Politics

To be fair, Utrecht's center is pretty much all buses and everything moves pretty slowly because of that. So there wouldn't be any serious accidents. So I guess that's a difference. Also, they are basically required because even now, with the current buses (which are extremely long) going every 5 minutes the buses are packed with students and often you will have to wait for one that still has room for you when traveling after lectures.

I never really considered they would be problematic though.

Ah, I don't I'll specifically feel the ramifications (I sure hope not anyway ). Frankly I just want it to be over with regardless of outcome. I will agree though that after really getting into learning European history lately, keeping the continent peaceful and not being run like China are two big necessities What I don't get though is why the UK can't be like the Swiss, or Norway, who aren't actually members, yet they don't seem to have any trouble. I know it's because the context with us is different: we're in and planning on leaving, while those two haven't had to any of that, but I still wonder why we can't get whatever agreements they have with the EU.

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I remember my sister telling me while she was in America how the Wal-Mart she went to has this wall of bullets

I hope this trade war doesnt last long with China. I invest in a lot of china companies and they are all going to keep tanking until negotiations are met.

Maybe cut your losses and buy back in once they hit rock bottom.

Not a bad idea honestly.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49493632

When you suspend democracy so you can leave the "undemocratic" European Union.

Really feels like Britain is imploding, and Brexit hasn't even happened yet...

Well, theoretically she can. Realistically she does whatever the Prime Minister tells her too because it is a constitutional monarchy. It is a formal thing, she is expected to approve every major decision by the government. In theory she has the power to say no. But she is expected to just say yes to whatever the government suggest. If she refused in most cases that would probably result in the end of the British monarchy.

It is kind of similar in the Netherlands because the Dutch constitution was made as a compromise between liberals and the king as opposed to being written after a revolution. The king refused to give up all power, but he realized that if he didn't give up most of it he would probably face a revolution at some point. I don't think any monarch used these powers in the last 150 years though. In fact, I am not sure if they were ever used at all. Monarchs were also not allowed to have a political opinion in public and all their speeches had to be approved or written by the government. Basically they are puppets of the government, and they just have to approve certain things formally because they are the Head of State. So they couldn't really refuse to obey the government. And the current king has actually given up all political power if I am not mistaken. I think even the formal element is gone now.

But yeah, it's one of the weird aspects of constitutional monarchies, but it doesn't actually affect anything. The Queen will probably suspend parliament if that is what Boris Johnson wants her to do. The real problem here is that apparently it is possible for a Prime Minister to just shut down parliament for a few weeks just because parliament does not agree with his Brexit policies. This is especially weird because in Britain, as in most European countries, the parliament is the most important political institution. It is significantly more important then its American counterparts. While Prime Ministers are generally significantly weaker than US Presidents.

Ok this is kinda random but I think a long time ago you said we shouldn’t have human leaders and instead there should be like a robot or algorithm that decides what to do in each situation.

The ending of Game of Thrones kinda reminded me of that, as they basically have a robot in charge now.

Well at least Johnson is fighting to what the people voted for in 2016. So that’s at least a little Democratic, right?

Not really though. First of all because the parliament was also democratically elected AFTER the Brexit referendum. So it gives a more recent democratic opinion. If a majority of people would have voted for people that are against Brexit it is fair to block it. That did not happen though, Parliament supports the referendum.

The people voted for Brexit, with a very small margin, that is true. But Brexit it kind of vague, there are a hundred ways to go about doing it. Most people seem to agree that a "no deal" or "hard" Brexit is the worst one. A hard Brexit is the default if the deadline for negotiations runs out and the EU does not extend it (again) a hard Brexit will take place overnight. Which means all ties between the EU and Britain will be completely gone. That would put Britain in total isolation since almost no European country has no ties to the EU at all. Switzerland, Iceland and Norway are part of the Schengen area which means they allow free travel of people and goods with the EU. Additionally Iceland and Norway follow most EU regulations because they are EFTA members. Most Eastern European states also have ties with the EU because they are "candidate states" which means they working towards implementing EU standards.

So a Hard Brexit would probably be a disaster for Britain's economy. It is predicted to cause shortages in food, medicine and kinds of other goods that are not "native" to Britain. Additionally it could crash the world economy. So even a lot of people who voted Brexit don't want that to happen. Parliament could step in and try to prevent it by voting to accept the EU's current deal or by picking any of the other possible solutions when the deadline gets too close without an ideal solution. They can't do that if they are suspended though, which means Johnson can just force a Hard Brexit it he wants to... and he probably has to because the EU won't give him a better deal and he can't accept their deal without losing his position.

So it is not a democratic move at all... and just sets the precedent that if a Prime Minister wants to mess around without parliament providing any checks and balances he can apparently do so.

Okay, with the latest choices made by the government, it's really easy to see why this parliament is so easy to despise. All the choices they've made just effortlessly show them up as a bunch of power clinging, democracy subverting puddles of slime. It's moments like these where I think Guy Fawkes' thinking was ahead of his time...

To put it simply, they've voted to block a no deal and they've just blocked any chance of a general election because they know just about all of them, regardless of which stance they are on Brexit, will likely lose their seat. Frankly I don't really care, or are really surprised by these results. It just riles me up at how this pantomime makes these clowns look so contemptible. They're even forgoing formalities while in the house of commons, thus meaning MPs are breaking their own rules. It's utter madness.

Dutch politics are actually pretty good right now. The new semi-fascist Far-Right has been in decline over the last two months due to an internal power struggle in their party which revealed corruption. While this means the older Far-Right party has gained some seats in the polls their combined seats are still down. In fact they are sitting at the exact amount of seats they got in the 2017 national elections, only now their seats are more divided, weakening their position.

In the mean time for the first time since I can remember the second AND third parties in the polls are progressive-left (Green and Labour parties). The first place is still held by the part of the current Prime Minister. But the progressive-left actually has more seats now. Honestly, they should probably merge into one party. During the last elections political tests had to be changed because their programs were too similar. If they merge they would actually gain a few seats too. And then we would get the first Left-wing Prime Minister in decades.