ajkula66 wrote:> The EU can and does work, alarmist statements about 'difficulties' notwithstanding.
The same was said for USSR, time and time again, for 75 years or so...and for Yugoslavia, in two different guises, for a total of 68...
wrooooong....
The same thing was also said about many other states in defending them from their detractors, and the majority of them ended up much better than either of the two examples you've cited.
ajkula66 wrote:but for pointing out a scenario that shouldn't be that foreign to someone who grew up where you had...
Individuals - especially intelligent ones - who were exposed to totalitarian systems first hand usually have an ability to recognize when democracy starts going haywire faster than ones who haven't had such charming experiences...so you do leave me quite puzzled in that respect...
For the record, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa officially became Rzeczpospolita Polska when I was at the precious age of two. I may have been talking at that point, but I am not going to claim having first-hand experience. Perhaps that is where we disconnect.
28 years ago today, Poland was put under martial law. Like I said, I am studying and intend to make a living based on technical sciences (no, Bill, not off other people's money), so I am not going to claim expertise, but I did read a bit of the history.
I get the sense that a lot of people here, you obviously not included, don't really have a sense of how bad a real, economically failing totalitarian system could be, so I'll introduce a few things.
In 1981, several thousand people (BBC cites "tens of thousands") active in the opposition were arrested for anti-state activities, read: organizing a trade union and not towing the party line. The now famous electrician was interned for 11 months. If anything on a nearly similar scale is happening in the EU, I am unaware.
All phone lines were cut, TV and radio, all previously limited to broadcasting government material, were made to only broadcast messages from the ruling military. Mail was censored. Within technical abilities, evil capitalist-sponsored radio stations were jammed. The EU has Internet, with very weak attempts to control its contents in some countries.
You needed government permission to travel between cities, for example to visit relatives during Christmas. The EU has the Schengen agreement and the area covered is continuously expanding.
Protests were pacified up to and including deadly force. 9 people were killed protesting at one of the coal mines. A decade earlier, during 7 days in December 1970, 39 people people were killed in protests and unrest in northern Poland. The death toll of 20 nights of French riots in 2005, mostly without political context, was 2.
Telling the
truth about some events of the World War II would have gotten you into a lot of trouble. The EU has some countries where lying about some events of the WW2 gets you in trouble. While I can't fully support this, I have not been raised as a member of a country that a few generations back systematically murdered several million civilians, so I am not in position to fully condemn it either. Poland has a similar situation regarding what we call the Katyń lie; I'm not sure if it's a law. I am not thrilled about it, but I am not surprised it exists given the history of having to take lying down getting lied in our face about it for several decades.
I cannot see the EU going down the slippery slope. If it is, it must be
very far up. It is definitely not perfect. There are some things I am not a big fan of, but none of them seem to be in place for no reason other than to oppress. Perhaps it is the lack of experience. On the other hand, perhaps your experience is prejudicing you, too.
And about...
qviri wrote:That site is an excellent showcase of your arguments.
Feel free to accuse me of intellectual bias, but I believe that if you wish to be treated seriously, you should present your arguments in a decent way. I cannot take The Capital News seriously in any way whatsoever.
Take
this leaflet. Unfortunately it is in Polish only. Written at a time when merely possessing it, let alone distributing or writing, would have gotten a person into lots of trouble with the authorities, it gives specific details regarding alleged sending of Polish goods to USSR by the train-load at a time when these goods were very difficult to obtain in Poland.
It gives the location of the observations, amount of train cars for each category of goods for each month, and cites by name the source of this information.
Now, I have some issues with the information presented, most notably since Poland would have been required to export goods in order to pay back our national debt at the time, but at least there was enough information for me to disagree with. There is opinion and polemics, but separate from the raw data.
Contrast it with The Capital News site, which despite of operating in an environment freer by several orders of magnitude, gives
no details in the Europol story,
no source, not by position let alone by name. There is nothing except scaremongering written in a conspiracy theorist tone.
Where is the address? Where are the quotes? Where is the attribution? Why does something I am supposed to treat seriously use the word "presumably" and follows it with the wildest fantasy?
killer wrote:If I send them a blank sheet of paper would they be able to write down the names all EU member states without looking it up, and fill the names in on a blank map?
"Communism" is a country, right?
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