HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Date: 15 Oct 1992 18:04:18 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct15.170016.1@sejnet.sunet.se>, eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
|> In article <1bi5uhINNfd9@fido.asd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> > The EC comes
|> > in when the UK is manufacturing something for export to the rest
|> > of Europe, but the EC does not try to regulate the ingredients in
|> > a UK product consumed mainly within the UK.
|> 
|> Well, the EC wants to regulate surstr|mming (putrefied herring - also a source
|> for national jokes), which you can't precisely call an exporting success, and
|> other national traditional recipes which are not sold abroad (or at least are
|> mostly sold in the domestic market - I'm sure there are at least a couple
|> thousand bottles of gl|gg exported every year). They wanted to regulate the
|> size of condoms EC-wide, only one size would be allowed and it was a whole 4cm
|> less than most condoms sold in Sweden (they gave up after strong protests). The
|> list is endless, some day they'll want to regulate shoe sizes and impose a
|> unique size for all feet. Sorry Jon, things are simply not happening the way
|> you describe them.

No, it's my idiomatic English which is confusing.   When
an Englishman says "Here's where the EC comes in" he's as 
likely to be saying "Here's where I think the EC ought to 
come in" as "Here is the situation at present".  I'll try
to be more specific in future.

What I was saying above is that in my opinion, the EC has a 
legitimate role to play in regulating products which are for 
export, but ought not to have a role to play in purely national 
products.  I do *not* think the EC should attempt to regulate 
the food you mention above - and which I'd rather not repeat 
since it's rather early in the morning - and I think that they 
should not attempt to regulate cherry flavour potato chips, or 
whatever the current favourite is in the UK.   As long as the
UK does not inflict cherry flavoured potato chips on anyone
else, it's their own business.

In fact, I think that threatening to regulate purely national 
food products in this way is one of the silliest mistakes the 
EC can make.   People have a strong attachment to their national 
dishes.

jon. 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 23:43:10 GMT

In article <1bkm0oINN1m8@fido.asd.sgi.com>, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
> Well, that's one way of looking at it, but another is to say
> that at the moment, with each country running its own defence 
> policy, the French, Germans and British don't have to ask for
> advice from anyone before deciding what to do.

Correction: they won't need to listen for advice. They will need to get
agreement from the other EC nations. This may take the form of listening to
advice, or then it may not.

> In the US, people are asking why the Europeans are so slow to intervene.

It is because they don't want to re-enact Viet-Nam on european soil. Now why is
the US so slow to intervene in Yugoslavia? :-)

  Eric
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Subject: Common foreign policy
Organization: Enea Data AB
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 23:14:47 GMT

Eric Thomas (eric@sejnet.sunet.se) writes:
>                                     While the scandinavian governments have
>stated their desire to join the EC, it is totally unclear whether the people
>would approve such a decision, and one thing that is CERTAINLY not a given is
>that Maastricht would pass in other scandinavian countries! There is no way on
>earth a neutral country can approve a treaty which calls for a common army and
>common foreign affairs policy as a matter of routine.

Which neutral country are you talking about? Sweden used to be
"alliance-free for neutrality in war", but since there is no
war, there is to neutrality to talk about.

Everything changes, and so does Sweden. For a long it was right to
stand outside military cooperation, but will it always be so? In
these days when the defence repeatedly face cuts, we must ask our-
selves: can we still defend ourselves, and against what? And at
which cost?

As for a common foreign affairs policy, I fail to see the problem.
OK, we might be forced to support lunatic stance like the Greek
opinion on Macedonia. On the other hand, now when we are not part
of that common foreign affairs policy, have we reconized Macedonia?
What's the difference, when always play second fiddle after the EC
anyway?
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
There are many sorts of Macedonians: Greek, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Macedonian...

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Subject: Re: War and democracies
Organization: Enea Data AB
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:38:11 GMT

Ulf Berggren (ulfb@ulfb.nada.kth.se) writes:
>Oh, a different news conference but the same debate and the same
>opinions that we already have written in Swedish...
>But strange that there are things that some people seem to never
>learn.

Oh, dear master, have I been a disobedient student again? Seriously,
can you spell d-i-s-a-g-r-e-e?

>So, I'll repeat myself: The war didn't come with democracy, it
>came with regionalization before democracy.

Strange. The regionalization of Yugoslavia dates from Tito's days.
No war then, as I can recall. In fact, before the democratic
elections in the Yugoslavian republics there was no war. Maybe
*you* should learn something?

