Joint eu military

[Grizzlie 0]

According to last years it would be discussions club more than army. Seems Europe is not ready yet to do such things. And colonial experiences r useless this days, even more, they can be dangerous. A lot of post-colonial countries wouldn't like help from ex colonists.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

nonesense. Most african leaders definetly dont want a european army taking away their power (see Mugabe) but  in contrast to the extreme muslim countries in the Middle East african appear to welcome foreign troops. I guess they have less cultural/national awareness/pride!

I think the recent example of french troops intervening in Africa dismantles your point anyway.

And the long british colonial experience could be ovserved in the Iraq war too. The british appeared to approach battlefields and enemies in a far more experienced way than the americans did.

[Donnervogel 0]

[...] What the big ignorant masses choose and what's best isn't always the same. [...]

Denoir you need to make a difference somewhere.

There are topics where I agree that normal people simply don't have the knowledge and abilities to decide on them. The people never vote on such things here. But an average Swiss is copletly able to build an informed opinion on whether our coutry should join an organisation like the EU or not.

Our people arent all stupid or uninformed. They do think themself too. They just have other opinions and they have good points that support them.

To stay in the EU example.

I often discuss with people about the EU. Here are some points I ofter hear:

The main problem of the EU is that if we join we're partally ruled by Brussels. But Switzerland was always a very proud, small and above all neutral country. Most people fear we can't preserve our neutrality when we join the EU. And they have a good point there. The EU is a party. It acts internationally and takes party in conflicts. That wouldn't only be against our constitution it's also against our culture of neutrality. Another point is that we're a very small country (only 7 Mio citizens). So when we look on the advatages and disadvantages of teh EU we look at the small members like Austria. And Austria is very unhappy with the situation. Also little countries don't have much weight in the EU, espeacially if the constitution is accepted the way it is now. Many people feel we can act better when we stay independent.

I know I only listed anti EU points here. Remember. I am a EU supporter myself and 2005 I will be EU citizen too. I just wanted to give you an overview over some opinions that we have here on the Anti EU side. And I think this doesn't sound uninformed. I even must agree on many of their points. I just think the positive effects for Europe (not for ourself) are by far better than those points that speak against it. But in order to get a unified Europe we will have get over our nationalism/patriotism/however you want to call it. This is one of the challanges the future holds for us. It's not an easy task but I hope it will succeed.

[denoir 0]

I'm not questioning Switzerland's right to stay out of the EU. I'm questioning the wisdom of letting the people directly voting about it. I'm saying that it's smarter to vote for a political party that's against the EU because they have some valid points. Let people vote and they'll just act out their xenophobia and fear of change.

It's a fact that people are very very conservative when it comes to big social changes. If you ask them, they'll say no. That's why Switzerland stayed out of the UN for 50+ years.

Plus people can easily be manipulated. For instance Sweden, that isn't very different from Switzerland - small neutral country, voted overwhelmingly yes to the EU in 1992. In a few months we went from something like 70% against to 70% pro.

Why? Because a massive propaganda campaign from Swedish industry and commerce. They painted a picture of Sweden going under if the vote was a 'no'. And it worked like a charm.

And while, I was happy with the outcome, the process was just as bad as with any direct referendum.

And if you think those points that you listed are on the relevant level of making a decision, then you only make my point stronger of people being ignorant. Those are not valid arguments. Those are argumets that a six year old kid would use. Real arguments are raw quantifiable economic/sociological data models.

Here are the relevant questions:

If we join the EU, how will our export quota be affected? If we join the EU how will our trade tariffs with non-EU countries be affected? How will our taxes be affected? What subsidies can we get? How many EU immigrants can we expect and what consequence will it have on the population distribution? How will joining the EU affect house prices?

Answer me those questions and tell me that everybody in Switzerland knows the answer to them and then I'll agree that they are competent to vote on it.

