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giant rolleyes
LOL well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
And, as always, inaccurate.
Seemed to sum it up rather well for a humorous post to me.
It wasn't an attempt at humor, it was an attempt at snark. And snark is ineffective and sad when it's based on such a blatantly inaccurate analysis of a person's position. Being snarky and correct is annoying but being snarky and wrong is just embarrassing and provokes nothing so much as a strong feeling of fremdschämen. Given that your silly positions had to be clarified just a few posts back one would think that you'd have a little less patience with people misrepresenting their opponents' arguments but I guess that was a little too much to expect.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
My positions been consistent all along not "clarified". Ludicrous misinterpretations or statements that I never wrote are not what I said.
Loki treats "international law" and treaties like Bible bashers treat scripture. International law and treaties are no better than domestic ones and will frequently need changing, dropping and amending.
Take the current dispute over Gibraltar for instance. Gibraltar is British territory, of this there is no legal doubt whatsoever as much as it irks Spain. Even the Spanish don't claim a legal claim unlike the Argies over the Falklands. The Treaty of Utrecht, Treaty of Paris etc all make this abundantly clear. Doesn't stop the Spanish from wanting that part of the Iberian peninsula and using other methods to try and reclaim the land. Similarly one provision within the Treaty of Utrecht was that Britain guaranteed not to let any Jews or Moors live in Gibraltar. Funnily enough that provision is no longer honoured by the UK nor does Spain claim it should be. It is one of those provisions that has faded into history as not something people would discuss or implement nowadays without [to my knowledge] ever having been technically reversed.
Interesting developement though; from neutral the EU switched into pro-Spanish. And not matter what huffing and puffing goes on in London, the fact of the matter is that Spain may not have gotten sovereignty over the Rock of Tariq, but it sure has gotten a lot of power over its future.
Hardly a surprise though I think the EU's statement is barely pro-Spanish. More like "sort it out between yourselves, don't drag us into this".
Nope. In fact, that was Loki's reaction even to the idea that Bush Jr. might withdraw the signature from the Kyoto Treaty, something which Clinton had never even bothered to submit to Congress because the Senate had made it clear they would reject the treaty by 98-0. It's quite amazing, really, the number of actions states undertake which Loki declared were flatly impossible because no one would ever trust that state again. He has a very bad habit of conflating whether a state action is feasible with whether he considers it a good idea based on his personal political interests and desires.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
It is pro-Spanish, because it will give Spain powers over Gibraltar's future it didn't have before. It was not in Spain's powers to remove Gibraltar from an agreement between the EU and the UK, not it is. Talk about a new Falklands is ridiculous of course; what this will amount to is Spain having full control over what happens to Gibraltars land borders once more.
The status of the USA as a dependable high contracting party was damaged though by Kyoto. Not because it didn't ratify Kyoto, but because it never had an intention to make steps for ratification. It's the difference between not being able to ratify according to your own constitutional rules (which is a legitimate reason to withhold ratification) and having no intention to ratify to start with (which basically makes you a cheat).Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Now, nobody will forget that the US is the pre-eminent power in the world. But the fact that Kyoto still hasn't been forgotten also tells us something about the extent to which other high contracting parties trust the US.
Yet oddly enough the US has signed many deals since Kyoto. Funny that.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Spain has veto powers over a new deal, of course it had that power. So be it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Actually, Spain had no such power. We are about to hand it to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
You've repeatedly pointed out that a new deal would need to be agreed unanimously.
The idea that Loki 2017 even remembers what Loki ~2001 said about Kyoto is ludicrous. I guess I should be impressed that you do though.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
I don't think neither IL nor treaties are sacred. Countries can and do ignore both. But there's a cost to ignoring IL, and there's an even bigger cost to outright saying that you have no intention of following a treaty the second it leads to any outcome you dislike (which is very different to saying that you really, really don't like a specific treaty).
On an unrelated note, this is generally a credible source:
Twitter Link
You are right. I made a mistake.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
So we have gone from what was a requirement to unanimity in your eyes, to a requirement for QMV plus Spain in your eyes now?
I just wrote that I made a mistake. Why would you turn admission of making a mistake into repeating the original mistake?
Also : you lot are really moving fast from 'we're still in Europe' to 'our navy still can kick their Spanish asses'. One has to wonder why we should even bother to talk at all.
I was just trying to clarify if I understood your thinking correctly. Kudos for acknowledging a mistake, no disrespect intended for that.
Carrot and stick is fairly standard. We could kick Spanish ass if it became necessary but it won't become necessary. You guys brought the subject up though not us.
We never brought up either the sovereignty over Gibraltar or the military conquest of the territory. We made the inclusion of Gibraltar in any trade deal with the UK subject to consent of the Spanish government. Which at the most will result in adressing the special concerns of EU member Spain in said agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
How many examples do you have of countries asking for negotiations on trade deals that - even before those talks themselves have been agreed - start with threaths of military violence? I know only one.
