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knight321

Listed below are comments made by knight321 between Tuesday, 10th June 2008 and Wednesday, 11th June 2008.

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Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 08:21am on 11 Jun 2008 "Saying that Ireland wouldn't defended by other EU countries is quite dead wrong and doesn't have any basis on realpolitik"

Who is going to defend Ireland besides America or Britain quickly? I mean what country is immediately going to find out about the invasion of Ireland (no matter who invaded) and support Ireland.

You know the chances of Ireland getting invaded is slim to none but the whole European system seems to be based on what "probably" will not happen.

Now your criticizing electronic voting machines when 95% of the EU is not even being allowed to vote?

This whole European system is a joke, come November no person from Europe has no right to criticize the American election.

You might think that Ireland is standing in the way of having a true united Europe. I have read the treaty and I am not a lawyer but to me it seems like this treaty allows changes to happen in the future without any thought to the Irish public.

If you really feel that you should pass this treaty because you owe Europe, then you should have no problem passing a law giving Shannon Airport complete control to the Americans. But we all know that you would never even think about doing that, but instead you would hand over a substantial amount of the Irish influence to Europe.

That is how you should think about this treaty. If you don't want to hand Shannon airport over to America, then you definitely don't want to hand the entire country over to Brussels.
Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 06:35am on 11 Jun 2008 "It's amazing what poor education combined with poor information will result in!"

You should go on a mission to America to warn all these large companies that they made a mistake about Ireland. Irish educational system!!! it is at the bottom of the world. I remember when my family moved to America the educational system was considered so bad that they moved us all a grade ahead.
Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 03:45am on 11 Jun 2008 You know just the other day I was commenting in another BBC blog about how I thought a EU army would be a good idea. I think I really must have had a brain freeze. Because after reading some of these negative comments I realize that this whole united Europe thing is never really going to work out. You have people like the French who feel that the rest of the smaller countries like Ireland owes them something. I believe the original idea of integrating countries like Ireland into the EU was to provide them with subsidies so that they could become successful states within the union. Seeing as though Ireland has become so successful that struggling countries all around the world are looking at the Irish model, then hasn't Ireland done more than you expected?

What is funny about these subsides is that many people that have looked at Ireland say these are not the primary reason for Ireland's success. I am not knocking the European Union because they have played a big part in Ireland. But the Irish government devised a plan in the 80's and turned that country around. A plan that included low taxes and less of a welfare state as countries like France. Then with the help of America, including ex-presidents, Irish American politicians, Irish American organizations along side the Irish government, they were able to make Ireland into a haven for large American companies. If you take America out of the success of Ireland you are missing a big part.

To people to turn around to people from Ireland and criticize them if they do vote no is almost laughable. When a lot of the bigger countries in Europe know that if they put it to there voters it would also fail. I think after this whole lack of democracy that nobody from Europe should ever criticize the way the American election system works. To add to that if I was in Ireland and was not sure how I was going to vote Thursday and read some of these comments, I would vote no just for my pride.

If Ireland got attacked tomorrow it would either be the Americans and British alone that would do anything about it. What kind of union is it when Ireland can rely on American and Britain (800 years !!!) than some of the people that they are in the union with. I think this is something that they should just put to an end and go back to just having an economic union. Who are they kidding? In Ireland and UK alone there is the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England. Who are they kidding when it would be hard enough to get people to agree about something between the places that make up Ireland and UK. Add some people from the other arrogant countries of Europe and you are never going to get anywhere.

A big part of having a successful state is by letting people vote for what they want. People that vote for something are less inclined to turn against something when it goes wrong. How is that going to work in Europe? When nobody voted for anything. As soon as some major disagreement comes up nobody is going to feel like they even voted for that this whole treaty to happen in the first place.
In defence of Europe 03:14am on 11 Jun 2008 "MarcusAureliusII"

Ha, it all makes sense to me now about you. I was giving you some respect because I thought maybe you served in Korea and grew up in the post WWII era. But you are just basically a chicken hawk.

I have no regrets about serving my country. It was some of the best years of my life. Good people in the military and it is an all around good experience. What you fail to realize is you can be in the military and do your job and still not agree with what your doing. That is persons perrogative, I had to put in the time to pay back my country for the training they gave me and you can't really go on a mission and half-*** it because you do not agree with what your doing. If you get shot down over Iraq or Afghanistan you can't say to the guys that find you that you didn't really support the war.