[canukausiuka 1]

Denior, you are just overlooking the fact that people may not always care about export quotas, tariffs, and the like.  Sure, maybe its not best for them, but it is still their decision.  Of course, this is just the "leave me alone" American in me speaking, but I do not appreciate it when a (probably more knowing) politician tells me what's best for me.  I understand the way you think would be better, although I am more attached to our representative system, not a party system.

That, and Switzerland seems to be doing fine w/o joining the EU.  If there is little benefit apparent, and considerable downsides, people are not going to want to get into it.  Of course, I don't agree w/ all of Swizterland's policies.  I went and visited it last spring, with my physics class (we were going to see CERN), and one of the guys we met, an American citizen, had a daughter who was like 1 year old when she got there, and he said she cannot become a Swiss citizen, even though she has lived there almost all her life.  Not exactly open, but I guess they are preserving their culture.

In short, the decision of the people, to me, is more important than the decision of the government.  Of course, this issue really doesn't concern me the way it does you, me being an American and all.  And as for the issue itself, I think a join EU military would be a perfectly fine thing.  Although it may be largely redundant in the face of NATO, you still have a right to work together as you see fit.  And I have a feeling that on any important issue, we will be on the same side.

I love you guys

[Bordoy 0]

A hell of alot of British Taxpayer money goes into staying in the EU. The same amount of money goes into subsidising countries like Spain to get more modern, so you could say the British built the roads and building projects. So basically our money goes into re-building other countries while we receive less in return. Plus I would expect the "membership fee" to increase when the Eastern europe countries join up, and they will be heavily subsidised.

EU's Bull****.

[denoir 0]

Denior, you are just overlooking the fact that people may not always care about export quotas, tariffs, and the like.  Sure, maybe its not best for them, but it is still their decision.  Of course, this is just the "leave me alone" American in me speaking, but I do not appreciate it when a (probably more knowing) politician tells me what's best for me.  I understand the way you think would be better, although I am more attached to our representative system, not a party system.

Did you read my posts? I'm advocating the superiority of a representative system as opposed to direct democracy. I.e I'm advocating exactly the same thing you have in the US

As a matter of fact you have the most far going form of indirect democracy. You don't have referendums as such at all (which are fairly common in Europe) and you have two parties (compared to the 20 something in the EU parliament).

[denoir 0]

A hell of alot of British Taxpayer money goes into staying in the EU. The same amount of money goes into subsidising countries like Spain to get more modern, so you could say the British built the roads and building projects. So basically our money goes into re-building other countries while we receive less in return. Plus I would expect the "membership fee" to increase when the Eastern europe countries join up, and they will be heavily subsidised.

Yeah, while we were paying for your mad cows and the rest of the sick animals. Through that Britain has recieved far more money from the EU than it has payed to the EU.

We bailed you out when your entire agricultural and export industry was about to collapse.

You're welcome

[EiZei 0]

Didnt the UK have some sort of special clause in their membership that made them pay less money? I recall reading something like that but im not so sure.

And even Finland initially was the "receiving" country but when our economy improved we became one of the paying ones. Think about it.

[Donnervogel 0]

Denoir please now you're acting a bit ignorant.

Quote[/b] ]It's a fact that people are very very conservative when it comes to big social changes. If you ask them, they'll say no. That's why Switzerland stayed out of the UN for 50+ years.

Last time I looked I was the one living in Switzerland and I was the one voting on UN membership, not you. You make it to easy here. Our staying out of the UN was to 90% because of bad experience with the League of Nations and concerns for our neutrality. I know Sweden has the political status of a neutral country too but belive me. In Switzerland we're have a very strong commitment to neutrality that reflects in our entire culture. We take our neutrality far more serious than Sweden does.

Later Votes on UN membership failed also because of the UN proving to be either a american/soviet dabating club or the UN making a fool of itself in Cyprus/Yugoslavia and some other occasions.

Since I live here I know what the topics in debates were. I really don't know why you think you know what our media/people/politicians were discussing.

