When was she whining for another referendum?
I have no clue what reality you're living in.
Sturgeon was constantly whining for another independence referendum. She even flew over to Brussels to beg EU leaders to back her up (and failed pretty miserably from what it seems). Not to mention that nonsense about vetoing it.
Perhaps Alyn Smith's 'I beg you' speech to in the EU parliament put a tear in your eye and made you feel all patriotic and start remembering the best bits of Braveheart, but for me all it did was make me embarrassed for the Scottish people.
Don't seem to think that Scotland being taken out of the EU against its will is a problem. Or is it just because it would go against your own self-interest that you don't give a shit?
I don't care if all (or, like in Scotland, 60% of) the houses on the next street vote Red; if more people in the country overall vote Blue, then Blue wins the election. That street can't turn around and say 'But that's not what
we voted for, we don't want to follow the rules now!'.
Well, I mean, they can, but it's bloody stupid.
Scotland voted decisively to stay as a part of the UK, for better or worse. The people of Scotland aren't stupid, so the argument of 'But they didn't think X would happen!' doesn't hold much water with me. For one thing, David Cameron had already promised the EU referendum at the time Scotland had its independence referendum, so they knew what was coming. They chose to stay. One day perhaps there'll be enough demand for them to get a second Independence referendum, but we can't be doing it all the time, or we'd end up with one everytime we have a Tory PM.
Where do you draw the line with this kind of reasoning? If you refuse all externally-imposed forms of morality, what's stopping you from doing whatever you will to the detriment of others? If your personal moral code does not obligate you to help anyone in mortal peril, why should it obligate you to refrain from e.g. robbing and murdering people whenever it benefits you? Of course, coexistence and cooperation are usually more beneficial than wanton violence, but what's wrong with a little bit of murder if you can get away with it?
Thus, I choose to follow law because its advantageous to me. Something that is hard-wired into me also finds helping others rewarding, so even if I were to break the law, I would likely do whatever I were to do because I found it advantageous to more than just myself.
Exactly - I have no idea why this is so hard for some people to understand. I quoted this bit in particular because it demonstrates self-recognition that Erkki personally finds helping others rewarding, but is under no illusion that everyone else feels the same way or that there is some kind of imperative that they do feel that way.
We live and work together in society because it is to the benefit of us all. We have laws that impose certain rules because they improve society to the benefit of us all. It would be no benefit to me to live in a lawless society where the biggest and meaning people stole and killed anyone weaker, because I am not the biggest and meanest person.
You say 'Of course, coexistence and cooperation are usually more beneficial than wanton violence, but what's wrong with a little bit of murder if you can get away with it?'. Have you ever watched an episode of Columbo? Plenty of people will kill if they believe they can get away with it and stand to benefit significantly. Luckily we have the police and rule of law to prevent such behaviour, but there's nothing irrational about their actions.
If I were in a situation where I/my family could gain significantly at the cost of harming someone else, with absolutely no risk of being 'caught'? I don't know how I'd act - I'd like to imagine that I would refrain, because I do have a moral code. But I recognise that
it is a code that I have arbitrarily decided on, and that I choose to follow (I do what 'feels right' to me). Expecting anyone else to have decided on the same moral code and therefore to follow it is foolish. To some people it 'feels right' to pray 5 times a day, or to only eat with a certain hand. It makes as much sense to say that is 'morally correct' as anything else.
The really odd thing in this is that demographics on these forums being what they are, there's a high chance the majority of you are atheists, yet you're seemingly arguing for the existence of some sort of absolute morality figure who dings your actions up as 'Moral' or 'Immoral' on a cosmic karma meter.
than aiding Israel in destabilizing every nearby Arab country is a tragic, horrific, destructive farce.
Why are you imposing your own arbitrary morals on Israel? Simply because you feel the desire or obligation to not destabilize the Middle East, it doesn't mean that that desire or sense of obligation is universal, despite the prevalence of echo chambers these days.
The difference between us is that I'm not saying 'But why are Israel doing this!? It's WRONG!'. I understand perfectly well why they're doing it, and how it benefits them. But it's not to my advantage, my country's advantage, or many Arabs' advantage, so I don't support helping them do it.
than aiding Israel in destabilizing every nearby Arab country is a tragic, horrific, destructive farce.
What on earth are you talking about? You really think that instability in the Arab world is a planned act by Israel?
That's either some tinfoil hat level conspiracy nutting there, or a deliberate attempt at spreading anti-Israel sentiment by using desinformation.
Some instability? Certainly.
And for one last thing, an even better way of dealing with the problem would be to stop giving Israel money hand over fist that it uses to destablise surrounding Arab regimes.
There was a policy paper prepared in '96 for Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu - it was called 'A Clean Break', and it said, amongst other things, that 'Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions'. (And removing Saddam sure was a good move for us, right? Not like it allowed extremist groups like Al'Qaeda and ISIS to gain a huge degree of power and influence in Iraq, right?).
Netanyahu apparently rejected the policy back then. But it seems like now, on his second go-around, he's changed his mind.
What kind of aid the UK give to Israel, and how, considering Israel is the only stable country in the middle east, it destabilizes the middle east?
The UK gives Israel ~8 billion pounds of aid, mostly in the form of favorable contracts for military hardware export licenses. There may be more, but if there is it's peanuts by comparison.
Israel is widely believed (I don't feel like examining the claim, but anyway all that matters here is that it's taken seriously) to take covert action against its neighbors, especially in the Middle East, and is known worldwide for openly taking bites out of them. If the Arab states can look beyond their own borders, it's fairly likely to be with an eye toward Israel; at least in the Israeli perception which is again all that really matters. The mistrust is both a cause and effect of Israel's actions, but with Israel so much more able to act things end up being a little bit disproportionate. They above all others stand to gain from a certain level of chaos in the area.
January and February of this year. That's the particularly annoying thing, Vilanat - we've already had this conversation. Nothing has changed since then, no one is making any new arguments, and it's not even the point of what was being discussed. So rather than have the same argument again, for a third time this year - JIDF please go.
Though I suppose I should thank you for making me dig through the old posts, as I'd been looking for that 'A Clean Break' paper and had forgotten the name of it. Cheers!
Not saying Israel didn't cause part of the problems that affect it, but it is far, faaaar from being the main cause of it.
Never said they were - there's a hell of a lot more fucked up about this situation with the Middle East and refugees and everything else than just that.
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