Current Politics in the United Kingdom

[hoss]

Originally Posted by benboe

My apologises hoss you are adsolutely right ........ Our negotiation partners do not deserve to be treated like "whores".
I have more respect for whores.

Aren´t you the one who complained about derogatory comments?

[pandora]

Originally Posted by benboe

My apologises hoss you are adsolutely right ........ Our negotiation partners do not deserve to be treated like "whores".
I have more respect for whores.

And with a quote like that I'm out.

Cheers.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by hoss

That is wishful thinking, nothing more. This gentleman, like many Brexit supporters, believes that the most rational and probable reaction of the EU, namely closing out Britain from the Common Market, is "irrational" and improbable.
The Brexit supporters believe that their national pride is something that is universally valued whereas the pride of the remaining EU members is something that can be bought. That is a promising strategy, to treat your negotiating partners like whores!

One must differentiate between judging by the people and by the politicians. Most Americans I have known are kind, good natured and honourable people. Most German people I have met have been civil and reasonable, often even showing a well developed sense of humour. But I have never thought that Donald Trump or Hillary Rodham Clinton are kind, good natured or honourable (I never ever think this); and while I will admit that Frau Merkel has risen in my opinion considerably during this referendum process, I must also say that she was starting from a very low base. I never think of her as having a good sense of humour. They are merely three examples of how it is misleading to judge anyone by their politicians.

But sure, while there are clearly exceptions, most of the people who will be talking for the EU are whores. Absolutely they are. But why should they be singular? Most of the British talkers will be actually less trustworthy and less respectable than whores.

Our collective vote to leave the EU is first and foremost our verdict on our own politicians. We have been in since 1973 and the only honest and truthful analysis of the EU I ever heard from a British politician came from Tony Benn. Time after time, our politicians have tried to gain support for the EU by brazenly lying about its strategic aims. The strategy from the Westminster MPs has been to hope that by the time we grasped that there is a serious drive for European political unification, we would be too intimately wedded to the single market to be able to walk away. They who had a duty to oppose an existential threat to our national independence were conniving at it. All the major political parties are implicated. Someone such as Mr Junckers we can accept, in that he stabs from in front. He doesn't lie about the EU project. Someone like Edward Heath or Tony Blair, not so acceptable. When I consider them I feel this strange piercing sensation in between my shoulder blades.

[hoss]

This discussion has taken the turn I predicted, people start to make unfounded accusations once they run out of rational arguments.

So, before I too am out of this, let me put my perception into a metaphorical picture:

Britain behaved towards the EU like a man who married a woman, only to be completely dumbfounded that the woman expected them to build a house and have children. After some years the man told his surprised wife that he felt caged and wanted a divorce. When his wife agreed he told her that he would not move out within the next two years because he needed that much time to find a new spouse. But regardless of the divorce and the new spouse he wanted to continue to have sex with her because that was why he married her in the first place.
When his wife objected to that he called her a whore.

[Wendigo]

Anyone can play this game

Let me put my perception too into a different metaphorical picture

Britain behaved towards the EU like a man who married a woman, fully expecting the normal routine of family life working hard to earn enough to own their own home, have children and get them the best education possible.

Only to be completely dumbfounded to learn that the woman had all along planned to invite all her in-laws to move into that same small street and that all their houses should be classed as one and people could move in and out of whichever house they wanted to live in and that they would have the final say in many things right down to what he could plant in what used to be his pride and joy, his garden.

After some years the man told his surprised wife that he felt taken advantage of and wanted a trial separation, hoping the talks would resolve the matter in a civil way but that having failed he decided a divorce was the best option.

The pre-nuptial agreement stated that they had two years to finalise the separation and the husband fully accepted that, although the wife was shocked as she expected he would back down after all her friends had told him scary tales of how hard it was for a single man to survive with a large family to support and how all the experts agreed with her. The husband thought fair enough but others have managed out there so I am prepared to accept a few setbacks along the way but I am sure this is best in the long term.

It's all down to our own individual perceptions as we all have our own natural biases.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Most German people I have met have been civil and reasonable, often even showing a well developed sense of humour.

That's been my experience too - the most civilised people in Europe!

Yet when I was a lad my father would say of our Teutonic friends, " Ah widnae trust wan o' them further than Ah could fling the bastard!"

I wonder what his problem was!

[ConstantOgler]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

Yet when I was a lad my father would say of our Teutonic friends, " Ah widnae trust wan o' them further than Ah could fling the bastard!"

I wonder what his problem was!

World Wars I & II suffice. Some forgetting is good. Too much is bad.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by hoss

This discussion has taken the turn I predicted, people start to make unfounded accusations once they run out of rational arguments.

So, before I too am out of this, let me put my perception into a metaphorical picture:

Britain behaved towards the EU like a man who married a woman, only to be completely dumbfounded that the woman expected them to build a house and have children. After some years the man told his surprised wife that he felt caged and wanted a divorce. When his wife agreed he told her that he would not move out within the next two years because he needed that much time to find a new spouse. But regardless of the divorce and the new spouse he wanted to continue to have sex with her because that was why he married her in the first place.
When his wife objected to that he called her a whore.

To whom is the term "Whore" really being applied in this connection? Most British people have no problems with the ordinary citizens of our EU neighbours. It has always been the governing classes we feel unable to trust. We feel this more now after 43 years in which no one in the UK government has ever admitted that the EU project was mis-described to us as a Common Market. It is much akin to the 19th Century Zollverein, which was to begin with only a customs union. but which became a keystone for German unification in 1871.

[benboe]

My utmost regrets to anyone I offended yesterday with my rude and inconsiderate behaviour in posts I sent yesterday in this thread.
No excuse is worthy to allow such behaviour and I give no excuse in defence. I hope that those who feel offended may accept my deep felt embarrassment and apology.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by benboe

My utmost regrets to anyone I offended yesterday with my rude and inconsiderate behaviour in posts I sent yesterday in this thread.
No excuse is worthy to allow such behaviour and I give no excuse in defence. I hope that those who feel offended may accept my deep felt embarrassment and apology.

"It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them."
P. G. Wodehouse