You are right though that people are conservative. We often "LAG" behind in many changes because of people needing time to change their opinion. But it has it's good aspects that I mentioned before. When they decide something it's what they want. Unlike when a parliament deicdes things the people don't want. Look we're stable since 1848. We got through two world wars partially fought infront of our borders relativley easy. We haven't experienced any coup d'etat or anything like that except Napoleon conqering us in 1798 as he did most of continetal Europe. I can't recall any noticeable polictical demonstration that was because of a political decission Switzerland made. I just have to look across the border to our Friends in France or Germany. They have so many large protest against their government and decission it has made. Also those countries proved to be very unstable in the past. The French seem to switch between dictatorship/monarchy and representative republic every 30-60 years. The Germans needed to be conquered twice to be able to built up a peaceful and civilisized democracy without lunatics assasinating the head of the opposite party every week. The Italians also have a racist media mogul as head of state and more drasticaly he's also the head of europe at the moment. At least he doesn't try to rebuilt the roman empire as they tried on only 60 years ago.

Quote[/b] ]Plus people can easily be manipulated.

Yes they can be. You're absolutley right. But they can be equally manipulated by the pro-side and the contra-side. And as we proved we weren't manipulated to join the Germans on both World Wars although we could prevent it only closely since there was much propaganda for it. But also against it. Our representative demcracy neighbour in the north made a lunatic Head of State and he became probably the most famous of all the cruel dictators of the world.

conclusion: We LAG behind but we reach the same goal and usually with less bloodbath and political chaos than the others. When we decided something we stood behind it. Because we the people decided it.

Quote[/b] ]Here are the relevant questions:

If we join the EU, how will our export quota be affected? If we join the EU how will our trade tariffs with non-EU countries be affected? How will our taxes be affected? What subsidies can we get? How many EU immigrants can we expect and what consequence will it have on the population distribution? How will joining the EU affect house prices?

You're wrong here. Those are some of the relevant questions for the members of parliament maybe. But those are mostly economic questions. And as listet above. The major topics that led to the fail of the vote was what I said before. Concers for our neutrality. Those are not questions a 6-year old would ask. Sorry but I found that comment foolish.

I listed you some of the hot topics that were debvated in media/parliament and public that led to the fail of the vote. Those are obviously the things that are important for our people.

The economy is one aspect that isn't that important for us because we could archieve many bi-lateral agreements on many important things with the EU or our trading partners that give us similar advantages as the EU membership would give us in economical aspects. You're also clearly too focused on economy. I ask myself if you dindn't get manipulated by the propaganda you mentioned too much yourself. If one joins the EU because he sees economical advantage then he joins because he wants to profit. But he probably completly overlooks another aspect of the union. That is that europe as a whole should profit from it and not only your country. The problem with countries joining against the will of the people can be that some years later the government is changed and another party comes to power that thinks the EU sucks and then the state starts blocking every progress unless it gives it an advantage over the other members.

@MSMS

Quote[/b] ] I went and visited it last spring, with my physics class (we were going to see CERN), and one of the guys we met, an American citizen, had a daughter who was like 1 year old when she got there, and he said she cannot become a Swiss citizen, even though she has lived there almost all her life. Not exactly open, but I guess they are preserving their culture.

I'm sorry to hear that but it's more complex here than you think. Firstly it depends in which canton you are and in which village community/town there. There are huge differents among them when it comes to giving citizenship to other people.

Generall we are open but we never had this form of right that you got citizenship when you're born here. The US has other rights in that aspect because of it histroy as a immigration-colony. Here you get the citizenship with birth when one of your parets has the Swiss citizenship or as a child you get it when your parents go trough the asylum process which can take up to 7 years in some cases. But if I recall correctly all our neighbours have similar asylum rights.

[denoir 0]

We take our neutrality far more serious than Sweden does.

I doubt that. We have not been involved in any wars for 200 years now.

Quote[/b] ]

Since I live here I know what the topics in debates were. I really don't know why you think you know what our media/people/politicians were discussing.

