European Politics Thread

Why would the Telecoms ever pass up an excuse to print money?

Apparently sending a text message is more expensive than transferring the same amount of data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

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For Americans it is. For us, its as cheap as chips. Thanks to fierce industry competition (you should see the special offers) the EU now has the cheapest phone plans in the OECD. Besides India. (Is India in the OECD?)

^ It was a British research who did that estimate.

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You could name the army entirely in Latin. It would actually be fitting, since, you know, the Roman Empire is from Europe and whatnot.

European people always make me feel bad. Why the hell is everything (apparently) cheaper there?! I should write a letter of complaint, except I don't think it works the same way there as it does here...

I am now known as Flyboy.

A lot of things are more expensive. Gas for instance.

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Which is highly ironic, since most of the petroleum-exporting nations hate the United States... and most of them are the Middle East or South America. Hm, could those places possibly be where we decided to meddle where we didn't belong? My nation's past foreign policy really fails sometimes (most of the time)...

At least we have wider roads.

edited 4th Jul '11 5:55:05 AM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

No the main reason is taxes. American gas taxes are ridiculously low and have been falling for decades in real terms.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Given how car-centric the US is (buses are terrible, really, really terrible. Even if they modernized the system, still terrible. I personally love the train, but most people in the US don't), I doubt raising taxes on gas would happen... ever...

Back on topic with European Politics (something that is really, honestly foreign to me; amusingly enough, I know more about European politics from the 19th Century than I do from today), I didn't think France was a part of NATO, given that Charles de Gaulle pulled France from NATO back in the Cold War days for his "Third Force" nonsense. When did they rejoin, and why?

I am now known as Flyboy.

De Gaulle didn't want to leave NATO, or if he did, he never succeeded.

You're confusing "leaving NATO" with "kicking the NATO HQ out of France and into Belgium, forcing all staff, offices, archives, etc to move North and quitting the military branch, but remaining a member of the political coalition", which is something that de Gaulle did do.

edited 4th Jul '11 6:58:48 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

The buses are terrible*

, especially when compared to those made in Europe — after all, British firms are exporting buses to the USA now...

edited 4th Jul '11 7:14:11 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

We're EXPORTING? But buses here are made by Mercedes. At least, the buses in the West Midlands Metropolitian County are.

Not all of them. Nowhere near *

...and well, check The Other Wiki here and here.

edited 4th Jul '11 7:26:05 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

De Gaulle made France leave the Integrated Command of NATO, but not NATO itself. So, in case of war, France would still be an ally of the rest of the Alliance, but our troops would have had an independant command, and, most importantly, French Navy and Air Force could work to keep French nukes ready to fire at any time. One of the parts of our strategy at the time was to have a pile of IRBM, SLBM and ALCM pointed at the Soviets but outside of U.S. command, meaning that a bluff would be far more dangerous for Moscow. Against the U.S., they could hope that the White House would say "screw that, Western Europe isn't worth the end of the world", and against U.K., they could say "we'll only take Continental Europe and let you alone, so don't fire, guys". But France wouldn't be left unscathed if their attack succeeded. So De Gaulle, IMHO, wanted to make sure that everyone understood that nothing could stop the missiles to take off: if you start WW3 and are winning, it WILL end nuclear. No if, no but, just the flashes over the whole Northern hemisphere.

But, of course, the conventional forces would fight alongside the NATO forces. Just not under the formal command of the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, that's it.

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.

Didn't Boris Johnson make a point a few months ago about how each purchase of a London bus meant a component being built by a company based somewhere else in the UK. Like you have lights built in colchester or something and wipers from Leeds and bus drivers from Glasgow.

"By Mercedes" might not mean much. I mean look at this article about Wrightbus, notice how many things are noted as "for" Volvo and Mercedes.

Hmm. I should have guessed that our history book would have simplified since it was focusing more on the US-USSR shitstorm going on at the time. That particular episode only got like 3 paragraphs. I suppose I should have looked it up on my own. Although that all sounds way, way too complicated... and like De (is it De or de, properly?) Gaulle didn't really make his plans clear to the US and Western Europe.

Of course, the thing I always remember about Charles de Gaulle, besides his World War Two stuff, is the fiasco he had in Canada. Never ceases to amuse me, lol...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Also- the EU might have done something about roaming charges but these are temporary rates until they bring in a whole new structure.

For new London buses, that's true*

— but for the buses he means*

^{Mercedes O 405 N, pretty much the only ones in the country}

, they're about 80%-German (and integral buses, like a car), rather like the London Citaros, really*

^{Your average bus has a "chassis" (these days more like front/rear modules) and bodywork (the part you actually see and ride in) made somewhere else — often in a different country — why, I'm a bus enthusiast as well, can't you tell?}

.

Keep Rolling On

So, wait, wouldn't that make life harder in the event of war, to have everyone under one command... except one country, which is separate yet allied? Especially since France is a significant military power and would be first responder into Germany (after Germany itself, naturally) in the event of a land-based invasion of Europe?

By the way, what's the opinion around here on Turkey joining the EU and whatnot. It's always rather perplexing here in the US why you guys haven't had them join yet (besides the obvious technicality that they aren't actually part of Europe, except for that one small bit).

Then again, the very concept of the EU is often seen as kind of quaint here, since it's kind of strange to us that so many (relatively) little countries are packed into Europe. My friends and I like to look at the map of Europe and scratch our heads, wondering how the hell so many different nationalities formed even in such close proximity...

edited 4th Jul '11 8:17:25 AM by USAF713

I am now known as Flyboy.

I tried to look this up...are Mercedes buses really actually made in Brazil?

