"You didn't show anything of that kind. I'm telling you what nationalism is because as a nationalist, I know better than you what I think. If you refuse to listen, you're choosing convenient ignorance over knowledge."
You're only reinforcing my argument by showing you can't differentiate between what you think and what is factually true.
Yes - you know better what YOU think nationalism is - but that's not relevant to what nationalism ACTUALLY is.
The word has an actual definition - like all words do - and it's the job of dictionaries and academics to give that.
You can speak for yourself, but you can't claim that your opinion trumps the academic community.
That is precisely "choosing convenient ignorance over knowledge" which you accuse me of in your classical example of projection.
You're also completely inconsistent as you go from claiming authority to redefine the definition of the word nationalism based on you being one, to trying to tell me - a Swede - about Sweden.
If your first argument had any bearing at all, surely you would have to accept what I as a Swede tell you about my own country? But oh no - you're not just an expert in nationalism because you are one - you're also an expert on Sweden...because you're Canadian?
How does the mind work that jumps freely from one rationale to a completely opposite one in consecutive sentences? It's not operating on logic, to be sure.
Some of what you write about immigration has merit, most of it has not.
Yes, technology today of course gives people the opportunity to communicate more easily along huge distances - but this haven't been shown to make any practical difference in immigrants assimilation.
Because Sweden has in fact had this very generous immigration policy for many decades now, and we've already seen this play out with an earlier group of immigrants.
Funnily enough a group of immigrants precisely from the Balkans, as you use that talk about "Balkanization" - this popular scaremongering the far-right uses.
The largest flow of immigrants Sweden had ever accepted in modern times (apart from some instances during the second world war) until the large influx that came in 2014-15, was the huge number of immigrants that came during the Balkan wars in the 1990's.
Our neo-fascist party of course told horror stories about these violent Balkans who would surely destroy Sweden, bringing their conflicts with them and yes - this would of course lead to a "balkanization" in Sweden as well.
Well now, two decades later, the results are in and nothing of the sort happened.
Immigrants and second generation immigrants from the Balkans today have the same educational level as the rest of the Swedish population and even slightly higher numbers of employment.
They integrated just fine into Swedish society and as a result our neo-fascist no longer talks about that group at all of course, but have instead turned their hate toward other groups.
So no, your guessing has already been proven wrong by empirical evidence.
Also, on a more general point you obviously don't know Swedish history.
We've almost ALWAYS been a huge immigrant nation. Our fertility wasn't anywhere near enough to grow our population historically when you take high child mortality and constant wars into account.
We've seen mass immigration of all kinds of people throughout our entire history.
German was just as commonly spoken in Stockholm as Swedish during the middle ages (to this day a large part of the Swedish language is very influenced by the north German dialects) and the city council of Stockholm even had special rules in place ensuring that Germans and Swedes got equal representation on the council.
Later on the crown took in any number of foreign noblemen as officers in the army, as well as all manner of skilled workers the country needed.
These groups where given special permissions to continue their customs - and most importantly those that where Catholic where given permission to remain Catholic and keep Catholic services for them and their children in perpetuity. This in a country where Catholicism was otherwise completely outlawed.
But within a generation or two these people basically all converted and inter-married with the native Protestant population, and assimilated Swedish customs and culture.
Not because they where forced too, but because they where welcomed into the Swedish society with open arms.
Because as I wrote previously, successful assimilation is dependent on one very important point:
"As long as the majority culture is open to the newcommers"
If the majority culture is not open to the newcomers but shut then out from ever joining the majority - THAT'S when you get resentment and conflict.
Which is why it's really telling that you name France and Japan as good examples, when they in fact both are terrible examples!
France is a terribly racist nation that's treated it's foreign subjects and later immigrants from those countries like crap. That's the reason they have huge parts of the population with immigrant roots many generations later still living in suburb hellholes that breeds conflict.
Because this segregation is not at all as "voluntary" as you claim. First generation immigrant initially tend to cluster together for comfort in a new and unknown country - that's true.
But very soon people start wanting to move out into the no longer strange country they live in. If not for themselves so definitely for their children, whom they of course wish to see succeed in this new land.
But when they and even more so their children can't break out of these suburbs, when they are held back by poverty and/or racism, denied the possibly to live anywhere else and blend into the majority society, many of them naturally grow resentful as they are treated as second class citizens.
That's the reason France now live under a state of emergency and have the military patrolling their streets after having suffered the largest amount of deadly terror attacks in all of Europe in recent times.
Neither Sweden nor Germany, which have both taken in far more immigrants per capita then France has, has any where near those problems.
Because in Sweden and Germany society doesn't shut the immigrants out but is open to them.