I know that your people on average don't have PhD:s in economy, sociology and political sciences.

Quote[/b] ]

You are right though that people are conservative. We often "LAG" behind in many changes because of people needing time to  change their opinion. But it has it's good aspects that I mentioned before. When they decide something it's what they want. Unlike when a parliament deicdes things the people don't want. Look we're stable since 1848. We got through two world wars partially fought infront of our borders relativley easy. We haven't experienced any coup d'etat or anything like that except Napoleon conqering us in 1798 as he did most of continetal Europe. I can't recall any noticeable polictical demonstration that was because of a political decission Switzerland made.

Yes, but that is also why you have a lot of people living in remote mountain regions with living standards worse than in a developing country. Change is required for evolution and unfortunately for you, your society isn't evolving very quickly. You're 50 years behind rest of the EU in terms of social progression. (Which is one of the reasons why the EU didn't bother too much with trying to get you to join. Your country would require immense work, change, monetary investments and political work to be worth it)

Quote[/b] ]

I just have to look across the border to our Friends in France or Germany. They have so many large protest against their government and decission it has made. Also those countries proved to be very unstable in the past. The French seem to switch between dictatorship/monarchy and representative republic every 30-60 years. The Germans needed to be conquered twice to be able to built up a peaceful and civilisized democracy without lunatics assasinating the head of the opposite party every week. The Italians also have a racist media mogul as head of state and more drasticaly he's also the head of europe at the moment. At least he doesn't try to rebuilt the roman empire as they tried on only 60 years ago.

Yes, I never said that your system didn't bring stability. By refusing to change and evolve it's intrinsically stable. The question is to which extent you're willing to give up progress to gain stability. It's thanks to it's instability and constant change that France and Germany today are standing on a the frontier of a completely new socio-economic order. It has it's price in terms of social and economic uncertainty but had there not been people willing to take risks in order to progress we would still be living in caves today. Living in caves is a very secure and stable system. Why risk anything by looking what's outside, right?

Quote[/b] ]

You're wrong here. Those are some of the relevant questions for the members of parliament maybe. But those are mostly economic questions

Yes, I gave you a sample of the types of questions you should have a clue about before making a decision.

Quote[/b] ]

And as listet above. The major topics that led to the fail of the vote was what I said before. Concers for our neutrality. Those are not questions a 6-year old would ask. Sorry but I found that comment foolish.

Those are trivial and especially ideological questions that serve to set the general direction, but those are not enough to make a decision on.

Quote[/b] ]

Those are obviously the things that are important for our people.

Yes, they're important because they lack the education to see that they're actually pretty much irrelevant. You joined the UN, do you think that you are less neutral now? Was it the right thing to do not to help with humanitarian missions around the world for 50 years? Were your paranoid fears about the UN justified?

Do you think Sweden is less neutral today than it was 20 years ago?

Quote[/b] ]

The economy is one aspect that isn't that important for us because we could archieve many bi-lateral agreements on many important things with the EU or our trading partners that give us similar advantages as the EU membership would give us in economical aspects. You're also clearly too focused on economy. I ask myself if you dindn't get manipulated by the propaganda you mentioned too much yourself. If you join the EU ebcause you sense economical advantage then you join it because you want to profit. But you probably completly overlook another aspect of the union. That is that europe as a whole should profit from it and not only your country. The problem with countries joining against the will of the people can be that some years later the government is changed and another party comes to power that thinks the EU sucks and then the state starts blocking every progress unless it gives it an advantage over the other members.

And here above another example why people should not be allowed to make direct decisions. The basic maxim of any market driven society is that economy is everything. Power is economics. Education is economics. Neutrality is economics.

The political allience is a subset of an economic allience. Free trade is the foundation of the EU (it's even written that way in the constitution). And the basic premisis is that through a common European market all of Europe benefits.

Now, I'm no economist and I can't tell you the details. Therefor I should have no direct say in the matter. Fortunately we have politicians that know these things and that have economic and political advisors.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

I voted for "no".

