That is a joke to you?
You’ll have to face that many people actually consider religion a ‘harmless private matter’. It makes me laugh very hard, but it’s a cynical form of absurdity.
No. You are not right all along. You are always searching for scapegoats. That is wrong - and not only wrong, because that is dangerous too.
But the main problem of the EU is not the German government; the main problem of the EU is the EU itself. The EU is a dictatorship. Nobody is allowed to select the rulers of the EU. They and the global bankers give the instructions and orders to the members. Merkel did not say that (for example) the Greek must have the Euro. She tries to bind all countries of the Euro system and to extend the EU. Not only to you but also to me, this is the wrong politics, but who would do it in a different (perhaps: better) way than she does? She is not mainly responsible for the guidelines and principles. The EU and the bankers are mainly responsible for that. And if you now say that she is “lying in bed” with them, then I can tell you that the other national politicians of Europe are also “lying in bed” with them and do nothing else. The EU problem is not mainly a national problem, because the EU is not a nation but an empire.
Yes, I agree with all of that. She is a manager of the status quo in the EU and I say she has to stop being that. She also has to stop allowing German newspapers to print false allegations against Russia concerning the plane crash in Ukraine. I respect her as a manager but I do not like that the head of Germany, which is the heart of Europe, is a manager who actively oversees how the nation generates products and capital but is passive versus how the EU decides to ‘frame’ this capital, abroad her focus is on austerity, which is what the EU wants. I do not know if it is possible for Germany to free itself from the control of the central bank of the EU, but they must be on the side of the nations that resist, like Italy an Greece. Yes Greece make a mistake in joining, but they did not deserve this. It was not the people whose duty it was to inform themselves about the financial consequences, but the government, which was fooled by Goldman Sachs, who have no problem admitting this. Our prime minister, Mark Rutte, is an absolute puppet, neuro-linguistically programmed and all.
Basically I want Germany to finally rise to its role as leader, which means accounting for all economies, and making hard decision about financial ties. And for this leadership Germany has requirement of the experience of France, which has for very long been a very successful state and once harbored the majority of Europe’s population. Germany is brand new, exists only since 1871 and has been in several major wars since, has been split up again and is whole now, but it is still a child-state, still driven by that Prussian will and is admirable but has now become feminine and passive and needs to be replaced with a more culturally active attitude, so that the rest of Europe isn’t turned into a machine. Germany has ‘won’ by industrial superiority again and should relax a bit now. And I am glad if the French are going to be the ones doing the work for a while. The two great nations of the continent are good at different things should be arm in arm in the upkeep of a properly cultural European collaboration.
If a “friend” punches me, then a knife in the throat awaits him. Or maybe, just maybe, you should respond verbally to verbal attacks and physically to physical ones. Responding physically to verbal attacks demonstrates that you: 1) Are letting your emotions overcome your reason, 2) That you have no argument, so you resort to force. If my mother was, literally, a prostitute, how could I honestly ban anybody from calling her that, just because I find it emotionally uncomfortable? Has truth lost all value in today’s society?
Also, don’t misrepresent the French side, they banned all face covering headgear for all people, not just burqas for Muslims - among other reasons it was stated that it prevents identification and is a security risk.
Yes, they are consistent. In most countries you are getting stopped by the police if you are wearing a face covering headgear that is non religious. The French have the nerve to enforce that same law with religion. They do not respect ‘freedom of religious expression’ to the point where it begins to make other people uncomfortable. It is ridiculous to a) demand of someone else that she cover her face in public and b) to expect other people to be fine with that situation. It is also ridiculous to walk in the streets as if you are going to rob a bank and expect others to be fine with that.
I agrree.
Germany exists as long as France - since the treaties of Verdun (843), Mersen (870), and Ribemont (880). You mean the national unity, Jakob. Okay. The national unity of Germany and of Italy happened at the same time. But again: The EU problem is not a national problem but a problem of the EU itself, an empire problem! Do you know that?
