any takers for a pan-atlantic union?

hardydrew

Let's just forget about this eu police state and set up a new union with the US and UK? :eek:

dloob

Yeah the EU police state is half baked. The US and UK would show us how it's really done.
We could lock up people without charge for 42 days and then ship them off to gitmo.

force eleven

dloob wrote: »

Yeah the EU police state is half baked. The US and UK would show us how it's really done.
We could lock up people without charge for 42 days and then ship them off to gitmo.

Or we could stay with the 'Borg collective' . You will be assimilated, resistance is futile. HQ is Brussels.

nesf

Get with the program.. We should form a union with China and India obviously. Wave of the future etc.

O'Morris

hardydrew wrote: »

Let's just forget about this eu police state and set up a new union with the US and UK? :eek:

I would support a union between the four nations of the British isles but not with the US.

jaqian

hardydrew wrote: »

Let's just forget about this eu police state and set up a new union with the US and UK? :eek:

Yeah lets all jump from the frying-pan into the FIRE. No Thanks. No matter how bad you think Europe is, USA is worse. Better the divil you know...

marco_polo

O'Morris wrote: »

I would support a union between the four nations of the British isles but not with the US.

I think we tried that before, didn't work out so well.

That would definately not appease the SF No vote

You Suck!

According to the conpiracys board we are already in such alliance and a whole confederacy of others seckrit unions all controlled by Satan himself.

Relax, the autopilots on man! Just sit back and enjoy the apocalypse. Gonna be a hell of a light show!

ChocolateSauce

Maybe in 100 years, if the US gets less libertarian, the EU more libertarian and all the evangelicals swear off sex and die out.

And if the Americans switch back to British English.

Yeah.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

if the Us gets *less* libertarian?

how much less libertarian do you wnat them to get?

ChocolateSauce

Mordances with the proletariat wrote: »

if the Us gets *less* libertarian?

how much less libertarian do you wnat them to get?

Less enough so that they're not afraid to raise taxes to socialise their health system, for one.

I'm sorry, I'm not a subscriber to the fascist police state hypothesis.

djpbarry

theozster wrote: »

Maybe in 100 years, if the US gets less libertarian...

That has to be a typo. You want the US to be LESS libertarian? One Guantanamo isn't enough for you?

Kovik

A union with the US and the UK would mean a century of massive current account deficit. I don't like the prospects of joining a union where our own per capita GDP is so drastically superior to our counterparts.

ChocolateSauce

djpbarry wrote: »

That has to be a typo. You want the US to be LESS libertarian? One Guantanamo isn't enough for you?

Guantanamo is an extra territorial prison and has nothing to do with the legal ability of the government to interfere with the affairs of a private citizen. Of course it is illegal under international law, but this means the government is breaking (or from an American point of view, circumventing) the law. It means if the government, which is this particular instance, dishonest and corrupt, they are so against the stated method of governance of their country, and their stated method is so libertarian that nothing is done to protect the weak in society.

Ours on the other hand in no meaningful way restricts what powers the government has. Legally, laws could be passed which give the government the right to have a say in the way private citizens run their lives.

Kovik

Libertarians reject the notion of international law. Many, many American Libertarian party voices are perfectly happy with the Gitmo situation.

nesf

Kovik wrote: »

Libertarians reject the notion of international law. Many, many American Libertarian party voices are perfectly happy with the Gitmo situation.

American Libertarian parties are not the definition of what it is to be a libertarian. The libertarian tradition is broader than the narrow context of American Libertarians.

Kovik

Surely you can't deny, however, that the modern developments in classic "libertarian" theory and their application to the current political climate has been dominated by American theorists catering to American sensibilities?

nesf

Kovik wrote: »

Surely you can't deny, however, that the modern developments in classic "libertarian" theory and their application to the current political climate has been dominated by American theorists catering to American sensibilities?

I wouldn't deny that, but I would argue that Libertarians in other countries would not necessarily identify with these American-centric developments and to use the word "Libertarians" doesn't automatically imply the American usage of the word, especially on an Irish bulletin board.

Kovik

nesf wrote: »

I wouldn't deny that, but I would argue that Libertarians in other countries would not necessarily identify with these American-centric developments and to use the word "Libertarians" doesn't automatically imply the American usage of the word, especially on an Irish bulletin board.

Fair enough. Personally, I've yet to encounter any articulation of libertarian notions outside of an American context (excluding half informed children screaming about Rob Paul on the internet) but I can see your point.

nesf

Kovik wrote: »

Fair enough. Personally, I've yet to encounter any articulation of libertarian notions outside of an American context (excluding half informed children screaming about Rob Paul on the internet) but I can see your point.

It depends on how broadly or narrowly you choose to define the term libertarianism I think. In the broadest sense it is a political ideology that places the highest value on some sense of individual liberty where the ideal government is one which only infringes on this where absolutely necessary. In practical/concrete terms, this is normally associated with the movement towards small/smaller government depending on what you think are essential state services. There is a very messy political science/philosophical debate over what is and what is not libertarianism and it's different flavours. The key, in my view, towards having a "useful" definition of libertarianism is very much down to the context of the state in which you're looking at political parties rather than an absolute position on certain policies that aren't necessarily something that are independently equivalent across different countries.

For an Irish example, the early PD movement was broadly along these lines, i.e. a push for greater social and economic liberalism with respect to the then existent "centre" of Irish politics. The dissemination of these ideas into the political mainstream has been seen over the past decade moving the centre towards a more liberal position both socially and economically.