On one of the first pages it was said that an EU army might faciliate the formation of a bi-polar world - again.

Last time round we had a bi-polar world, the United States started their anti-communist witchhunt and anti-communist (read: anti-pro-US ) policies which resulted in 60 years of misery for the 3rd world.

More information regarding the above statement HERE. I am reading this book at this moment, and some of the information contained is disturbing. Even more disturbing are the book's sources - New York Times, US Government publications, credible sources of information in other words, not some conspiracy bullshit.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make, the formation of a new bi-polar world will, based on past experience, end up in a fight for agenda and crusades in the 3rd world. The result will be renewed suffering in the 3rd world - and a United Europe is too small a price to make up for the suffering of a large part of the population of Earth.

[EiZei 0]

Its not like habit of supporting oppressive regimes died with cold war..

[denoir 0]

Exactly EiZei. I'd say that today instead of two countries rampaging around the world, there's only one. But I don't think that the extent of it has been reduced in any way. Especially not after the WTC attacks. CIA's operational budget has increased with a factor of 10 or so since then.

[EiZei 0]

Regarding the 3rd world dictators, I found this with google and seems pretty interesting reading:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Dictators_Home.html

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

A hell of alot of British Taxpayer money goes into staying in the EU. The same amount of money goes into subsidising countries like Spain to get more modern, so you could say the British built the roads and building projects. So basically our money goes into re-building other countries while we receive less in return. Plus I would expect the "membership fee" to increase when the Eastern europe countries join up, and they will be heavily subsidised.

Yeah, while we were paying for your mad cows and the rest of the sick animals. Through that Britain has recieved far more money from the EU than it has payed to the EU.

We bailed you out when your entire agricultural and export industry was about to collapse.

You're welcome

Got a source for that?

Regarding 3rd world, you think that adding the EU as a superpower would reduce the amount of US-backed dictators, or would it increase it?

Besides which, it was us Europeans that invented the game of shadow governments - who says we won't pick up our old bad habits again?

It is time people stop messing about with their own agendas and that people start recognising the UN as a world government.

[canukausiuka 1]

Denior, I was only talking about the slight differences in the system, not a dictatorship type difference

I was just saying I like direct election of representatives as individuals, not as parties, and those individuals, not their parties, deciding what to do. Details, really. I think I just misunderstood the reference to referendums. As far as I know, we only have those in rare instances. Constitutional conventions (either to ratify a new amendment by state, or to write a new state constitution all together) and a few other issues. My state had a direct vote on whether to keep the flag last year.

Donnervogel, thanks for the information. He didn't really explain it in detail, but it seemed unfortunate. Of course, that's just me and my American heritage, like you said. By the way, Switzerland is really nice

[Grizzlie 0]

I think u r too optimistic denoir.

Watch - in Germany increace of budget income about 0.5% and big budget spends cutting, in France not better, in Italy strikes against new social politics, and of course fight for constitutional pact. Now it is very hart time for EU. I hope it will be resolved, but noone can say what solution will be.

Would France and Germany leave EU in case they become minority in voting about constitution, as they proposed to others and would they make EU bis? I really do not want Larry Bond's "Vortex" become reality.

And word about Switzerland. For ages their only export "good" was mercennaries. No harverting, no industry, very hard terrain and not nice neighbours It is not good environment to make "open" nation.

And last but not least (no offence to any highlanders) highlanders r proud, rough and stubborn

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

The swiss are very very proud people. I lived there and enjoyed their hospitality for over 6 years. The swiss have a very rigid and silly decentralised system that would have ruined a sovjet union already back in the 1950ies. . And people like Blocher dont make it better. But fact is that beautiful little switzerland will survive without the european union and the swiss franc will remain as stable as the price of platinum.

And in contrast to the UK I know that switzerland isnt joining because they hate the arrogant Krauts and the frogeaters but simply because for economical reasons.