Now that's not to say there aren't racists in either Sweden or Germany - of course there are.
But those societies don't differentiate between citizens based on their birthplace or heritage.
Immigrants in those countries know that when they meet prejudice and racism it's not tacitly sanctioned by the society they live in, but seen as a problem and taken seriously.
Just as there will always be racists in the majority population there will of course also be criminals and trouble makers in the immigrant population. But then we respond to those individuals, we don't scapegoat entire subsets of the population by claiming that "immigrants" in general are responsible for the acts of individuals - because they aren't, of course.
Regarding Japan it's a nation on the way to annihilating itself.
Their birthrate is so low and their average age so high there won't even be a Japan left in a few hundred years if they continue like this.
They're of course even more racist then the French - and even towards white westerners, who aren't used to having to face racism themselves.
Japan is in desperate need of immigration, but racist, nationalist policies are slowly killing them.
So great example you picked there...
An naming the Okinawans, the Emishi and the Ainu peoples of current day Japan as examples of a successful assimilation policy is simply despicable!
These peoples where brutally subjugated by the Japanese and often reduced to mere slaves. They where refused all rights to their cultural heritage and forbidden to speak their own languages and practice their culture.
Since Japan has now controlled these territories for hundreds of years they've almost completely stamped out all traces of these original cultures - and it's VERY telling that this to you is a sign of success!
Even the current day Japan (racist as it still is) has had to publicly apologize for it's brutal mistreatment of these indigenous people - but you still rate this as a success!?
This is in fact precisely the historical record of nationalism. That name wasn't invented when the Japanese started their mistreatment of these people but from the late 1800's and on this was done in the name of Japanese nationalism.
And it's in no way an exception - this forced subjugation of other peoples and cultures are instead a natural consequence of nationalism.
This - the historical records of centuries of mistreatment and abuse - is what nationalism has brought the world, and it bears no resemblance to your fantasy version of happy nation states respecting one another.
And comparing the Austro-Hungarian empire to the German is historical ignorance.
The Germans did comprise one people splintered in many different tiny states - the Austro-Hungarians comprised many different peoples subjugated under the rule of a tiny clique of Austrians initially.
They then had to give more autonomy to the Hungarians, renaming the empire from the Austrian to the Austro-Hungarian empire, but by still trying to subjugate all other different peoples without giving them a way to thrive within the country it was of course doomed to fail sooner or later.
If the Austrians on the other hand had been open to share power between the peoples of their realm, affording them equal rights, they might have been able to form a new amalgamated nation from the different peoples they ruled - just like the US.
But they stuck to nationalist Austrian policies and then it all predictably failed of course.
"I like when people tell me to put up sources, it's a tacit agreement that the comments I denounce would be unacceptable if true. Then I show they are true, and I can watch them spin, spin, spin to try to justify them away."
Actually, if you had been content with just claiming that these individuals had made these comments then that could have been true.
But you couldn't help but to overreach and claim that "the leaders of the EU project" said something and "the goal of federalists in Europe is" and then all you could produce was the words of three individuals - two of which aren't even EU representatives at all.
So you're left with two quotes from one individual person - that's your basis for claiming that you know what "the leaders of the EU project" think and what "the goal of federalists in Europe is".
One person, two quotes.
But let's look closer and see in what context these quotes where actually said.
The first quote:
"Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians"
Junkers said this in august 2016 in the context of defending solidarity with refugees and their children, according to the article you linked to.
This was immediately contradicted by British PM Theresa May and the article goes on to point out that both Germany and France (and Sweden and other smaller EU members I might add) had taken directly opposite action by enforcing border controls.
The article then goes on to cite the VP at some think-tank:
"He added that the contrast between Juncker's opinions and political leaders' moves to tighten borders demonstrated that power in Europe lay with national politicians rather than EU bureaucrats."
Which is the truth you EU-haters never actually understands (or just ignores?) - the bureaucrats don't decide shit.
Junkers can say what ever he wants - it's still not up to him to set policy.
He works FOR the EU - he doesn't decide EU policy.
So far from that quote showing what "the leaders of the EU project" think, it shows what one of the EU's employees think.
Granted it's the highest employee - but he's still just an employee.
So, on to the next quote then:
"there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties"
Here you cut the actual quote short as the link you posted shows it actually, in it's entirety, reads:
"there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties. One cannot exit the euro without leaving the EU"
Now this was said by Junkers in January 2015 in talking about the Greek debt crisis - that's why the end of the quote talks about exiting the Euro. That Greece was ever allowed to join the common currency the Euro was the reason for the entire debt crisis and there where discussions at the time that letting Greece leave the common currency might be the best option for solving the crisis.
