The European Union

IDK if they stamp your American/Canadian/Mexican passports when traveling between borders, but what the UK has with the Schengen Agreement is; no one stamped my British passport going to the Schengen agreement. Which, is where the EU and the USA differs... People can't just go to Canada, USA or Mexico and live and work without going through immigration.

 

Skipper, as my Latin teacher often told us, English is one third Latin. He'd be chuffed I remembered that!

Funny, the only other thing I remember was a poem by Catallus "I love and hate, I know not why. But I feel it and 'tis agony".

A bit like how I feel about Brexit and the likes of Ben here and how some are trying to portray the UK to the rest of the world. He paints a UK I do not recognise at all.

I'm Scots and European and feel that in equal measure, whether we are dragged out of the EU against our will or not.

Maybe it's our divergent gene pool north and south in the UK

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/genetics-show-many-scots-are-descended-from-russian-nomads-1-4272744

 

(notice how they're dressed in the Union Jack)? Not the EU flag.
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/resources/images/2160969/?type=responsive-gallery-fullscreen
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHHZS8tRqJE[/video]
Any UK that's not that, is a UK that's alien to me.

The future of the country is something to be interested in post Brexit.
Crying over the empire of the EU is a bit like saying, you want to be ruled by the EU and masses of Europeans can just come.
If we allowed anyone to tell The City what to do, then banks might relocate from the UK, you have to be firm with the EU.
I have a limited liability company in the City of Westminster in Soho so I have to see any threat to UK export as bad, so any paying the EU to sell to as a block is therefore bad, it's a markup price imposed that the manufacturer won't see. If China don't have to pay to sell in Europe... Think of the future of the UK post Brexit. I study in Croydon, in Croydon Town Centre, and I live in Thornton Heath between Croydon Town Centre and Soho.

Fun fact about home, I heard more English in Amsterdam, NL than I heard walking around my neighbourhood, but so what? I like that about my country and this part of the union that is home to me. I leave Britain, I come back, it's to my life here in London.

 

Indeed but it has a fair amount of logic and reason behind it unlike yours.

 

Tell that to the SNP Skip, since they insist you can't be Scottish and British. They're also the ones desperate to stay in the EU.

 

You need to stop relying on SNP-supporting papers for info, since the study is on blood pressure and doesn't actually say "The Scots of today are descended from a pastoral, nomadic people living in the Russian Steppes, who were among the first humans to make use of the wheel." The phrase used is "populations in the Northern UK"-
"The American Journal of Human Genetics
Volume 99, Issue 5, p1130–1139, 3 November 2016
Population Structure of UK Biobank and Ancient Eurasians Reveals Adaptation at Genes Influencing Blood Pressure.
Analyzing genetic differences between closely related populations can be a powerful way to detect recent adaptation. The very large sample size of the UK Biobank is ideal for using population differentiation to detect selection and enables an analysis of the UK population structure at fine resolution. In this study, analyses of 113,851 UK Biobank samples showed that population structure in the UK is dominated by five principal components (PCs) spanning six clusters: Northern Ireland, Scotland, northern England, southern England, and two Welsh clusters. Analyses of ancient Eurasians revealed that populations in the northern UK have higher levels of Steppe ancestry and that UK population structure cannot be explained as a simple mixture of Celts and Saxons. A scan for unusual population differentiation along the top PCs identified a genome-wide-significant signal of selection at the coding variant rs601338 in FUT2 (p = 9.16 × 10−9). In addition, by combining evidence of unusual differentiation within the UK with evidence from ancient Eurasians, we identified genome-wide-significant (p = 5 × 10−8) signals of recent selection at two additional loci: CYP1A2-CSK and F12. We detected strong associations between diastolic blood pressure in the UK Biobank and both the variants with selection signals at CYP1A2-CSK (p = 1.10 × 10−19) and the variants with ancient Eurasian selection signals at the ATXN2-SH2B3 locus (p = 8.00 × 10−33), implicating recent adaptation related to blood pressure."
http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(16)30395-0

How do you know the samples weren't derived from relatively recent Eastern European immigrants, since the UK Biobank operates anonymously, using volunteers?

 

Interesting I would have expected them to collect some data on ethnicity but it isn't mentioned in the articles I googled.

 

This too is your opinion.

Tho im not sure why its difficult to comprehend that such a Union cant be built overnight.

 

It's not a matter of comprehending that it can't be built over night it's a matter of a claim that efforts of one agency in the 50's were responsible for the creation of an entity 1992. Especially when you consider that there were others pushing said union before during and after the efforts you mention. Those CIA efforts may have played a small part (or not) in the formation of the EU but that's a long way from substantiating the claim that:

Much less the laughable proposition that:

Like I said this is black helo, tin hat, conspiracy level thinking.