>What point do you want to make here? The Pakistan regime didn't
>accept the election results and the internal war began. Thus
>Pakistan was no democracy when India intervened.

Why wasn't Pakistan a democracy? Because a war broke out? And
democracies don't make war? But the disputed statement was
whether democracies would war each other or not.

It seems like when those who advocates this thesis are faced with
a counter-example they always find some reason to say "but X is
not a real democracy". And when you try to find out why it is not
a real democracy, you often land on that they are in a war. And
of course if we define "a real democracy" as a country which does
not war another democracy, then the thesis "two real democracies do
not war each other" is perfactly true, as it follows from the
definition. However, then it is a completely useless statement.

But, and that's a big but, it is also maliciously deceivable, because 
if you are not aware of definitions, you might believe it, as it 
indeed it seems very palatable. But in fact it is no better propaganda
than "Macedonia has been Greek for 4.000 years", "The Croat regime
is fascistic" or "the communistic government is the tool of the
working class". And empty phrases of propaganda and lies are
things I detest, even if they are in names of democracy.

>Repetition again: The Suez crisis is not a good example since it
>probably wouldn't have happened if Egypt had been a democracy.

Permit the cynical to disbelieve.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
There are many sorts of Macedonians: Greek, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Macedonian...

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund)
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Reply-To: etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:57:12 GMT

In article 1bffb4INNssp@fido.asd.sgi.com, livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <1992Oct13.164140.29631@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
>|> No, I think like you seem to think, that a large portion of the power 
>|> as soon as possible has to be moved to the European Parliament.
>
>How large a proportion of power?   Do you accept the principle of
>subsidiarity, according to which the central authority, whatever 
>it is, only takes those decisions that cannot be taken locally?

Yes, I both accept and want to see the principle of subsidiarity 
implemented in the EU. 

What does it say then? All decisions ought to be taken at the lowest 
possible political level. Sounds fine but what does that mean? 

My interpretation is that most decisions in foreign, military 
(defending the EC) and economic (seeing to that the single market 
really works) areas are best taken at the European level. Decisions 
on other things like social welfare, culture, education and economic 
areas ought to be taken at the national level.  

The national economic decisions are those, which doesn't influence 
the relative competetivness between EC nations. If a decision may 
influence the relative competetivness, it must be taken commonly at 
the European level. 

If such a decision isn't taken here, it will never be taken in a 
political forum. Instead, the market will take that decision for us. 
This wouldn't be democracy!

>Maybe you should say just which powers a central authority should
>have.

I have already tried to answer this in the text above, but generally 
I think there always will be some kind of scared or controlling power. 
Maybe some kind of European Senate (upper house), put together on a 
national basis, not federative, that can control the federative power. 

Peter Lund, 	mail: Peter.Lund@eua.ericsson.se
Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: <None>
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:40:56 GMT

In article <mikael.70.718486271@udac.uu.se>, mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:
> You may disagree on the fact that I think that a second referendum would be 
> all right, but I think the Danes said no to that particular treaty, nothing 
> else can be assumed from the result (off course, we can interpret the result
> into meaning that the Danes do not want any further integration at all, but 
> that was NOT what they voted on in that particular referendum)

I agree that a second referendum would make sense IF there are substantial
changes to the treaty. If the change is just "ok, for another 2 years you will
not need to join the common foreign affairs policy", it makes no sense at all
since I haven't heard any complaint from Danes about integration delays, but
about the *contents* of the treaty.

> By the way how can you be so sure that in two years the Danes will 
> not have changed idea? If I remember correctely the difference between Yes 
> and No was quite tiny. 

I cannot say that in two years the Danes will not change their mind, and that
is not what I said. The new referendum is for the beginning of next year, not
in 2 years. Do you think that in a few months the Danes will say "Oh, probably
in two years we will have changed our minds, so let's vote now under that
assumption :))))))"? :-) The bottom line is that people who in 1992 don't want
a common army in 1993 will probably not vote in 1993 for a common army which
would not start before 1995.

> When the discussion is about a 
> joint army with the task to defend a European Union the matter could be 
> different.

