Is He On The Sauce Again Or Is He For Real ?

[bazwillrun]

either way, hes extremely dangerous and mixed with adolf merkel an extremely toxic combo.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3752939/Borders-worst-invention-EU-chief-Jean-Claude-Juncker-widens-rift-European-leaders-calls-borders-opened.html

[Ellipsis]

Jim, I share some of your idealism, but the problem is that Juncker/the EU got way too far ahead of himself/itself.

Properly done, the EU and similar regional entities could end up merging into some kind of world government, let's say in a few hundred years. But the EU of the last 40 years made a hash of it, grabbing too much undemocratic power too soon.

The way it should work is that the higher the "authority", the wider the power but the shallower the power over individuals. A future world government should set very broad rules/objectives/direction, and the future world president should have very little centralised power over individual people; at the other extreme, your local (country or city) government should have more power over you personally, and likewise you have more power over voting them in and out.

In practice though, the EU seems to consider its role to be to protect its people from their local governments. In order to do that, it has to be more powerful than those local governments, and that's been the problem ...

[jim360]

Yes, I'd certainly grant that the rate of EU expansion has been faster than its procedures have been able to cope with.

[vetuste_ennemi]

// Indeed, the evidence tends to suggest that given the opportunity apparently radically different cultures can coexist peacefully (not always, but sometimes). //

"The evidence tends", does it, Jim? Peaceful coexistence under the Raj or the Pax Romana perhaps. But what happens when geographical groups ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse are no longer constrained by a force majeure? The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires afte WW1, then the retreat from empire by the European colonial powers after WW2, and finally the dissolution of the USSR should provide some research material to test your assertion. I think we might agree that the Balkans is an obvious case of a "not always"; do you have any examples of the "sometimes"? Are you thinking of places like Malaysia and Indonesia, for exmple?

[Togo]

Lol jim at 23:06. That was being nice. (^_*)

Would you not consider that it was the very agreements reached regarding common borders that actually allowed civilisations to develope? Borders created the conditions that made it worth while for groups of like minded people to co-operate and to have a common aim. The problems arise with who we let gain power, especially ultimate power, within these designated areas of common interest. The EUSSR being one such example.