Junkers clearly didn't want that to happen and said that last part as a threat. Greece certainly doesn't want to leave the EU, so claiming an Euro exit must also mean an EU exit was a way to try to put pressure on the Greeks to remain in the Euro.
Now once again Junkers doesn't decide anything and what he said there is blatantly false any way. Several EU members (including Sweden) didn't even join the common currency, so of course Greece could remain in the EU even if it left the Euro. So this is just an empty threat - and a clumsy one at that.
The first part of the quote, the one you elected to use, was a reference to the newly elected Greek government who had recently won the election on the platform of rejecting a debt repayment plan the previous Greek government had accepted.
The newly elected Greek government claimed it's victory showed it was the Greek people democratic choice to reject the agreement the old Greek government had accepted in their name - Junkers in the quote rejects this idea.
Just above that quote in the article you linked to the German minister of finance is quoted as saying the same, only more succinctly:
"Elections change nothing. There are rules"
Now I'm skeptical about a lot the EU does and how it functions and the way EU treated Greece is prime example of that.
But what you did here is to lift a shortened quote out of context and imply that this one quote from Junkers speaks to what "the leaders of the EU project" think in general and that is patently false.
No one is generally claiming that "there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties" like you portrayed it - and as I've already said this is clearly demonstrated by the ongoing British Brexit.
Not one bureaucrat or elected politician in the EU has ever claimed that Britain doesn't have the democratic choice to leave the EU if it so wishes - all people have rightly pointed out is that it's a terrible idea for Britain to do so financially.
Not that that has stopped any number of British Brexiters and the British tabloids from claiming any number of misleading and/or clearly false things about these matters, of course.
But the facts are that unless Britain herself chooses to change her mind again (and the EU accepts her rescinding her decision to leave) she will be leaving the EU the 29 of march 2019 - exactly two years after British PM Theresa May triggered article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty that governs how exiting from the EU is handled.
So clearly the shortened quote you tried to use misleadingly do not in any way prove what you pretended it does.
Regarding what some UN official said he thought the EU should do and Justin Trudeau said about Canada I'm not even going to waste time commenting on that as neither of those can in any way prove your claim that:
"The goal of federalists in Europe is to destroy the nation-State, viewed as the cause of war."
0
@simval
"You didn't show anything of that kind. I'm telling you what nationalism is because as a nationalist, I know better than you what I think. If you refuse to listen, you're choosing convenient ignorance over knowledge."
You're only reinforcing my argument by showing you can't differentiate between what you think and what is factually true.
Yes - you know better what YOU think nationalism is - but that's not relevant to what nationalism ACTUALLY is.
The word has an actual definition - like all words do - and it's the job of dictionaries and academics to give that.
You can speak for yourself, but you can't claim that your opinion trumps the academic community.
That is precisely "choosing convenient ignorance over knowledge" which you accuse me of in your classical example of projection.
You're also completely inconsistent as you go from claiming authority to redefine the definition of the word nationalism based on you being one, to trying to tell me - a Swede - about Sweden.
If your first argument had any bearing at all, surely you would have to accept what I as a Swede tell you about my own country? But oh no - you're not just an expert in nationalism because you are one - you're also an expert on Sweden...because you're Canadian?
How does the mind work that jumps freely from one rationale to a completely opposite one in consecutive sentences? It's not operating on logic, to be sure.
Some of what you write about immigration has merit, most of it has not.
Yes, technology today of course gives people the opportunity to communicate more easily along huge distances - but this haven't been shown to make any practical difference in immigrants assimilation.
Because Sweden has in fact had this very generous immigration policy for many decades now, and we've already seen this play out with an earlier group of immigrants.
Funnily enough a group of immigrants precisely from the Balkans, as you use that talk about "Balkanization" - this popular scaremongering the far-right uses.
The largest flow of immigrants Sweden had ever accepted in modern times (apart from some instances during the second world war) until the large influx that came in 2014-15, was the huge number of immigrants that came during the Balkan wars in the 1990's.
Our neo-fascist party of course told horror stories about these violent Balkans who would surely destroy Sweden, bringing their conflicts with them and yes - this would of course lead to a "balkanization" in Sweden as well.
Well now, two decades later, the results are in and nothing of the sort happened.
Immigrants and second generation immigrants from the Balkans today have the same educational level as the rest of the Swedish population and even slightly higher numbers of employment.
They integrated just fine into Swedish society and as a result our neo-fascist no longer talks about that group at all of course, but have instead turned their hate toward other groups.
So no, your guessing has already been proven wrong by empirical evidence.