One thing that keeps puzzling me about this whole Brexit thing is that I don't understand how British politicians talk about recognizing the UK can't force through it's objectives against the EU as 'breaking promises' by Theresa May.
Irrelevant to the content of your post. Asserting that lying is wrong isn't the same as saying that lying is impossible. Saying that it's wrong or dangerous to renege on a deal isn't the same as saying that it's impossible. Recognizing that it's illegal, wrong and dangerous to break the law isn't the same as saying that breaking the law is impossible. And so on. If the point you're actually trying to make is that Loki's critical views on violations of treaties and other forms of international law are wrong or exaggerated then that's another--and more complex--matter that may be interesting to examine from different angles. Certainly more interesting than third-rate snark.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
It's a legitimate view :o either promises were made or perceived to have been made. It doesn't matter if the promises themselves were not on the up and up :downcast:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Except that Loki keeps saying things are impossible or illegal when they are at worse only inadvisable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I don't quite understand this sentence or where you're going with it. May has widely avoided making promises and is getting criticised mostly for being so circumspect. Though o think trying to avoid laying hostages to fortune is a good idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
Loki never said impossible. And breaking a treaty is illegal...Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
He didn't say it was wrong or dangerous (though that was why he was objecting) he was saying it couldn't be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Are we still stuck in 2003 or did Loki really say that Brexit was impossible? As you know, I have a very poor memory, but the only claims of impossibility from the Brexit that I can recall off the top of my head had to do with the notion that the UK could negotiate full access to the single market while restricting freedom of movement simply due to being so much more awesome than Norway and Switzerland. More or less.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy
Triggering an exit clause within a treaty is not illegal, refusing to ratify a treaty is not illegal ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
We haven't threatened military violence, we didn't even bring up Gibraltar or violence in our letter other than to stress the importance of a deal of co-operation for security. Some people not in government have said things along the lines of if Spain invaded Gibraltar then we would go to war to defend it like in the Falklands but that shouldn't be a shock and I don't see why its relevant. Of course we would.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
I do think though that in relation to seeking an agreement on security co-operation etc that it should now that it's been brought up be conditional on agreement being reached that covers Gibraltar. The UK has a SIGINT network second to none in Europe and Gibraltar plays a key part on that. If you're not willing to be friends and play nicely with Gibraltar then I don't see why we should share our intelligence that Gibraltar helps develop. It'd be like trying to seek a security deal with America while simultaneously saying you desire to impoverish Langley, Virginia.
The question of course is whether or not it's illegal to violate a treaty and, more importantly, whether or not you care.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I care. I have never proposed violating treaties, I have proposed we have the right to terminate treaties which is a completely different thing.
Is killing leprechauns not illegal, too? That's an immense set of strawmen you're attacking. Is that your new tactic when cornered?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Oh, please. 12%? Are you serious? THAT is what you're complaining about? 12 fucking percent? Cry me a river you baby.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Oh, yes, 12% is pretty fucking regular. Jesus. That's the kind of attitude which makes a lot of people glad you're out and that you'll crash and burn with this moronic attitude of yours. Seriously, absolutely NO ONE is waiting for you guys. Your only "industry" of note is your finance sector and with you wanting out, you're doing a bang job of demolishing that too.
It's been brought up before. Most of that can be ascribed primarily to the ascension of UKIP and, to a lesser extent, the decision of some parties to leave the groups to which they'd belonged for a long time.
If I'm reading those charts right, and the UK in 2009-2015 was being outvoted in twice the number of instances as the next highest country, it would seem to be fairly reasonable to claim that they were regularly being outvoted. Certainly they were the most regularly outvoted of the nations. How much of that is semantic niggling on what regularly means is an open question, but your claims to have "proven" Randblade wrong, and caught him in a "lie" are almost certainly over played, if not outright lies themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
Considering most votes are formalities that are readily agreeable (as Hazir mentioned on page 2) and it is rare for any nation to be outvoted . . . yes I find 12% to be quite high.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
As for your claim that 12% is "pretty fucking regular" I'm wondering how you can possibly define that given that only the UK is at 12%. Germany at second-highest doesn't even reach 6% so how can more than double the next highest be "pretty fucking regular"? I'd consider regular not to be next-worse though but the median - and the median is less than 2%. We are over 6 times the median average so how is that "pretty fucking regular"?
None of this can be be ascribed to that (this chart was for the Council of Ministers, not the European Parliament which we've discussed previously). Either way though who we choose to elect is up to us and I expect my government to do what we elect it to do, even when my party loses the election.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
The figure of 12% is somewhat misleading though, because it merely means 12% of those cases in which there actually was a vote. Set against the total of decisions taken the number could be significantly lower.
I fail to see how that's relevant to the issue at hand. It is only contentious issues that are debatable. Plus the 12% could be lower because a year of that was under Gordon Brown, I'd be curious to see the figure since May 2010.
If you take a thousand decisions and have a vote on a mere hundred, then loose 12% of the votes then you actually lost in 1,2% of the decisions.