I disagree.
Okay, if it is possible. There is no alternative - except the end of the Euro system and probably even the end of the EU.
They are not going to do it, because they are not able to do it. It would be the wrong way. Believe me.
They don’t allow face covering merely for sake of the surveillance cameras.
… pretty much the same for everything else they do (Godwannabes).
Personally I think what France has done in the matter of Burkhas is wrong.
I understand why they have done it though. It not about making uncomfortable people happy. It is also about allowing women to be free of male oppression. By and large, generation by generation women are oppressed by Islam in this way, and such behaviour is not compatible with French notions of liberty. By enacting this law it is felt that women are more able to integrate with ordinary French society. There is no doubt that wearing a face covering is not compatible with friendly communication.
However, I find it hard to accept that a nation can take upon itself the power to enforce a dress code!
So rather than banning the Burkha, it would make more sense to make illegal a man enforcing a woman to wear one. This would at least give a woman a legal right to leave the fucking anti-human thing at home. It is is REALLY about empowering a woman then that would be a more suitable law to enforce.
If these are the two alternatives, we agree. There is no future for the EU without a Germany that is concerned with the whole union, and that concern concerns the enormous tension that is always present in the German will. It is merciless in its strength, and now that Germany has all these allies around it united in a same economic framework, it is in its own interest to - either drop the Union, or make the union more flexible, so that capital circulates more naturally and the economies come back to their own healths. If this works, Europe can become a ‘body’ with multiple organs, all producing different requirements to that body, which has the capacity for great wholesomeness.
I think we are speaking about different types of work. This goes into what Lev says. The state has a prerogative to be somewhat culturally selective. This is because culture is so narrowly tied to morality, which supposedly lies embedded in the legislature, which effectively forms the state. I think the banning of this particular set of clothing is consistent with the spirit of the secular republic, but only because of the tremendous force behind the religion; it is impossible to account for whose will it really is, if the state does not take over certain protective responsibilities of the community and sets some objective limits to religious reach into the shaping of a citizen.
I think one of my clashes with the attitude taken in this thread is that I am skeptical of things like “The French Will” and “The German Spirit” having much casual influence anymore. My take on the Western world is that the internet, mass communication, and multi-culturalism has turned it into an non-cultural mass of selfish individuals blown from one fad to the next. I don’t know that you can rely on France to do distinctly French things, or the UK to do distinctly British things. I could be way off and too pessimistic.
Yes, that are the two alternatives.
Yes. The internet, mass communication, multi-culturalism, feminism, and other isms are the current means or tools of control and - of course - the accompanying symptoms of the current Occident.
But this would not account for the different things that are happening and being one in the different countries. If all was one goo of Ipad schooled idiots, then there would be no difference between the nations performances. Something is implicit in what a people is, and what I find so comforting is that where it has disappeared completely in my own country, in France it has not disappeared. That, to me, is already ‘proof’ of a kind of ‘spirit’ - because I can see the absolute absence of it. I doubt that as a relatively happy seeming American would be able to feel the cultural weakness a small country absorbed in the EU represents. I think only an American homeless person can identify with the fate of Holland after the EU took hold. Literally nothing with a bit of authority remained the same, everything became bullshit. And we adapted, but a large segment of the population will forever be estranged in totality from the EU counsel. Maybe this is the great Marxist Irony, also known as cognitive dissonance. Well Arminius has fought well for the honor of Germany and this is the sort of spirit I wish to see, and why I like freedom of expression and freedom of explicit contention. There is an idea born from the strife. This is the Greek way, isn’t it? Do we not always disagree to disagree?
I think you are spot on Uccisore. Maybe the UK will still do dinstict britsih things, they have allways kept themselves somewhat apart from the rest of europe… But the rest? National identities and other ‘tribal’ ethnic stuff that is being dug up here and there, allways have an air of days gone bye about them. They are mere artifcacts of past, empty husks that are used to dress up from time to time, that aren’t lived anymore in day to day live. The internet is way more influencial than any of that. Jacob is flying high and loose with his associations.