According to The Other Wiki:

Yes

Keep Rolling On

x6: the idea de Gaulle had (its "de", since it is a "of" in the name) was to have a France able to be listened to on the world stage, and to do this, he had to be seen as a "third power", which would never be on par of the two Big Ones, but which would be somehow between. Between since even being allied with the U.S., we had a strong communist party then (and socialist after) and a policy that wouldn't be aligned with the "big brother". To have this, he ensured his country would have as much autonomy as possible.

The result was that non-aligned countries which wanted to get some tech, some political support, some weaponry, without getting in bed with U.S. or U.S.S.R. were going to France to get those. The most famous example of that being of course the Mirages planes, a good choice if you didn't want to buy Phantoms, Sabres or Mi G and didn't have the techs and/or money to build your own fighter jet.

The nukes were there to be sure that he could say "fu** off" to anyone, including the U.S. if needed. For that, de Gaulle made sure SLBM were designed and built nationaly (while U.K. got U.S. missiles for their own nukes), and the first nuclear sub was a boomer (while every other nation in the world began with attack subs when going nuclear).

But, the "unclear plans" were, I think, the plan itself. Do you really wish to attack Western Europe when you don't know exactly how this country will react, where and when or why they would fire their nukes? The only moment you'd be sure you reached the Godzilla Threshold would be when the first nuke (pre-strategic ones) would burst above a tank division, being the last warning before city-killers.

I don't know precisely, but I'm quite sure that French troops were closely working with the rest of NATO during the Cold War, and the plans were probaly made in accordance (something like "they would get on this front with their divisions and we do the job as if they were officially in").

About Turkey, a lot of people are thinking EU is already too large and is now stuck without getting anything done. With Turkey, it would get even larger, and, more importantly, they would get a enormous part of the Parliament, with their large population, something most people aren't really eager to see. And of course, xenophobia (litteraly "fear of the stranger", not the "racism"-thing) is playing.

Lot of small countries: well, you'd need to recall that the continent was very densely populated, and we got war upon war upon war during centuries, and that before the apparition of modern States. If I take France as an example, for more than a millenium, the king was nothing more than a figurehead trying to get as much power as some dukes. There were some kings who got quite powerful, but it wasn't really systemic, rather like if they were some dukes who got more power at a time. They were officially the big bosses, but, if the duke of Burgundy or Aquitaine wanted to do something, there wasn't a lot the king could do. It wasn't until the end of the XV Ith century that the State really appeared (Henri III and Henri IV, if you're interested, it was during the Religion Wars). Modern Germany didn't appear until the XI Xth century, Italy likewise. Only Spain was really there. But, before that, a lot of City-States, Dukedoms, etc.

Keep in mind also that to create a large country, you need fast communications, transports, etc... that didn't exist in a practical way at the time. And so, languages developped themselves independantly, cultures, feuds carried century after century, and when the tech finally became available, noone really wished to relinquish power to unify the continent, and with so many actors, noone could really manage to win a war against all (Napoleon tried, but you know how it ended).

I don't know the whole history of China, but remember that Chinese actually covers more than a dozen different dialects, so it looks to me like some kind of Europe that got conquered really early, with regions still different from each other.

IMHO, the U.S. are the exception in world history, being colonized at the right time (just before the apparition of nationalisms) to prevent divisions.

I hope it answers some of your questions. PM me if you want.

As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero.

I think what always puzzled me was that the Roman Empire, more or less, united the lion's share of Europe for a long time. And of course, all the infrastructure didn't just up and disappear when the Empire fell. The question for me, therefore, became, "how did they diverge so far so fast." I suppose the feudal era should have been the obvious answer. I always knew the United States was lucky in that regard, although we also had the "benefit" (if you want to call it that) if a large scale, dakka-heavy civil war to shut down the sub-national groups within the country and make the central government more powerful than the states once and for all.

This is why I hate the Cold War and refuse to set fiction during it. Too much convolution. The straight, simple, and common sense path is never taken. It's the best example of an Idiot Plot in real life that I've ever seen.

How much population does Turkey have over the other nations of Europe? I wouldn't have thought it was that much "bigger," in a people sense. Geographically, it looks about the same size. Are they just packing in more in the same area?

What's the status on Russia? Is it joining the EU about as likely as the US joining (in other words, a chance of exactly 0)? I figure they wouldn't want Russia in because it really has population advantage, not to mention land area. That, and the good old-fashion feud.

I am now known as Flyboy.

On the subject of Turkey, we're more than a little concerned over their human rights record. The centres ok, but a lot of the places further out still have some nasty problems regarding stonings and that kind of thing. And then there's the whole Armenian and Kurdish question.

Also, on a security note (brace for paranoia) it would also potentially give islamist extremists a free walk over from the middle east into Europe proper to wreak havoc. Like that hasn't already happened.

(smugly) We didn't need to import our terrorists. We grew our own at home!

I think Russia probably has a better chance of joining than the US. But a lot would have to change. For starters, bullying the neighbourhood would have to stop. Secondly, they'd have to stop being butthurt about the Cold War. And thirdly, we'd have to trust that they wouldn't use the position to royally fuck over the rest of us.

edited 4th Jul '11 9:43:10 AM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I was just using the chances of the US joining as an illustration. I really doubt the US would want to join, or that the EU would want us, because the economic shifting to standardize everything alone would be... hellish.

So what, exactly, is the cutoff point where countries are told to stuff it because they're not close enough to Europe "to count?"

I am now known as Flyboy.

Subjecting Turkey to the European Human Rights Court's jusrisdiction would improve the situation. Human rights are a lame excuse not to allow Turkey: Turkey's admission into the EU would fix them.

edited 4th Jul '11 9:51:21 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.