Europe

[Furunculus]

It is an unfortunate fact that the average man doesn't know what is good for him, as they aren't taught or made to understand things. Simple education providing key skills such as critical thinking and how to research/come up with valid conclusions by itself will make the common man know what is good for them. If you noticed, I never biased that in any direction.

Also, it's not naive, it is rather people just being selfish. A trait from capitalism.

Also, I love how you labelled me as progressive. It is more of a compliment than an insult.

a lot of people seem to disagree with your 'benign' authoritarianism:

I'll give you the same ultimatum as I gave Amelius Paulus - you say that the average man doesn't know what is good for him. What distinguishes you from the average man?

I once thought in the same authoritarian vein. I don't anymore. As much as you hold yourself apart from the common man, eventually you will grow to realise that you are similar to him. Perhaps you are even just like him. And whatever you think, you do not know what is best for him any more than he knows what is best for you.

You have no right to dictate merely because you believe you know best. Such thinking has in the past led to mass burnings of heretics for the good of the Respublica Christiana.

If you cannot make the case for the federalised EU, that is your failing. Thus far the basic arguement is that the Euopean nations cannot work together, so they need to be forced to work together.

It's a crap arguement.

Wow. How blatant and 'out there'.

And euro's wonder why yanks are suspicious. Beskar is a young guy. That he holds such thoughts and entertains them, tells me that the USSR didn't die , it simply got smarter, to wit: quit the shoe-banging at the UN, stop the economically-draining arms race with the US... just spread the word. The word of universal harmony. Directed by people who know what's good/best for the people.

Concur, Kukri. The older I become, the more I think up new questions and the more I realize I don't have the answers. Aside from a notably shorter refraction interval, the thing I envy the most in the young is their certainty.

I'm not all that thrilled with the increasing power of our OWN central government and would prefer some reversion to the states.

Beskar and the other EU centralists want one big happy state with adminstrative districts called France, Germany etc. Can't say as I favor that for Europe either, though ultimately its up to them not to me.

If people are uninterested about politics now, why the heck will they take an interest in the maze of toss which comprises the EU. Instead of lambasting your fellow taxpayers and Britons for not knowing enough, seek a solution, if they do not know enough, help them know enough. Do not use their lack of knowledge as a weapon against them or as reason to disregard their what they firmly hold as their right to have a say. Doing anything else will merely anatgonise those people who view the EU through a mist of fear and apprehension.

you realise that is a very telling trait of those in favour of progressive/lefty politics, the fact the the average man doesn't know what is good for him, and that your solution correctly applied, and given him time, will sway him from his erroneous ways on to the true path.

this is commonly known as age-acquired-cynicism, that accrues through a lifetime of witnessing well-intentioned busy bodies in government screw things up.
it tracks a similar path to those adults who start of as left-wing firebrands and end up as stolid conservatives.

maybe there is a correlation?