I am all done with you and you can have whatever views you want. Typical engineer who thinks just because it makes sense on paper that is how it works in the real world. I tell you, you really did fool me. I thought I was talking to somebody that had more experience in the military than me.
In defence of Europe 01:39am on 11 Jun 2008 "MarcusAureliusII "

What years did you serve in the military?
Thoughtfulness 4:51pm on 10 Jun 2008 I don't think the idea of all these people going over to McCain is going to be a success. I would probably have had a different opinion a few days ago but every hardcore "not voting for obama" Clinton supporter that I know have changed their mind.
Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 3:10pm on 10 Jun 2008 You do know that EU subsides were not what turned Ireland around. Having low corporate tax, educated and English speaking workforce, high profile Irish American politicians, not complete welfare states like France. The subsides helped but they were not the main reason for Ireland's success and being a member of the EU helped only as an enticement to business.

Ireland has a crap medical service and a problem with crime. Both problems that could be turned around if the people in charge got there act together. The biggest problem for Ireland is that there is so many people involved in the construction industry, which is always the first to suffer in a downturn.
In defence of Europe 2:25pm on 10 Jun 2008 I would say that a person with your views of the world should never come to power. Unfortunately over the last seven years a administration that had an attitude similar to you has ruined the country. You know a lot, but you also only want to see it your way. The same way this administration was made up of all intelligent people, but were so full of themselves that they made lots of common sense mistakes. '

Your arguments make no sense and a child can see that America has been left weaker by Iraq. You blame the military but the real blame lies in the white house.(somehow I think if a democrat was president your blame would fall directly to him) The argument that there was a "vast tapestry of evidence" is a joke. The build up to the war was made up of discredited information, from discredited people, and was purposely distorted and blown up to make the threat seem imminent. The Bush administration played on the fact that the media in this country was scarred to appear "un-American". that the public was still angry and scarred from 9/11, and that the democrats, who the republicans have always portrayed as weak on defense, would never risk showing weakness at a time just after 9/11. Go to the senate intelligence website and look up the post Iraq war pre-war analysis from 2005.

See if we weren't in Iraq right now Iran would not be a problem. Instead we have one of our hands tied behind our backs. We (or Israel) can take out their nuclear program and it probably would not be that hard. But when we have a couple hundred thousand American troops and contractors next store in a country that is not even stable then that is a problem. Too bad because the Iranians were more scarred of Saddam than America. Too bad that the Iranians were scarred of America before the Iraq war and now that they have seen what happened and the reaction of the American public they can rest easy knowing that America will never invade their country. America or Israel (even better for the Iranians) can only really bomb the country. They can bomb the nuclear program and still the Iranians win because of renewed support they will get from their people. You can bomb Iranian military installations but really Iran has been much more productive funding terrorists than doing the fighting themselves. You can even drop a nuclear bomb on Tehran and what would you really achieve? You would take out the government and millions of people. You would then be left with a country like Afghanistan in the 90's with no government and this is the middle east so some other crazy would either take over or it would just become a terrorist haven. The difference being that Iran has lots of oil and Afghanistan does not.

I am not saying that America should not take out the Iranian nuclear program. But you make it seem so easy and that everything can be taken care of with a nuclear bomb.

You should start up your own website or something. I am serious you would be a big hit with the far right.
Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 12:21pm on 10 Jun 2008 "31. At 11:44 am on 10 Jun 2008, J_Nelson wrote:"

Interesting points and typically conservatives and liberals in America have two completely different types of views. In Europe the differences between people are much less and generally people have many of the same beliefs. The one problem is that every single country in Europe has a strong national identity and pride. I really don't see the European Union ever being the united nation that people think it will become. I think it can become closer and work together but I don't think that you will ever have people be more proud to be European than Irish, English, French, etc. Take for example 9/11, no matter what type of beliefs you had at that time, all Americans were united. If something like that happened say to France, it would be interesting to see if the entire EU was ready to go to war for France? (similar to Afghanistan)
Irish PM: 'No' would kill Lisbon 11:57am on 10 Jun 2008 POST 14 "The Guv'nor"

"Once this treaty is passed there will be no way of having a referendum on such future treaties and I hope everybody is aware of this fact."

So are you saying that if Ireland passes this treaty, that in the future Ireland would not have referendums for new treaty's? I thought his was guaranteed under the Irish constitution?

Maybe you were just talking about the other EU members?

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