build/maintain essential infrastructure and public services that support the economy as a whole, not handing out stimulus packages and subsides to prop up areas of the economy that most likely shouldn't be propped up.  



Onnes said:


> Except that the debt downgrade happens no matter what you do, as evidenced by half the eurozone that seems to be tanking despite forced austerity. It's the whole problem of entering a GDP death spiral. The inefficiencies of the depressed markets lead to highly positive spending multipliers (1.5 is a common assumption) which mean that decreases in spending lead to even greater decreases in GDP which lead to decreases in tax revenue which then lead to decreases in spending ad infinitum. And do you want to know what happened to US interest rates after the downgrade? They decreased. Real interest rates went fucking negative! If you ask anyone in the US they'll say the biggest economic concern now is demand and unemployment, not future debt payments, because people are actually paying us to take their money and any decent investment by the government should produce more value than simply inflation.



Do you know why the US's cost to loan money is low, regardless of their debt load and credit rating? Because the US is buying its own debt. In 2011, 61% of all bonds sold by the United States was bought by the Federal Reserve, they are simply *creating money to fuel government deficit spending*.

That is incredibly, incredibly, dangerous. But in the short term, it makes their rates look low and they have no problems finding a buyer (because they are the buyer).


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I took physics and a few of the people in my class wanted to become bankers...the mentality they had was 'I wanna get rich I don't care how or why and thenI'm going to retire at 40 and move to a tax haven,'. *
> 
> weirdly banking is the third biggest employer of qualified physicists.
> 
> *I think it's exactly this attitude which ends up causing problems and poverty.



To be honest I blame the banks for the economy shit we are in now. I remember when they were basically having what I call "Loan wars" trying to get people to take out mortgages and loans with them because they had the "better APR rates" Nowadays you barely see such commercials anywhere.


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## Onnes (Jul 18, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> I took physics and a few of the people in my class wanted to become bankers...the mentality they had was 'I wanna get rich I don't care how or why and thenI'm going to retire at 40 and move to a tax haven,'. *
> 
> weirdly banking is the third biggest employer of qualified physicists.
> 
> *I think it's exactly this attitude which ends up causing problems and poverty.



I can't mind it too much. One day I'm going to need an actual job and the more people who want me the better.
Physicists are known for being able to calculate anything, no matter how obscure or demented. So we find employment in all levels of finance where modeling is used to predict risk and returns. Some people blame physicists for a large number of our current financial sector woes due to the rise of automated trading and the mathematical failures in risk models that lead to the mortgage crisis.


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## Bliss (Jul 19, 2012)

ADF said:


> So we've forgotten the whole "The fuck Greece is getting a vote on the bailout, get him out and put Monti in" have we? Again?


You are correct! I truly must have forgotten about that... because Mr Monti is the Prime Minister of *ITALY*. 



> Government =/= the people


Very good! The _parliament_ is the highest organ of State and reigns supreme. This is the constitutional principle and founding stone of a few nation states in the world: the Republic of Finland and the United Kingdom. If you question the legitimacy of EU it cannot be without bringing into doubt the political legitimacy of said organisations; EU exists as it is because they choose it to. 

What would you build on the ruins of EU and the United Kingdom? After all they are both completely 'artificial constructions', to use the wording both you and Mr Farage seem fancy to insult other people's homeland.



Fallowfox said:


> ... my own country is supporting a monarchy with about 50 of my pence.


Starting next year you will not support the Royal Family with a penny; it will be funded by a 15 per cent cut of the Crown Estate profit.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> Starting next year you will not support the Royal Family with a penny; it will be funded by a 15 per cent cut of the Crown Estate profit.



Where does that profit come from?


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## Bliss (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Where does that profit come from?


Didn't I just say? The Crown Estate. 

It is property and land that was privately owned by British monarchs until George III. He surrendered it's revenue to His Majesty's Government in exchange of yearly payments from the Treasury to support himself and his family (arrangement known as the Civil List).

Every monarch since then, including Her Majesty Elizabeth II, has agreed to do the same at their accession to the throne. It's current value is _milliards_ (nine zeros) of pounds sterling.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> Didn't I just say? The Crown Estate.
> 
> It is property and land that was privately owned by British monarchs until George III. He surrendered it's revenue to His Majesty's Government in exchange of yearly payments from the Treasury to support himself and his family (arrangement known as the Civil List).
> 
> Every monarch since then, including Her Majesty Elizabeth II, has agreed to do the same at their accession to the throne. It's current value is _milliards_ (nine zeros) of pounds sterling.


I'll ask again, Where does the Crown Estate get it's revenue from? Whom does it sell, or let its property too?


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## Bliss (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I'll ask again, Where does the Crown Estate get it's revenue from? Whom does it sell, or let its property too?


It mugs poor old ladies living on fixed income in the shady streets of London.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> It mugs poor old ladies living on fixed income in the shady streets of London.



Well, going by what I have been reading and the types of property it generates revenue from, To say we are not putting a penny towards the Royal Family anymore isn't exactly true now, is it.

They say themselves on their website " that makes us one of the country's largest owners of prime retail property." So all those members of the public shop at retail property owned and/or managed by the CE are contributing towards the Royal Famliy....well....will be in the future.