But that is not the only task! The debates have concentrated on one point: if
there is a united army, there will be a strong military superpower called
Europe which even the US will have to take into account, and Europe will be
able to make strong interventions where the US might hesitate. This is not
about protecting the territory, let's be sensible, the US would back any
european country against an invasion from Russia and so would the european
superpowers. Do you really think the generals are afraid someone will attack EC
countries in the near future? :-)

  Eric
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 11 Oct 92 01:39:17 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct10.154430.1@sejnet.sunet.se>, eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
|> 
|> Exactly. Newsweek had an article this week about Croatia.
|>
|>   [description of anti-tank missile deleted]

|> Now, guess who manufactures these missiles? France. Ah, it seems 
|> the French do have a sense of ethics after all - they are supplying 
|> weapons to the oppressed and thereby giving them a very significant
|> advantage against the Serbs. How compassionate and pragmatic of them!
|> 
|> *bzzzzt* Wrong answer. The weapons actually come from South Africa...

I can't make any sense of this.    The French make anti-tank 
missiles.      I guess we all knew that.    They export them.    
We knew that, too.      And it turns out that some have made 
their way to Croatia via South Africa.

How does this make France different to any of a dozen other
countries?   There's an active secondary market in weapons.
Czech and Soviet weapons turn up in Afghanistan.    Czech
explosives turn up in N. Ireland.    Israel sold French
designed planes to Argentina.   Canadian manufactured 
artillery shells turned up in South Africa.   US anti-
aircraft missiles turned up in Afghanistan via Pakistan.

What is so special about France?

jon.
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: <None>
Date: 9 Oct 92 02:38:55 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct9.014642.1@sejnet.sunet.se>, eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
>
>  Instead, I am reminded of a little island in South America which the 
> UK sought to "protect" from the evil country it had the misfortune of 
> being adjacent to.

A country ruled by a military dictatorship which killed 20,000 of its
own citizens in a 'dirty war' might justify the word 'protect' without
ironic quote marks, I think

> Her Majesty lost a ship to a hi-tech (at that time) torpedo which 
> the French had happened to sell to the said evil power - a long 
> time before the incident of course. How could the innocent and 
> well-meaning French have known that the unfortunate sods, no doubt 
> blinded by their jealousy and outrage at not having been granted 
> the privilege of living under British rule, would have actually
> envisioned the use of these torpedoes against the navy of their 
> greatest friend and ally of all times? :-----------)

You seem to have this back to front, or possibly you have two
stories confused.   It was an Argentine ship that was torpedoed.
There was a British ship that was sunk by a missile (plus others).   
The torpedoes were not sold by France, although the missiles were.   
On the other hand, the French sold the same missiles to both 
Britain  and Argentina, so what's the big deal?

In any case, do you a point to make here?   The Argentine armed
forces used French, American and *British* equipment, while the
British forces used French, British and American equipment.  In
another case, an American ship, the Stark, was hit during the 
Iran/Iraq war by a missile sold to Iraq by France.    There's no 
particular significance in whose equipment you use these days, 
so why try to make a political issue of it?  It's not an oustanding
issue in Franco-British relations, except perhaps in your imagination.

If I recall correctly, when the war was over, the Argentines
threw their wonderful peace-loving government in jail - I
wonder why - and the Falklanders went back to living under
the cruel and oppressive jackboot of the British, apparently
with every show of enthusiasm, so I guess we all lived happily 
ever after.

jon.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
Subject: France
Organization: Enea Data AB
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 10:37:49 GMT

Jon Livesey (livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com) writes in comment to
Eric Thomas (eric@sejnet.sunet.se):
>What is so special about France?

Well, Eric is Swedish, and I have sadly found it not uncommon
in Sweden with a negative attitude towards France and the
Frenchmen. Why I don't know, but I suspect it has something
to do that the Swedish school system only teach a minority to
speak French well.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
There are many sorts of Macedonians: Greek, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Macedonian...

Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
Subject: Re: <None>
Reply-To: ERIC@SEARN.SUNET.SE
Organization: SUNET, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 15:44:30 GMT

In article <FISCHER.92Oct10073739@steiner.iesd.auc.dk>, fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars Peter Fischer) writes:
> That the French where actually selling weapons to a military
> dictatorship which killed 20,000 of its own citizens. The French knew
> quite well what was going on in Argentina, mind you.

Exactly. Newsweek had an article this week about Croatia. The Croatians have
recently obtained deadly anti-tank missiles which has "made Serbian tankers
pray all day". The Croatians claim 600 tanks have already been "killed" and 220
others captures. The reporter asked for hard evidence, and was brought to the
front line, where he saw destroyed tanks, still smoking. The missile makes a
tiny hole about the size of a pencil in the tank, and creates an enormous
change of pressure inside. Once the tank has been captured, it can usually be
repaired and re-used against the Serbs, who do not have equivalent weapons,
since the damage to the tank's armour is minimal.

