RIP Jo Cox MP

[LittleFuzzy]

This must be why EC/EU members have been at each other's throats since 1989.

Because status-quos shift instantly? But we did see violence starting in Europe afterward, in the former Yugoslavia. And the states in the EU haven't shied away from participating in conflicts elsewhere in the aftermath. The US hasn't been at their throats either. We haven't seen the previous kind of conflict outside of the Middle East (and a different and more vicious style in Africa) for most of the world. Which has led various wags to suggest a Pax Americana.

You cannot simultaneously insist that things like the Pax Romana (or the Pax Americana) are a bunch of hooey while at the same time saying that interventions elsewhere in the world or violence on the periphery (like the Balkans) magically don't count when you're talking about Europe instead.

[Loki]

What does that have to do with intra-EU conflict? The argument is that the EU made violence unthinkable between its members. The Balkans are a strawman.

[LittleFuzzy]

What does that have to do with intra-EU conflict? The argument is that the EU made violence unthinkable between its members. The Balkans are a strawman.

No it's not. The argument is that the EU has made Europe sui generis, that it cannot be compared to anything in Europe's past because the EC's behavior and structure are completely at odds with prior attempts or partial unifications of Europe. Including having nothing of empire about them now or as a forseeable future.

And the EU has not made violence unthinkable anymore than Metternich's Balance of Power arrangement did. Another period of relative peace, lasting as long (or is it still a bit longer just now?) as the present one, but without the countervailing pressure of two superpowers competing for hegemony enforcing the inertia for the first 50 years. Any attempt to look at the creation and development of the EC and any peace associated with it that does not look first to the Cold War rivalry (and associated military and technological arms race) which spurred its development and continued deepening at least as much as WWII did is automatically invalid.

[Loki]

And who makes this argument? No one.

[LittleFuzzy]

Yeah, you *and Minx, and others* did with your insistence that the EU was completely sui generis and no comparisons could allowably be made; on structural, mechanical, conceptual, or any other grounds. You make that argument when you insist on attacking from every possible angle, such that the EU cannot be an empire because it does not use violence, except when it does because that's not internal coercion, except when internal coercion happens because the coercion doesn't flow from X process, and X process doesn't count because. . . etc.

[Loki]

Are we reading the same arguments? The claim has always been that the EU ended the prospect of conflict between EU states. No one's dumb enough to claim that the EU, with its limited military might, can somehow create peace elsewhere.

And the argument was that the EU cannot be an empire because it doesn't use violence to subjugate people, which is to say against its own members.

[Aimless]

An empire if a form of political organization in which the "metropolis" exercises control over diverse (heterogenous) actors through formal annexations and/or various forms of informal domination. That's the short definition from the International Encyclopedia of Political Science. As it goes on to mention, efforts to make it more specific or precise tends to come at the expense of consensus among political scientists

As for what it is in Johnsons's message that is "better communicated" you have failed to provide a contrast. Better than what? I laid out what merits their mention, they are the only other two "credible" attempts at unifying Europe in modern history. Further, the UK (or Britain, in the case of Napoleon) was the single major European power which successfully avoided integration in both throughout their attempts to unify the continent that is involved in the EU now. As I said, the only other candidate for comparison is the HRE and it's even crappier. You may want there to be no comparison whatsoever, for the EU to be treated as sui generis in every particular but. . . that is AT LEAST as inaccurate as the comparison you dislike, particularly in the mentioned British context. Johnson didn't say a word about either Hitler's nor Napoleon's shenanigans, he referred to what both of them tried to build.

I think you're putting words in my mouth here. I'm not opposed in principle to the notion of the EU being an empire. I'm just an interested layman but the most persuasive characterisation of the EU I've read in recent years is one that describes the EU's current state and recent behavior as being more consistent with a conception of the EU as some sort of nascent neo-medieval empire (Zielonka) rather than as a nation, or a federation or even a so-called "unidentified political object". I think such an analysis can be accurate and informative.

What lessons can we learn from the third reich or Napoleon's empire that are applicable to the EU and that can help us both explain its history up to this point as well as predict its ultimate fate and the path it will take to its inevitable doom or inform us about how we can change that path?

As for the Brits, they voluntarily joined the EU, they voluntarily gave up some of their sovereignty and even now about half of them apparently wish to remain under the horrible French-Nazi imperialist yoke.

[Hazir]

A nice read

[Lewkowski]

That's horrible. Sympathies for the British people.

Questions: Since the guy was mentally ill....how did he get ahold of a gun? And if he is associated with right-wing extremists (with ties to US White Nationalists) as reported....wasn't he/they on some terror watch list?

My impression is that it's really hard to get a gun in the UK, and that it's also a heavily policed and "monitored" place, especially when it comes to extremists and terrorism. Seeing that tensions are high for the upcoming Brexit vote, I also assumed security would be tight for PMs.

You think criminals obey gun laws?

[Loki]

Most Islamic terrorists in the US aren't drug dealers. They're not in gangs. They're not street-savvy. Getting an illegal gun is harder than you think. The Colorado shooter had legal guns. As did the Orlando one.

[Lewkowski]

Most Islamic terrorists in the US aren't drug dealers. They're not in gangs. They're not street-savvy. Getting an illegal gun is harder than you think. The Colorado shooter had legal guns. As did the Orlando one.

Not a very testable hypothesis.

[Loki]

You have evidence that the Islamist terrorists here are parts of street gangs?

[BluntHorse]

-

[Loki]

I know of plenty that produce delusional thinking and weaken inhibitions.

