…how that sovereignty is used in reality is precisely the point. The EMA approved the vaccine. But the EMA isn’t going to send in troops to Germany to enforce that approval. Its kinda like how the UK originally opted out of the euro. Just because almost everyone else did it didn’t mean that the UK didn’t have the option of choosing not to. And just because none of the members of the EU chose to not accept the approval of the EMA doesn’t mean they were obliged to do so.
Sorry, is there any democratic nation sending in troops to enforce approvals? What in the world?
No, it’s not remotely like the UK opting out of the Euro. These countries have tied their nations’ laws to EU rules. They have to change their own laws before they can opt out of a huge number of EU regulations.
Look, I know you’re not stupid. The discussion we should be having is whether the sovereignty that the EU states have signed off on is more or less important than the parts they haven’t. That is, if we wanted to decide whether the EU was a good comparison rather than argue for argument’s sake.
…have you forgotten the original premise now? Are you arguing for the sake of arguing?
These sound like the arguments made by “Vote Leave.” The fact that they can change their own laws so they can opt out of a huge number of EU regulations is precisely the point. They chose to opt in. They can choose to opt out.
Look, I know you’re not stupid. The original question was why is Canada a better point of comparison than the EU. The answer is that Canada is a country that shares many cultural similarities with the US, has co-sovereign provinces that share similarities with US States. The EU isn’t even a country. The EU Parliament isn’t equivalent to the US Federal government. Canada is a much better comparison.
I think Canada is a better comparison in many ways as well. Didn’t read anything other than your last sentence because I immediately noticed your style hadn’t changed a hair. Lucky you bolded “much” or even that wouldn’t have happened.
Maybe they did better with SARS but relative to the nations of the EU (in aggregate or thinking of on average, whichever one prefers) or the US, they have still done pretty dang good so far on COVID-19. Some of that may be (very probably is) due to leadership leading in a useful not actively harmful way. Maybe a bit due to less density in their urban areas … maybe. And some bit more may be due to a point that I heard in this week’s Babbage (a The Economist podcast): nothing prepares like having done it before.
I put this in a similar thread, but I went to the trouble of transcribing it, so I’m going to put it here, too. This is Roman Mars on one of his podcasts, talking about the death of his father from COVID-19.
He died because of politics, so I don’t think his death is out of bounds when it comes to talking about politics, because there is no medical, scientific, or rational reason why you wouldn’t take COVID on, except for political reasons. Therefore I think the politics of Trump, were a direct contributer to my father’s death and everyone should speak about it in this way, in my opinion.
I think it is very clear there is a cause and effect here, and we have a nation that represents 5% of the population and, I don’t know, 25% of the COVID cases. I mean that is not something that just happens. That happens because of neglect, and a lack of what government should do, and if there is one thing government should do it is the type of things that we can’t do individually. It should organize logistics and planning around things like pandemics, and building roads, and bridges, and stuff, that no company or person can do. They failed so dramatically in the past four years, and the result has been a quarter of million deaths, including a person close to me.