Yeah yeah, we get it. If only the UK shut down every other month due to paralysing strikes it would be the paradise on earth known as France. Didn’t we try that back in the 1970s? Didn’t seem to go down too well from what I can gather.
Strikers paralysing the country? Absolutely.
On the contrary, what you are describing is not democracy; it’s mob rule.
That’s the basic premise of a democracy, yes.
A French democracy, maybe.
The Anglo-Saxon democratic ideal is that of citizens acting together in a prudent, rational and educated fashion. It rarely happens, but at least that’s what we strive for.
Mob rule is anathema to prudent, rational and educated decision-making. Mobs are stupid.
Athenian democracy, yes. Representative democracy, hell no. Representative democracy works in spite of every retard in the country having a vote, not because of it.
Especially if one can just shoot the hoi polloi if they get uppity.
Sorry Mijin, but I think you misunderstood mine too. Captain Ridley was going on a rant saying “The army should be brought in. There’s this thing called “representative democracy”. We elect a government to make hard decisions on our behalf. Don’t like those decisions? Vote them out at the next election. Don’t shut down the damned country (and half your continent) because you aren’t getting your own way”.
Obviousy you’re entitled to have an opinion, and to express it. If you’re not a French citizen, you’re just not entitled to anything over what the French government decides. That’s between the government and the people it governs. Ridley is not part of that equation. If he so desperately wants to correct that, he can apply for French citizenship. I dont remember British citizenship allowing bench ruling on French issues.
I might have been a little more civil in answering, I’ll grant you that. But going on rants with “The EU needs to interfere as the French have proved once again they’re not responsible enough to govern themselves” kind of curbs my enthusiasm for civility.
No, you still misunderstand. Back to the barricade for you.
Hence the examples of British particularism, if in a club I guess everyone is subject to the same rules. Yet, you’re writing from a country that refuses to adopt the currency used by everyone else in the club. Do I start to roll over and cry over that. Hmm, no.
The EU unilaterally deciding who has the right to strike and who hasnt in France would be deliberately going against France’s Constitution. I’m not sure an attack on the core of the sovereignty of one of its founding members would be a wise move by the EU. Especially when the EU Commission has no democratic backing while the strikers have.
Actually, no, I’m not writing from a country with a currency outside the “club” at all. And there’s no rule stating that member nations need to sign up to your ramshackle currency propped up by Germany (and initially us), thank Christ.
Well there’s no rule that says France hasnt got total control over its air space neither.
So you’re just asking for a specific rule against France sovereignty because it hurts your interests a bit, and at the same time you back up behind “There’s no rule forcing us to” when asked about Britain adopting the Euro.
Thanks for making your arguments painfully clear. I couldnt have done it on my own, it truly was a team effort.
Wow, you can’t leave the BS about “sovereignty” alone, can you?
One proposal: perfectly justified given the multitudinous problems French ATC have getting to work on time and staying there once they arrive.
The other: some lame “gotcha” attempt. Actually make a case that Britain joining the Euro is a good idea (hint: it isn’t. The last thing we need is another country on the continent tied to that piece of shit. Let’s all sink with Greece and Italy while we’re at it.) and I may be persuaded that an EU ruling in this sphere is warranted.
Sorry, but you don’t get to pick and choose. Either you’re of the opinion that the EU can supercede the sovereignty of its members when it deems it important/convenient (and demonstrably, the majority of the EU has deemed switching to the Euro was important and convenient, to use the current example), or you deem that individual states can tell the EU to fock roight orff and let each member decide which rules of the club they’re going to obey, and which they’re going not to.
But your position of “the UK can do whatever the fuck it wants, but the EU needs to force France to comply with what the UK wants” is not realistic. And no, you can’t make rules for one member that do not apply to the others. That’s not how this whole “community” thing works. Else we’d have unilaterally made British use of cookware illegal a long time ago 
First of all, the relationship between those events and the harm they cause other member states is different.
If the UK didn’t exist, how would that affect the single currency? It wouldn’t, other than indirectly by making the world economy smaller. Britain not being in the euro causes no harm beyond the neutral case.
OTOH if there were no France, all nations could fly across that airspace freely. So the ATC strikes cause harm beyond the neutral case.
But in any case, I think it’s a false dilemma that either the EU has ultimate power or member states do whatever the hell they like. Indeed the whole concept of the EU is a compromise between those two extremes.
If Britain not joining the euro irks other members sufficiently, then there are ways that they can put pressure on us to change. Similarly, we could put pressure on France to find contingency plans for these strikes, or yield some control to the EU.
You still haven’t explained why you can’t wait 18 months for an election. You’ve made an argument on the level of a 3 year old saying “But I want candy now!”. It isn’t how adults operate. You yourself recognize that this strike was started by “a bunch of dicks”. Yet for some reason, instead of heaping scorn on them, you defend them against those that are. Please explain, why shouldn’t “a bunch of dicks” be scorned, and why should anyone be angry at Sarkozy for doing so?
Because not everything is resolved through an election. Because the political structure is designed to maintain power and privilege for those who already have it. And because, in the immortal words of Ken Livingstone, “if voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.”
The French government is fast tracking the law now, not in 18 months. They already didnt negotiate anything when writing the law, then they hurry it through the legislative process. Their strategy is obviously to get the law passed quickly as it is more difficult, in their minds, to rescind the law once it is promulgated (they’re deluding themselves there, but it wouldnt be the first time they do, so).
If there is a time for demos and strikes, it’s now, not in 18 months. The fact that it may cause some difficulties for others in their travel arrangements is as relevant to the issue as a fly on a rhino’s back, and just testament to the navel-gazing capacities of some people.
Nah, this helmet.
Hey, look, another poster who doesn’t understand that people don’t fly for the hell of it, but, you know, may have actual important reasons for getting on a plane. Visiting dieing relatives. Making it to a wedding or Christening. Important business deals. etc. etc. All of these are absolutely of no consequence compared to the idle French keeping their gravy train going for another year, as is the hundreds of millions in Euros in lost business that’s incurred when the French decide their government does something they don’t like for the 500 billionth time this year.
I prefer this one.
See, that’s fine. But as an American, a lot of what I’m hearing about the strikes in Greece and France surpass what I consider just “striking.”
I can’t accept blocking roads and access to facilities as merely being “democracy in action”. It’s using physical force to get what you want, which seems pretty undemocratic to me.