No it isn’t. I’ve seen the effects of ‘western culture’ in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. I’m not so sure it’s all that much better than those despicabe religions that are being forced on children.
You think religion being a private matter is a cynical form of absurdity? Tell me, what are you going to do with freedom of religion and the rather large population of muslims in Europe. What is your solution?
France is poo… There are only pockets of spirit left in rural areas and maybe some smaller cities that aren’t so much tied to the rest of the country.
And this makes it okay???
What kind of standard is that???
Ik keep saying these things go hand in hand…
Have Turkey draw up a decent code for Imams in cooperation with religious parties in the west, and apply it to the appointment process here, for example. Because religion is a matter of warfare, (war is often done by people who feel in their hear that they want to fight) as well as it is of peace, it is important to depoliticize it. Not by “crushing it” - if you think I want to eradicate the faith you are not addressing me on a rational level. No, what is required rather is the active selection of the good and reasonable elements and the active discarding of the elements that are in direct contradiction to the spirit of our laws. For that term I refer to the works of Montesquieu, but rather to your own imagination, which I am sure can still discern “republic” from “coca cola corporation”. “Western culture” is not the same as American inflated consumerism. That is far too irreverent for the capacities we still have. Every country is always worthless in its most banal forms. Right ow the most banal forms are the only form that is socially acceptable, so it’s all you see. It’s not all shit, the shit is just what feels proudest. Except the day of the unity rally. For a moment the air was fresh – neither racism nor fear of terror, simply presence of will, ready to represent itself.
Well then you need an alternative, that carries enough weight to stand up to ‘the impoverish form of western culture’ AND ‘religion’. You think what is still remaining of ‘real culture’ is actualised and strong enough?
Maybe you don’t allways express yourself as clear as could be.
I get the idea of selecting Imans, if you want to do something about extremisme and terrorism, you need to get rid of the ideological recruiting sources. I don’t know how feasible that is though, Turkey isn’t the only countrey delivering i don’t think. Also part of the problem is that those recruiting sources find fertile ground in parts of the population that don’t feel they have a place in our countries.
Where you present at the rally perhaps? All i saw was a bunch of people and a charade of world leaders…
Perhaps the goo isn't old enough to have total dominion yet. After all, ipad schooled idiots are just barely turning 30 at the oldest. The rest of us, and that would be the people in power, still remember what it means to have a bond with the people that share your geography and so on. I'd have to hear more about Holland and what it has lost to really understand what France and the U.S. still have, I suppose. I see the estrangement you are talking about with the U.S., though. Anybody who relates to what you'd classically consider Americana - guns, outdoor living, Protestantism, and etc., is portrayed in all media all the time as a sort of wicked cartoon, with the good people portrayed only as the urban sorts that believe in nothing.
I have often thought that it will be one day even forbidden to live outside the cities. So then, anybody and everybody will have to live in cities and will not be allowed to leave the cities. Horrible.
One good thing about the German economy is that it is very much region-based, the regions are as important as the cities to keep the large industries going. There is no advantage to the ‘top of the economical pyramid’ in German to draw all work into the city because of the physical reality of their products. So it was in America, before the great strip show began, in - the 70’s or 80’s? I don’t know that history too well. I know it was beyond the point of no return in the 90’s. And so it still is in Japan, and in China. The city dystopia, the prison city, is for countries that have no tangible industries. The whole concept of a ‘capital industry’ is quite idiotic. Capital management requires restraint in investments, restraint to speculation purely for profit, always in some industry that not only ‘creates jobs’ but more crucially creates useful products. An economy like ours would be quite well self regulating if there wasn’t such a thriving market in illusory images of failing companies. A few basic, rational laws could do the trick. Of course such law could never pass the people who make the laws at this point. Except of a few large nations somehow figure out a way to become self-accountable again.