I know the swiss feel european, the Schengen treaty is a clear indicator for that, but they simply dont want any unforseeable obligations.

[Donnervogel 0]

Quote[/b] ]I doubt that. We have not been involved in any wars for 200 years now.

1. You joined the EU - you took party.

2. Yeah we didn't have outside war for a longer period. We had Civil War in 1847/48 though caused by extremly chaotic situations after

Napoleaonic Era in Europe and the fact that Napoleon made a representative Democracy of Switzerland which led to huge internal conflicts and poverty -> huge social segregation.

Quote[/b] ]I know that your people on average don't have PhD:s in economy, sociology and political sciences.

You don't need that to be able to decide whether you want to join EU, UN or accept the change of your fundamental rights (revision of the

constitution) or not. You need that to work out the details of such a thing and we have those people for that. They don't let anything pass

to be voted on publicly before those professionals agree that it's a good thing.

Quote[/b] ]Yes, but that is also why you have a lot of people living in remote mountain regions with living standards worse than in a developing country.

That's completly untrue. Those people get huge subventions and they live with the normal life standart for western european standarts, unless they decide not to want it which is also sometimes the case. I think like 50 people don't want subvestions. Also it's a small percentage that lives in really remote areas. On the other hand we have buillt up huge infrastructure in the touristic regions of our country because the people decided that we want to keep up deventral demography which led to the fact that the people in the "remote" areas often have better infrastructure than me who is living outside Zurich. There are few regions that aren't interesting touristicly. Still they have granted minimum infrastructure (water supply, electricity, phone, postal service, medical service) and they can reach the next city within 1-2 hours by public transportation means (train mostly). But they get everything they need to live where they're living.

Quote[/b] ]You're 50 years behind rest of the EU in terms of social progression. (Which is one of the reasons why the EU didn't bother too much with trying to get you to join. Your country would require immense work, change, monetary investments and political work to be worth it)

Where did you get that from? We made changes to our work market 10 years ago that the Germans are trying to reach with their so-called "Agenda 2010" and they got huge opposition. We have one of the best social secourity systems in this region. Far better than Italy anyway. We have better education System than Germany, France and Italy (see PISA) although we lack espeacially compared to the Scandinavian region. We have some strong enterprises that are acting world-wide. We won't need EU investments since we have first class infrastructure and where we don't have it anymore due to higher demmand (alpine transit) we work on it atm (see NEAT). We are among the leading countries in communication infrastructure. We have better postal ifrastructure than Germany, Italy and France we have more than enough clean water. We export more Energy than we Import. The EU is making bi-lateral agreements with us all the time. Why would they care to do this when they think we're not worth it?

Quote[/b] ]Yes, I never said that your system didn't bring stability. By refusing to change and evolve it's intrinsically stable. The question is to which extent you're willing to give up progress to gain stability.

We have both. We reached the same standart as our neighbouring countries in the same time. Because we didn't tear everything down in senseless world wars and political instabilities.

We were perfectly in time with industrial development alongside with Germany and France. Today we're leading in chemistry and pharmacy. We built high precission mechanisms in top quality respected worldwide. We also are leading (including nobel prize winner) in nano-technology.

We have some very good and world-wide respected unversities with very good position in research.

We founded the red cross, the first neutral organisation caring for victims of war and setting one of the first international laws. We were founding member of the League of Nations, the prototype of the UN. And we were member and supporter of many UN activities all the time even though we weren'ta full member.

Quote[/b] ]It's thanks to it's instability and constant change that France and Germany today are standing on a the frontier of a completely new socio-economic order.

France and Germany are cutting back many social secourity institutions now (and Germany is governed by the social-democratic party). Their economy is in a bad state because it didn't develop much in the last years. They "LAG" behind. We have very similar problem to Germany at the moment in this area. I just say they have the same problems and often the same causes to them as we have. They're not ahead of us.

Quote[/b] ] Living in caves is a very secure and stable system. Why risk anything by looking what's outside, right?