 

No or small US involvement? Tin Hat? Conspiracy level thinking? Very well. In that case it shouldnt be very difficult to find sources that would counter what I have provided. Please feel free.

 

Why would I want or need to? Again a couple of quotes for the 50's are meaningless. Then there's that trying to prove a negative thing and you don't find news sources saying the US didn't buy so and so today either do you? No your conclusions stand well enough refuted as is. Peddle your conspiracies all you want to we aren't falling for them.

 

Just because you dont like, disbelief or disagree with a source doesnt mean that it is fiction and that the one presenting such is wrong or some sort of conspiracy theorist. You have been very quick to brush off claims and sources which conflict with your narrative but have failed to produce any of your own. This is not the way constructive debates work. Surely, if what I speak off is so over the top it should not be difficult to disprove. Continuing, however; without anything other than your own opinion is futile. The US has played a major role in the creation of the EU. The idea goes as far back as Winston Churchill... I have always been under the impression that those who are interested in GeoPolitics and such have known this to be the case. Clearly I have been mistaken.


My friend I really do enjoy our debates but it does get a little old when they are one sided. Conspiracy theories are very easy to disprove. Good luck.

 

I didn't say the data you produced on this topic was fiction. What I stated was the quite reasonable conclusion that it was at best marginally relevant to the topic at hand. I.e. your conclusions were completely unjustified. When the proposition is as absurd as your current one no real data is required to label it as such. I.e. there is no point in debating whether or not the sky is red at noon on a clear day.

The US may have played a significant role in the creation of the EU (perhaps even a "major" one) although there has been no significant support for that conclusion to date. That however is considerably different from the claim that the EU was the creation of the US and particularly the creation of the CIA. Some CIA spending in support of the creation of a united Europe in the 50's carries little weight in regards to any of the above. Particularly when you examine what the US was supporting at the time vs the reality of the EU. The idea by the way goes back as far as Karl der Grosse and has been the aim of a fair number of others since then..

 

Im not sure why its difficult to suspect CIA's involvement in such a project considering CIA's history in toppling Govts. assassinations and backroom deals. This is the CIA afterall The KGB has done it, MI6 does it along with many other organisations. Some are just better than others...

It is difficult to imagine that after so much time, money and effort the US would simply "give up" on such an endeavor instead of trying to see through to fruition. Considering that the EU does in fact exist today only reinforces the latter...

Again, if this is the same as "red sky at noon on a clear day" argument, it should not be difficult to disprove. Good luck.

 

Will you stop with straw men? I didn't say the CIA wasn't involved although it's not at all clear they were involved in the latter years that were critical to the formation of the EU. What is clear is that the EU was not the "creation of the United States(CIA)". As I recall the US did encourage said formation in public channels in the years immediately prior to its formation but again that's hardly means that the EU was the creation of the US as there were numerous Europeans that encouraged it and indeed whose voice almost assuredly had greater weight in its formation. European businesses in particular encouraged it from what I recall. The EU also provides more insulation from US pressure so the contention that it's members answer to the US is even more absurd.

You have made an absurd claim and have done little or nothing to support it. There's no reason for me to do anything other than point out how off the wall it is at this point.

 

I think we are beating a dead horse now

Cheers

 

I'm not a geneticist working for the Harvard team Gordon, so I wouldn't know whether they were samples from Eastern Europeans. Does it stick in yer craw you could be part Russian? Sorry you're unable to see the humour in it. It does go some way though to explaining our nation's fondness for the drink.

And as for the Scotsman newspaper, only bought one in my lifetime when it's front page was printed Scotswoman. The Scotsman loath the SNP by the way, but you'll already know that. But we've danced this dance already on another locked out thread. No need to wake sleeping dogs.

I'm just confused by Ben's outlook on Europe that's all and didn't want everybody here thinking we all harbour these same sentiments when it comes to our European neighbours. But he has clarified his position as it would appear he embraces the diversity of people in London, just as we do here in Scotland.

 

It's also apparent that Skipper likens a United Germany to a US state and the EU he wishes to be like the USA?
Why not just move to the USA?
Why do you think USA is so great that it can be copied in Europe?
Because you're ashamed to admit that you're German and the EU is just a trade deal?

 

We're European because where from Europe, the EU isn't Europe, fore the Swiss are just as European as anyone else.
So people who claim they're European and fly the EU flag and dream of 1 nation, are depressed that it's not a nation?

 

Thank you Ben, you couldn't have displayed to world any better our need to break from Westminster and away from those stuck in the past. As Oscar Wilde said “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”. Have a great day.