Congrats UK

I expect this to happen more. Not sure if the idea of commerce and trade without borders has panned out for enough people in Britain (Scotland and North Ireland may be different.) The large corporations benefited (and yes, let's not forgot that corporations do some good as they do employ a lot of people).

We are talking about different countries, different people, different languages, heck even different branches of religion. A commerce and trade union will eventually require political union to be effective. It's the political union aspect that scares a lot of people in these independent countries. As I see it, the EU is Germany at the lead (economic leader, and the one truly calling the shots) with the French (diplomatic lead, but really following the orders of Germany), and Brussels as the token "capital" (kind of like how the Federation President in Star Trek is never a Human, Vulcan, or Andorian, but some weirdo alien race.)

 

Yes. Europe has been fairly divided in the past. Understandably so. I'm thinking that the advancements in communications should help alleviate divisions, but obviously not fully. Furthermore, division IMO is not always bad. In the grand scheme of things I feel is part of our life preserving evolution system, which requires things to be non-homogeneous. A virus that kills one, kills all.

It's been always surprising to see so much cultural and ideological differences in EU to me. The state of Chihuahua (Mex) is roughly half the size of Spain, and Texas is even bigger. And the population of Texas I think is roughly half that of Spain. Yet Spain is so different from France and England. Texas is different from it's neighboring states, but with all it's craziness, I don't feel like I'm walking into a new country when I go from SoCal to El Paso. International borders are a bit contrasting though.

 

I'm not knowledgeable of all the details, but yes. Union does not always benefits all the parties involved.

 

It's different from the USA (which incidentally had its bloodiest war in terms of body count to settle the issue of political union.) Let's say if Nevada went bankrupt, the US Federal government would have no problem bailing them out. Sure the rest of the country would shake their heads or poke at Nevada if such a thing happened, but Americans would by in large agree to bailing out Nevada, because people in Nevada are Americans.

It's like the EU, were Greece pleads "Help us! We are semi-incompetent with our money" only for Germany to reply "Pay up you lazy fucks! Get your shit together".

You mean several football teams, whose fans want to kill each other.

 

Tell me about it. I'm Mexican by birth, and American by election. But my family line is mostly Basque.

 

The UK will be out of the EU, but with very similar agreements to what exist now. There might be changes in restricting the flow of euro-trash individuals like the one pictured below.



That dude went to lie down the middle of the street disrupting traffic. I kinda of wished he got run over by an old lady who didn't see him in time before the police came. I'm sure stuff like this upsets many older Britons.

 

All this talk of doom is nonsense. Rolls Royce is not going to stop shipping engines to Airbus. Germany and Italy air forces and navy aren't going to stop using Tornado jets. UK citizens aren't going to be arrested and sent back to the UK upon entering European continental soil. UK and EU industries are too closely tied together and money always speaks.

Finally, this is what you get when you have democracy where people can vote. Just because people vote against your beliefs don't mean they are stupid. One of the disconcerting things about "liberals" I have noticed is that they tend to denigrate people who have different beliefs from them as being brainless, anti-intellectual, stupid, or clowns. Al Gore did this with his sighing "OMG W, how f'ing stupid are you?" during the debates in 2000, and it ultimately cost him the presidency. The ultra-liberals voting for Nadar wasn't exactly the smartest move during that election either, because they ended up with their last choice for POTUS.

In the end, may the less hot-headed heads prevail during the negotiations of the Brexit. Let's hope that Brussels doesn't take it too personally and seek to punish the UK for daring to exit and also to discourage other EU members from doing so.