Also, on a more general point you obviously don't know Swedish history.
We've almost ALWAYS been a huge immigrant nation. Our fertility wasn't anywhere near enough to grow our population historically when you take high child mortality and constant wars into account.
We've seen mass immigration of all kinds of people throughout our entire history.
German was just as commonly spoken in Stockholm as Swedish during the middle ages (to this day a large part of the Swedish language is very influenced by the north German dialects) and the city council of Stockholm even had special rules in place ensuring that Germans and Swedes got equal representation on the council.
Later on the crown took in any number of foreign noblemen as officers in the army, as well as all manner of skilled workers the country needed.
These groups where given special permissions to continue their customs - and most importantly those that where Catholic where given permission to remain Catholic and keep Catholic services for them and their children in perpetuity. This in a country where Catholicism was otherwise completely outlawed.
But within a generation or two these people basically all converted and inter-married with the native Protestant population, and assimilated Swedish customs and culture.
Not because they where forced too, but because they where welcomed into the Swedish society with open arms.
Because as I wrote previously, successful assimilation is dependent on one very important point:
"As long as the majority culture is open to the newcommers"
If the majority culture is not open to the newcomers but shut then out from ever joining the majority - THAT'S when you get resentment and conflict.
Which is why it's really telling that you name France and Japan as good examples, when they in fact both are terrible examples!
France is a terribly racist nation that's treated it's foreign subjects and later immigrants from those countries like crap. That's the reason they have huge parts of the population with immigrant roots many generations later still living in suburb hellholes that breeds conflict.
Because this segregation is not at all as "voluntary" as you claim. First generation immigrant initially tend to cluster together for comfort in a new and unknown country - that's true.
But very soon people start wanting to move out into the no longer strange country they live in. If not for themselves so definitely for their children, whom they of course wish to see succeed in this new land.
But when they and even more so their children can't break out of these suburbs, when they are held back by poverty and/or racism, denied the possibly to live anywhere else and blend into the majority society, many of them naturally grow resentful as they are treated as second class citizens.
That's the reason France now live under a state of emergency and have the military patrolling their streets after having suffered the largest amount of deadly terror attacks in all of Europe in recent times.
Neither Sweden nor Germany, which have both taken in far more immigrants per capita then France has, has any where near those problems.
Because in Sweden and Germany society doesn't shut the immigrants out but is open to them.
Now that's not to say there aren't racists in either Sweden or Germany - of course there are.
But those societies don't differentiate between citizens based on their birthplace or heritage.
Immigrants in those countries know that when they meet prejudice and racism it's not tacitly sanctioned by the society they live in, but seen as a problem and taken seriously.
Just as there will always be racists in the majority population there will of course also be criminals and trouble makers in the immigrant population. But then we respond to those individuals, we don't scapegoat entire subsets of the population by claiming that "immigrants" in general are responsible for the acts of individuals - because they aren't, of course.
Regarding Japan it's a nation on the way to annihilating itself.
Their birthrate is so low and their average age so high there won't even be a Japan left in a few hundred years if they continue like this.
They're of course even more racist then the French - and even towards white westerners, who aren't used to having to face racism themselves.
Japan is in desperate need of immigration, but racist, nationalist policies are slowly killing them.
So great example you picked there...
An naming the Okinawans, the Emishi and the Ainu peoples of current day Japan as examples of a successful assimilation policy is simply despicable!
These peoples where brutally subjugated by the Japanese and often reduced to mere slaves. They where refused all rights to their cultural heritage and forbidden to speak their own languages and practice their culture.
Since Japan has now controlled these territories for hundreds of years they've almost completely stamped out all traces of these original cultures - and it's VERY telling that this to you is a sign of success!
Even the current day Japan (racist as it still is) has had to publicly apologize for it's brutal mistreatment of these indigenous people - but you still rate this as a success!?
This is in fact precisely the historical record of nationalism. That name wasn't invented when the Japanese started their mistreatment of these people but from the late 1800's and on this was done in the name of Japanese nationalism.
And it's in no way an exception - this forced subjugation of other peoples and cultures are instead a natural consequence of nationalism.
This - the historical records of centuries of mistreatment and abuse - is what nationalism has brought the world, and it bears no resemblance to your fantasy version of happy nation states respecting one another.
And comparing the Austro-Hungarian empire to the German is historical ignorance.
The Germans did comprise one people splintered in many different tiny states - the Austro-Hungarians comprised many different peoples subjugated under the rule of a tiny clique of Austrians initially.
They then had to give more autonomy to the Hungarians, renaming the empire from the Austrian to the Austro-Hungarian empire, but by still trying to subjugate all other different peoples without giving them a way to thrive within the country it was of course doomed to fail sooner or later.
