Quote Originally Posted by KukriKhan View Post
Anyway, the way forward: scrap Lisbon, and start over, or try to fix broken Lisbon; in your opinion?
Me, I'd just shove it down these insolent Irish' throats and

'Lisbon' is a reasonable treaty. It is pretty much the existing treaties polished up, with new provisions to deal with the doubling in size of the EU. It is up to internal Irish politics to see what will happen to it. (And the Czechs)
If it is rejected, we shall have to learn to live with a useless EU for the foreseeable future.
'Useless' not in the meaning of 'small, impotent EU' that Eurosceptics dream of, but useless as 'this current incompetent, unwielding mess that just shoves money around'. The EU is not legally equipped to deal with its own dysfunctioning. And this dysfunctioning is the very reason why it can't reform itself into a functioning, democrtatically controlled institution. Oh well...


the idealized (but never realized) Union of Socialist Republics. A UIESR (union of independent european socialist republics), so to speak.
I object to the description of the EU in terminology such as 'idealised Union of Socialist Republics'. I realise that you do not refer to the actual USSR, but to the propaganda version of it, that of happy independent states. But even so, semantics is important. They shape people's perception of reality. And the other way around - is it entirely coincidental that you verbally associated the EU with the USSR?

The EU is a supranational organisation of independent, mature democratic states. Indeed, it is one of the main engines behind the spread of democracy in Europe over the past half a century.
In favour of more US States Rights or not, one does not call the US federation an 'idealized Fourth Reich'. For or against, one doesn't speak of NAFTA as the US 'seeking Lebensraum'. Pro-independence or not, one does not call Alaska's joining of the Union a few decades ago an 'idealized Anschluss'.

Please do not fall for the trappings of the more hysterical anti-EU crowd. One can be vehemently opposed to the EU and still avoid recourse to their terminology. Terminology, that is at once sinister and infantile.
Likewise, one can disagree with the course of the US foreign policy of recent years, and still remain well clear of describing America as a fascist monster, or the 'Great Satan'.