Now, guess who manufactures these missiles? France. Ah, it seems the French do
have a sense of ethics after all - they are supplying weapons to the oppressed
and thereby giving them a very significant advantage against the Serbs. How
compassionate and pragmatic of them!

*bzzzzt* Wrong answer. The weapons actually come from South Africa...

  Eric
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec
Subject: Re: European Democracy (was: Why did Denmark
Date: 13 Oct 1992 21:33:24 GMT
Organization: sgi
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1992Oct13.164140.29631@eua.ericsson.se>, etxjpll@eua.ericsson.se (Peter Lund) writes:
|> In article 92Oct10234201@loke.iesd.auc.dk, abraham@iesd.auc.dk (Per Abrahamsen) writes:
|> >
|> >I agree.  Now, do you belive that it is wise to FIRST delegate large
|> >amounts of power into a non-democratic institution and THEN think
|> >about making the institution democratic?
|> 
|> No, I think like you seem to think, that a large portion of the power 
|> as soon as possible has to be moved to the European Parliament.

How large a proportion of power?   Do you accept the principle of
subsidiarity, according to which the central authority, whatever 
it is, only takes those decisions that cannot be taken locally?

Maybe you should say just which powers a central authority should
have.

jon.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.democrats.d:179 alt.politics.bush:8292 talk.politics.misc:50439 alt.politics.clinton:9223
From: sbaker@marlin.dr.att.com (131P70000-BakerSA(DR7603)236)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.bush,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: socialism (was B isa MF)
Date: 8 Oct 92 22:40:50 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.101259.164739@dstos3.dsto.gov.au>, mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au writes:
|> 
|> In my previous article I was working only from memory so
|> here are the real rates all in $A.
|> 
|> $Taxable income			TAX
|> 1-5400				Nil
|> 5401-20 700		Nil + 20c for each $ over 5400
|> 20 701-36 000		3060 +38c for each $ over 20 700
|> 36 001-50 000		8874 + 46c for each $ over 36 000
|> 50001 and over		15 314 + 47c fore each $ 0ver 50000
|> 
|> The figures such as 38c fore each dollar over are the
|> marginal tax rat, i.e. in this case the marginal rate is
|> 38%.
|> 
|> On top of the above, people earning more than 12 500~ pay
|> 1.25% medicare levy on all their income.
|> 
|> So the true tax rates are
|> 
|> Income			Average tax Rate
|> 1			0%
|> 5400			0%
|> 12 000			11%
|> 20 700      		16.25%
|> 36 000			26.25%   This is the average Australian wage
|> 50 000			32.25%
|> 75 000			37.25%
|> 100 000			40.45%
|> 
|> From there it rises asymtopically approaching 48.25%
|>  << stuff deleted >>
|> 
|> Michael
|> --
|> Michael Pilling				Phone: +61 8 259 7017
|> Software Engineering Group		Fax: +61 8 259 5980
|> Information Technology Division		Telex: AA82799
|> DSTO Australia				michael_pilling@itd.dsto.gov.au

What about local and "hidden" tax rates?  How high are they in Australia?
Here in the US, they can be as huge as the Federal Income Tax.
Consider the weight of sales and use taxes, state and local income taxes,
property taxes, luxury taxes, gasoline and other forms of exise taxes, ... the
list goes on.  Add to that the 7.65% social security tax and the matching 7.65% my
employer pays "for" me (as if somehow, that doesn't come out of my salary), add
to that the workman's compensation and unemployment insurance they must
participate in - it is a form of taxation on them since it is manditory.
Some economists take the view that taxing corporate profits is nothing more than
placing a surtax on the shareholders who must pay taxes yet again on
distributed proceeds of their investment.  So you can choose to count this
surtax as another hidden tax if you own stock.

We Americans are taxed more heavily than most of us realize.  Perhaps one way
of looking at our average tax rate would be to calculate the sum of all government
spending at all levels as a percentage of GDP.  I haven't seen data such as this
recently, but I'd be surprised if it was less than 35-40%.

Regards,

Steve Baker
att!sbaker@druhi.ATT.COM

Standard disclaimer:
I speak for myself, and only myself and never for my employer.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.democrats.d:156 alt.politics.bush:7965 talk.politics.misc:49905 alt.politics.clinton:8777