Quote Originally Posted by Sarmatian View Post
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All countries have different history and different customs. Even some parts of France have different history and different customs compared to some other parts of France. And what do you mean different economic interests? Don't we generally have the same economic interests? We may disagree on actual policies and actions, but the goal is generally the same
Oh, I am taking the piss, Sarmatian.

Come on, I base a dramatic and emotional pro-integration plea on poor IA's father who's starving to death because mean tabloid-wielding xenophobes don't want to be in a monetary union with Greece, only to be followed not two posts later by me revealing myself to be a dastardly xenophobe moaning that I don't want to be in a union with strange and foreign countries like Greece. It was funny, no?


And apart from taking the piss, I am posing a mental challenge. It may not sound like it, trying as I am to further debate by stubbornly, singlesidedly arguing for more EU integration, but I do take the arguments of the others seriously. For all my talk of a xenophobe, nationalist tabloid version of European integration, I myself of course think exactly the same. We all do. Save for Husar, who really does accept the consequence of his arguments and calls for a world government. Unless one does, one will have to define an 'us and them', and put a geographical and political limit to the extent of the EU.

Whom do I want to be in bed with? For me it is simple: the countries that surround me. Italy, Iberia, the British Isles, the Benelux, Germany, the Alpine countires. Those, plus the fat beef of Scandinavia - all their Kroner are belong to me.

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

This all means that all criticism about invoking different histories, different customs, different interests, is a matter of quantitive preference, not a qualitive one. Or, to put it differently, I can argue Furunculu's argument that Britain does or doesn't belong in the EU because of different history and customs etcetera. I can not argue the principle itself that different history, customs, etcetera are a criterium.

I myself have a limit. Turkey? No, too big and too different. Russia, the same. North Africa? Nope. Some Britons have limit as well, often conveniently summarised as: beyond the cliffs of Dover, the abyss.
You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.