Basically, my point is, one way or another the cash comes from us.


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## Bliss (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Well, going by what I have been reading and the types of property it generates revenue from, To say we are not putting a penny towards the Royal Family anymore isn't exactly true now, is it.


Indeed! Let me elaborate: those who voluntarily decide to buy and pay for leases granted by the corporation (id est: to do business) are putting a penny towards the Royal Family.


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## ADF (Jul 19, 2012)

Lizzie said:


> You are correct! I truly must have forgotten about that... because Mr Monti is the Prime Minister of *ITALY*.



Oh I'm sorry, I mixed up one unelected ex-Goldman Sachs banker put into power of a European country; with the other ex-Goldman Sachs banker put into power of a European country.



Lizzie said:


> Very good! The _parliament_ is the highest organ of State and reigns supreme. This is the constitutional principle and founding stone of a few nation states in the world: the Republic of Finland and the United Kingdom. If you question the legitimacy of EU it cannot be without bringing into doubt the political legitimacy of said organisations; EU exists as it is because they choose it to.



Because it's impossible for the political class to have interests different from those of their electorate. Given the EU was established by politicians, for the interests of politicians, it couldn't possibly lead to a conflict of interest when it comes to whether the politicians of a country supports it.



Lizzie said:


> What would you build on the ruins of EU and the United Kingdom? After all they are both completely 'artificial constructions', to use the wording both you and Mr Farage seem fancy to insult other people's homeland.



You're the one that has decided that if I oppose the EU, I apparently oppose my own elected government. Regardless of how you reached this conclusion, I have this weird idea that how a country is run; will depend on who we elect. And if these people don't meet our standards, we can fire them by electing someone else next election.

How novel.

As opposed to the EU, which is mostly run by people the public of the United Kingdom neither voted for; nor can they remove. Where the entirety of the interests of the people who live here, comes down to one voice among 27 member states; who all have their own interests and agendas. Yet they get to make significant decisions on how our country is run, decisions that even the highest officials of elected office have to obey.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

ADF said:


> As opposed to the EU, which is mostly run by people the public of the United Kingdom neither voted for; nor can they remove. Where the entirety of the interests of the people who live here, comes down to one voice among 27 member states; who all have their own interests and agendas. Yet they get to make significant decisions on how our country is run, decisions that even the highest officials of elected office have to obey.



Brussels Say's jump, we say how high?


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## Fallowfox (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Brussels Say's jump, we say how high?



Brussels say we should give our prisoners the vote, we say 'lol no'.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Brussels say we should give our prisoners the vote, we say 'lol no'.



Oooo wow, that must be like, the only thing we don't do that Brussels say's we should. 

Obviously we don't do everything Brussels say's, but we do do a hell of a lot. 

Also I don't know if this is true or not, but today I got told that Mr Cameron wants to pull us out of the EU.


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## ADF (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Brussels say we should give our prisoners the vote, we say 'lol no'.



So we should let a foreign power neither elected by nor accountable to the British taxpayer run our country as they see fit, because they ruled in favour of a handful of issues you actually agree with? What happens if they decide something you don't agree with? Tough.

Don't worry, they will inevitably implement what you want. They are just making a lot of noise to create the impression of criticising the decision, before doing exactly as they are told. They have no choice in the matter, despite being the people who are supposed to be in charge of running the country.



Randy-Darkshade said:


> Also I don't know if this is true or not, but today I got told that Mr Cameron wants to pull us out of the EU.



He seems to think that if he hints he "may" offer a referendum if we vote Conservative next election, we will forget he promised that last election; then pulled a 180 the moment he was in power...


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## Fallowfox (Jul 19, 2012)

ADF said:


> So we should let a foreign power neither elected by nor accountable to the British taxpayer run our country as they see fit, because they ruled in favour of a handful of issues you actually agree with? What happens if they decide something you don't agree with? Tough.
> 
> Don't worry, they will inevitably implement what you want. They are just making a lot of noise to create the impression of criticising the decision, before doing exactly as they are told. They have no choice in the matter, despite being the people who are supposed to be in charge of running the country.
> 
> ...



Didn't say that, I pointed out that the idea the UK complies with everything the EU wants is bullshit, because it doesn't.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Didn't say that, I pointed out that the idea the UK complies with everything the EU wants is bullshit, because it doesn't.



We never said the UK does "everything" that Brussels says.

I mean duh, this country does have it's own laws. But we do do a lot of things that Brussels wants.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> We never said the UK does "everything" that Brussels says.



Who cares, the point is that the UK does plenty of things that irritate the EU, especially eurozone countries whose meetings the UK attends and criticises despite not being part of the eurozone.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Who cares, the point is that the UK does plenty of things that irritate the EU, especially eurozone countries whose meetings the UK attends and criticises despite not being part of the eurozone.



I'm glad we irritate Brussels.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I'm glad we irritate Brussels.



Yes, it's great the uk irritates the union where about 60% of british trade passes through x3


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Yes, it's great the uk irritates the union where about 60% of british trade passes through x3



Ahh, so you now admit that the EU has the UK over a barrel.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 19, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> Ahh, so you now admit that the EU has the UK over a barrel.