If the Austrians on the other hand had been open to share power between the peoples of their realm, affording them equal rights, they might have been able to form a new amalgamated nation from the different peoples they ruled - just like the US.
But they stuck to nationalist Austrian policies and then it all predictably failed of course.
"I like when people tell me to put up sources, it's a tacit agreement that the comments I denounce would be unacceptable if true. Then I show they are true, and I can watch them spin, spin, spin to try to justify them away."
Actually, if you had been content with just claiming that these individuals had made these comments then that could have been true.
But you couldn't help but to overreach and claim that "the leaders of the EU project" said something and "the goal of federalists in Europe is" and then all you could produce was the words of three individuals - two of which aren't even EU representatives at all.
So you're left with two quotes from one individual person - that's your basis for claiming that you know what "the leaders of the EU project" think and what "the goal of federalists in Europe is".
One person, two quotes.
But let's look closer and see in what context these quotes where actually said.
The first quote:
"Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians"
Junkers said this in august 2016 in the context of defending solidarity with refugees and their children, according to the article you linked to.
This was immediately contradicted by British PM Theresa May and the article goes on to point out that both Germany and France (and Sweden and other smaller EU members I might add) had taken directly opposite action by enforcing border controls.
The article then goes on to cite the VP at some think-tank:
"He added that the contrast between Juncker's opinions and political leaders' moves to tighten borders demonstrated that power in Europe lay with national politicians rather than EU bureaucrats."
Which is the truth you EU-haters never actually understands (or just ignores?) - the bureaucrats don't decide shit.
Junkers can say what ever he wants - it's still not up to him to set policy.
He works FOR the EU - he doesn't decide EU policy.
So far from that quote showing what "the leaders of the EU project" think, it shows what one of the EU's employees think.
Granted it's the highest employee - but he's still just an employee.
So, on to the next quote then:
"there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties"
Here you cut the actual quote short as the link you posted shows it actually, in it's entirety, reads:
"there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties. One cannot exit the euro without leaving the EU"
Now this was said by Junkers in January 2015 in talking about the Greek debt crisis - that's why the end of the quote talks about exiting the Euro. That Greece was ever allowed to join the common currency the Euro was the reason for the entire debt crisis and there where discussions at the time that letting Greece leave the common currency might be the best option for solving the crisis.
Junkers clearly didn't want that to happen and said that last part as a threat. Greece certainly doesn't want to leave the EU, so claiming an Euro exit must also mean an EU exit was a way to try to put pressure on the Greeks to remain in the Euro.
Now once again Junkers doesn't decide anything and what he said there is blatantly false any way. Several EU members (including Sweden) didn't even join the common currency, so of course Greece could remain in the EU even if it left the Euro. So this is just an empty threat - and a clumsy one at that.
The first part of the quote, the one you elected to use, was a reference to the newly elected Greek government who had recently won the election on the platform of rejecting a debt repayment plan the previous Greek government had accepted.
The newly elected Greek government claimed it's victory showed it was the Greek people democratic choice to reject the agreement the old Greek government had accepted in their name - Junkers in the quote rejects this idea.
Just above that quote in the article you linked to the German minister of finance is quoted as saying the same, only more succinctly:
"Elections change nothing. There are rules"
Now I'm skeptical about a lot the EU does and how it functions and the way EU treated Greece is prime example of that.
But what you did here is to lift a shortened quote out of context and imply that this one quote from Junkers speaks to what "the leaders of the EU project" think in general and that is patently false.
No one is generally claiming that "there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties" like you portrayed it - and as I've already said this is clearly demonstrated by the ongoing British Brexit.
Not one bureaucrat or elected politician in the EU has ever claimed that Britain doesn't have the democratic choice to leave the EU if it so wishes - all people have rightly pointed out is that it's a terrible idea for Britain to do so financially.
Not that that has stopped any number of British Brexiters and the British tabloids from claiming any number of misleading and/or clearly false things about these matters, of course.
But the facts are that unless Britain herself chooses to change her mind again (and the EU accepts her rescinding her decision to leave) she will be leaving the EU the 29 of march 2019 - exactly two years after British PM Theresa May triggered article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty that governs how exiting from the EU is handled.
So clearly the shortened quote you tried to use misleadingly do not in any way prove what you pretended it does.
Regarding what some UN official said he thought the EU should do and Justin Trudeau said about Canada I'm not even going to waste time commenting on that as neither of those can in any way prove your claim that:
"The goal of federalists in Europe is to destroy the nation-State, viewed as the cause of war."