Many people make that error when speaking of Swiss neutrality.

Se my comments to red cross and League of Nations (the Buildings of the League of Nations - former UN headquarters and todays HQ of some UN organisations are located in Geneva, Switzerland). We do and did much pioneering work in international relations and organisations. How can that be sitting in caves? We are far away from caves. We are a respected neutral diplomatic partner and territory worldwide. Latest occastion is the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that was logistically supported by Switzerland also known as "Geneva agreement" or something like that. (we've even seen Palestinians burning Swiss flags for that - not the thing that happens to people sitting in caves and hiding from the outside world).

Quote[/b] ]Yes, I gave you a sample of the types of questions you should have a clue about before making a decision.

Oh we have clue about that. Those are among the main points why I support EU membership of Switzerland. But a point is too that we have most of those advantages already trough bi-lateral agreements with the EU and our trading partners.

Quote[/b] ]Those are trivial and especially ideological questions that serve to set the general direction, but those are not enough to make a decision on.

They are not trivial. They are basic questions but very important ones.

Yes they are ideological. And therfore they are very important. Ideology is a very important element. Without ideological questions we wouldn't even have democracy. Democracy is a highly ideological matter. You decide whether the people should directly or indirectly rule the country or "a professional" should do it without any legal obligation to the countries people.

Quote[/b] ]Yes they're important because they lack the education to see that they're actually pretty much irrelevant. You joined the UN, do you think that you are less neutral now? Was it the right thing to do not to help with humanitarian missions around the world for 50 years? Were your paranoid fears about the UN justified?

No they are very relevant. When the UN decides to make sanctions on a country we have to follow it as a full member. When the secourity council decides something it's legally binding for the members. In the past we could decide ourself. That's loss of neutrality in certain situations - but irrelevant from my point of view. But there are other points of view.

Also we took part in most UN humanitarian missions in the last 50 years without beeing full member. We have our KFOR comittment (we even changes our constitution to send armed troops). We observe parts of the border in Korea. We lead rebulding projects in Kosovo, We work together work with the UN in Somalia and Sudan, Carla del Ponte - the women that's leading the lawsuit against Milosevic in Den Haag - is Swiss (a former federal judge), She also was active in Ruwanda, and so on.

Plus I refer here again to the Red Cross. We also have some NGO's based in Switzerland.

Quote[/b] ]The basic maxim of any market driven society is that economy is everything. Power is economics. Education is economics. Neutrality is economics.

The thing is we're a social-market economy (don't know how the correct english expression is) and as far as I remember Sweden is too. If you think like that, you're a perfect american capitalist but our constitution states our economy is basicly free, but the state has to pay attention and intervene when things go wrong and it must also ensure that all our people have equal starting chances (an impossibility IMHO) and a granted social security system.

This is not the classical theory of free markets.

It's again a indeological question whether you want to follow the strict rules of that theory of if you want to make a compromise as most European nations did.

Quote[/b] ]Fortunately we have politicians that know these things and that have economic and political advisors

You know we have them too. I say it again. We don't get to vote on anything unless the parliament aproves it.

I really don't know where you got your picture of Switzerland from.

But I guess we both made our position clear. I don't have the time to follow this thread during the week so I guess won't discuss this further.

(I would have posted this earlier but my internet connection was down)

EDIT: Silly Notepad messed up the structure of the posting. I correted it... I hope I didn't make new errors.

[denoir 0]

Well, since you insist on refusing to objectivly looking at your country and what's happening around it, I suppose that this discussion won't lead anywhere.

I'll just say that unreasonable blinding nationalism isn't good for you. Switzerland is quite different than the rest of the EU, yes, but it's not in any way better from our perspective. That's why we are working together as opposed to isolating ourselves. From our perspective your system sucks. Now while you might like it, you have to take a more global view of things when debating with people from other countries. "Switzerland über alles" propaganda won't work.