What does that mean? 

My comment was light hearted, it's childish and futile to be glad one group of politicians you have little part in controlling pisses off another group of politicians you have even less part in controlling.


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## Dreaming (Jul 19, 2012)

Off topic, but it's kind of funny to watch these debates spiral into discussing why the EU is bad for the UK. I mean, it's just one of those circular arguments that really aren't worth arguing on the Internet. 

On topic:


> An 11-year-old boy from *Greater Manchester*


Stay classy, Manchester

(Maybe I'm reading this wrong but doesn't it say he was granted asylum before the rape happened?)


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## ADF (Jul 19, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Didn't say that, I pointed out that the idea the UK complies with everything the EU wants is bullshit, because it doesn't.



We comply substantially more than most other countries, even those in the Euro. Our government seems to give EU directives gold plating.

As I said, our government rejecting giving prisoners the vote is simply noise. They will comply, it's just good PR with a country that is sceptical about the EU to make it look like we don't want to, before being forced to. Because if we don't, we'll end up having to pay every prisoner financial conpensation every time we deny them voting on something.



Fallowfox said:


> Yes, it's great the uk irritates the union where about 60% of british trade passes through x3



That's an argument often used to argue we need to stay in the EU, to be at the "negotiating table". Of course that's simply propaganda, because there are countries that trade with Europe without having to be in the EU. The influence we have within the EU, despite being exaggerated by politicians, is no more significant than any other EU member state. Less even, given we don't want to be fully integrated and hence are in the "slow lane" of the multi speed Europe.

It hardly helps our trade when we aren't allowed to create our own trade agreements with the rest of the world either. All trade with those outside of Europe has to be handled via the EU, we are not allowed to represent ourselves. So is it really surprising our economy is so invested in the EU, when it's the EU handling our trade negotiations outside of it? There is a big world out there, we don't have to restrict ourselves to just one part of it and have to adopt a load of senseless regulations in the process.

All of that said, we import more from Europe than export, so they need us more than we need them.


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## Butters Shikkon (Jul 20, 2012)

Dreaming said:


> Off topic, but it's kind of funny to watch these debates spiral into discussing why the EU is bad for the UK. I mean, it's just one of those circular arguments that really aren't worth arguing on the Internet.
> 
> On topic:



You brave, brave soul...This thing has evolved far beyond the original topic. I tip my hat to you for trying to bring it back, if only I was more up to date on English law I'd jump in too...


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## Wreth (Jul 20, 2012)

I don't see anything wrong with this. I don't care if someone is a rapist paedophile murderer. They are still a human being and should be treated as such. That's what makes us better than this criminal. We still need to treat our criminals humanely and ethically. The judge felt that if he was deported he would be treated by the foreign government less humanely than what the british government finds acceptable for any criminal.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 20, 2012)

Wreth said:


> I don't see anything wrong with this. I don't care if someone is a rapist paedophile murderer. They are still a human being and should be treated as such. That's what makes us better than this criminal. We still need to treat our criminals humanely and ethically. The judge felt that if he was deported he would be treated by the foreign government less humanely than what the british government finds acceptable for any criminal.




Oh thank goodness for returning us to the topic wreth. I agree absolutely with you, even if some people feel horrid retribution and forfeiting of human rights is apt they have to admit that no verdict is infallible, so the person who gets sentenced may actually be innocent.


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## Wreth (Jul 20, 2012)

The legal system is about justice, not revenge. They are not the same thing.


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## Mayfurr (Jul 21, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> I don't like the UK either, *if I was able to move out of this godforsaken shithole of a country I would.*



'Course, then *you* would be the "Bloody Foreigner taking our jobs / sucking up our welfare" (with probably a side helping of "Whinging Pom") in whatever country you'd go to...


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## Torrijos-sama (Jul 21, 2012)

Why can't England do what Australia does, and jail asylum seekers?



Mayfurr said:


> 'Course, then *you* would be the "Bloody Foreigner taking our jobs / sucking up our welfare" (with probably a side helping of "Whinging Pom") in whatever country you'd go to...



At least he could speak English while taking jobs, unless he ended up Eastern Europe.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 21, 2012)

Australia jails assylum seekers?


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 21, 2012)

Mayfurr said:


> 'Course, then *you* would be the "Bloody Foreigner taking our jobs / sucking up our welfare" (with probably a side helping of "Whinging Pom") in whatever country you'd go to...



Umm, why are you being like this to me? I have never disagreed with foreigners being in this country. I only disagree with people being here illegally.


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## Torrijos-sama (Jul 21, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Australia jails assylum seekers?



Asylum seekers that illegally enter the country are jailed so that Australia doesn't have to turn people away, but would hopefully provide enough of a reason to make people reconsider their decision to move illegally.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Jul 21, 2012)

JesusFish said:


> Asylum seekers that illegally enter the country are jailed so that Australia doesn't have to turn people away, but would hopefully provide enough of a reason to make people reconsider their decision to move illegally.



Good. They shouldn't enter illegally.


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