[Aimless]

That's... kind of an irresponsible and also kinda dumb thing to say, esp. for someone who claims to have qualifications in the relevant fields. I'm not saying that there's no chance of the court finding that Mair was fully competent at the time of the murder and the fact that he went to the trouble of building a home-made gun using plans he had to order from abroad suggests some form of deliberation, but that tweet is just extremely unprofessional.

[Loki]

This is what happens when "scientists" decide that social justice should take precedence over science.

[Aimless]

This is an example of social justice taking precedence over other social justice. There's, like, no actual science in the discussion. I honestly just can't get over how frustratingly bad that discussion is. This man is being sacrificed in the court of public opinion by people who're implicitly claiming the authority to be able to rule on his state of mind at the time of the killing without having any relevant knowledge whatsoever of that specific event that can help them make such an assessment. Others are rushing to her defense and gleefully mocked the lone critic who's called her out on this (admittedly not the best critic nor the best critique) but they're missing some important points.

At best they're using this man as a tool in service of a broader agenda. A narrative about pervasive bias against/hatred of progressive outspoken female politicians and Muslims, that serves to direct the violent tendencies of some people against those groups specifically. Bias in media and in public discourse wrt how perps of different backgrounds are portrayed. Sure. I can provisionally accept the claim that people more readily view a black or Muslim killer is a cold-blooded drug-dealing terrorist murderer while white killers may be more likely to be cast as lone-wolf types with mental health problems. I have no studies to base that impression on, but sure, I can accept it for the sake of argument. I can buy the idea that maybe societal attitudes can interact with a person's psychiatric problems in such a way as to lead to the killing of a left-ish female politician. I don't think I can draw many generalizations from this one case but sure, I can go along with it.

But that doesn't mean that it's justified to pre-emptively judge a person--who by all accounts seems to have had a long history of mental health problems--in order to make some sort of statement about media/public bias or in order to (as she claims) reduce the stigma associated with mental health problems. It makes a mockery of the law, it spits on forensic psychiatry, it jeopardizes the rights of that small portion of people with mental health issues who commit an act of violence as a result of their disability, it's unkind and it shows callousness and arrogance of a sort that I just don't want to see in a person who should be an advocate for science, professionalism and the decent treatment of messed up people. It makes me so livid I can't even properly articulate my thoughts on this

[Lewkowski]

You have evidence that the Islamist terrorists here are parts of street gangs?

To clarify - that 'getting an illegal gun is harder than you think' is the part I'm addressing.

[Loki]

Nearly every time I hear about an alleged terror plot in NYC - where it's nearly impossible for civilians to get guns - it involves some kind of explosives. The Boston bombers used readily available explosives. A vast majority of the Islamist terrorists in the US who shot people had legal guns. When you combine that with their general ineptness (bright people in the West aren't the ones who are becoming terrorists; neither are the competent people, who could use that competence to establish successful careers), I think you're expecting far too much from them.

[Flixy]

And let's not forget Breivik attempted to buy illegal guns but failed, and ended up with a legal gun. Unfortunately that still worked for him, but he was determined and planned ahead and still couldn't get an illegal gun.

[RandBlade]

Also let's not forget that buying an illegal weapon is a crime, meaning if you catch a suspected terrorist buying an illegal weapon then you can lock them up for that - rather than watch them buy a legal weapon and wait until they use it before its a crime.

[Lewkowski]

Nearly every time I hear about an alleged terror plot in NYC - where it's nearly impossible for civilians to get guns - it involves some kind of explosives. The Boston bombers used readily available explosives. A vast majority of the Islamist terrorists in the US who shot people had legal guns. When you combine that with their general ineptness (bright people in the West aren't the ones who are becoming terrorists; neither are the competent people, who could use that competence to establish successful careers), I think you're expecting far too much from them.

I wouldn't be so fast to suggest that all terrorists = stupid. Fanaticism and intelligence don't necessarily have a negative correlation. Granted, the intelligent terrorist who wants to buy guns will do so legally since there is less of a chance that they are arrested prior to their rampage. However my point remains that terrorists seem to be able to get their hands on guns in places where there are strict gun laws. My comment on 'You think criminals obey gun laws?' was that criminals and terrorists will still obtain guns regardless of the laws against them. Many American cities with the strictest gun laws often have significantly more gun crime than cities that don't.

[Loki]

A) How many of those terrorists had successful careers and social lives beforehand?
B) Gun crime is caused by many factors, and gun laws are but one. Not one of the top ones either.
C) Have you considered the fact that the reason the cities with high gun crime rates have strict gun laws is precisely because they have high gun crime rates? Massive selection bias there.

[Hazir]

What exactly is there against limiting the ability of obtaining guns legally of people you suspect of terrorist tendencies enough to not allow them onto planes even without guns ?

[Ominous Gamer]

Americans don't like government controlled lists. We are more of an innocent until proven guilty kind of country. We have the no fly list and people hate that, and our government has been caught using it to attack journalists and strand citizens overseas in hostile countries. You make a terrorists list for gun ownership and every hill billy from Lewk to Enoch would freak out about ending up on it.

[Aimless]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7095536.html

I'm beginning to see a pattern here... what a cockbag.

[Loki]

I'm starting to think that the problem isn't this guy trying to smear everyone as Nazis; it's that his knowledge of history is so limited, he doesn't know of anyone else.

False appeals to authority is one thing, but utterly dismissing all experts is the height of stupidity.