[Donnervogel 0]

Oh dear god, please denoir. I and a nationalist? I'm only Swiss because my parents fled to Switzerland. I really don't feel as a "Swiss national" - if such a thing even exists. There is also nothing like "Switzerland über alles" propaganda in my psotincs and views. I was beaten up sevral times by our locals patriotic nazis. I didn't say we're best. I didn't say our System is ultimatively the best.

You made it look like we're 50 years back which isn't true at all. I was going into those points and what I said are facts. I don't say we're the best. I disproved your untrue accusations. That's all.

It's up to you to belive it or not.

But please stop this aggresive discussion style of accusations and constant dispraise. It's not possible to lead a decent discussion that way. It's also not possible to discuss when you just acuse me of being a nationalist and telling proaganda when we disagree. I always tried to take your points of view into account and I agreed with you partally. Also because the views I presented here are mostly not my views but I've written them to give you a picture of the things that are of importantce here. You just continued to acuse us of being backward, uneducated and ignorant. I don't say Swedes are backwards, ingorant and uneducated because a certain Denoir is almost only focusing on economical questions and refusing to see the whole aspect of relevant questions. I say we have other points of view and you should accept that there are other points of view that can be equal relevant or considerate but just different.

If you refuse to do it... where is the basis for a discussion there? That's good for a flame war, nothing else.

But I really don't have the time for this during the week.

Conclusion: You think semi-direct democray as practiced in Switzerland since 1848 sucks. I think it has many good and really democratic elements. We could have saved us the effort.

Have a nice day

[denoir 0]

Oh, come on, you've been around long enought to know my style of discussion. If we agree on everything and are all nice, civilized and respectful of each other views, this would be a very dull forum

I do think you are glorifying the Swiss system in a biased way and I'm probably doing the same of the EU system. My point is that you may like your system but that doesn't mean that the whole world agrees on that. If Switzerland was thought to be a good example by the EU then we would try to be more like you. But actually we're going in the opposite direction. You prefer national independence, neutrality and a fairly closed society while we prefer pan-European integration, pact-building and an open interdependant Europe. All I'm saying is that from the general European point of view Switzerland is not a model country. You keep defending the principles you use and I'm saying fine, but the result is not something most Europeans would want.

Edit: I did in no way anywhere say that specifically the Swiss are uneducated and ignorant. I'm saying that it goes for all the great masses everywhere -- in Switzerland as well as in Sweden. As for being backwards, yes, from my point of view you are. I'm sure that from your system of values you are not. I think that isolationism is bad, you think national independence and neutrality is good.. etc

[Donnervogel 0]

You make me having to write this:

Quote[/b] ]You prefer national independence, neutrality and a fairly closed society while we prefer pan-European integration, pact-building and an open interdependant Europe.

I will answer this by a slightly changed quote that gives you a very good sense of my personal views. You might know the person who has written it:

Quote[/b] ]I prefer pan-European integration, pact-building and an open interdependant Europe.

But here is one point more and it's the point where we seem to disagree. I also support that the citizens can decide on basic directions that are affecting their life and their basic (human) rights directly. I belive it's possible that it works because I see it working in a far more extreeme way than I'd like to see it in a possible EU.

[denoir 0]

I am for the people setting the general direction of where the country is going by being able to choose political representatives that have an ideology that appeals to the voters.

The difference in our position is that you think that the general population is capable of making decision on specific issues while I don't think they are.

I can even accept referendums to a certain level. I think for instance it's ok to make a direct vote about joining the EU. I don't think however it's ok to make a direct vote about the new constitution or joining the EMU. Those are technical processes far to complex for the average voter to fully comperhend and they are not ideological in nature. These things should be left to the professionals.

There are of course border cases, such as military cooperation. For Sweden and Switzerland neutrality is part of an ideology and therefor relevalt to hear what the people have to say. On the other hand there are other factors: the EU is a cooperation and everybody can't have their way on everything. You have to inevitably accept some things that you'd rather avoid. So IMO the common military might be such a point where you give in to overall benefit the community.