Brexit :(

  On 12/13/2020 at 5:14 PM, dr lopez said:

why would they do that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

  On 12/13/2020 at 4:30 PM, Richie Sombrero said:

Part of me thinks Britain just running down the clock for biggest disaster capitalist shock.

Oh, I am sure there are people who are going to make a killing on the ensuing chaos.

  On 12/13/2020 at 5:45 PM, rhmilo said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

incredibly dumb book

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8x77/this-corner-of-england-is-ground-zero-for-brexit-chaos-and-it-literally-reeks-of-piss

one can only laugh

  On 12/18/2020 at 7:18 PM, dr lopez said:

one can only laugh

and smell the piss.

The Finland-Russia border, which is also a EU-Russia border, used to sometimes have 50km (30+ miles) long lorry queues before the EU sanctions against Russia. Probably a few miles of lorries is just the beginning..

  On 12/18/2020 at 10:43 PM, chenGOD said:

  On 12/18/2020 at 7:18 PM, dr lopez said:

one can only laugh

and smell the piss.

  On 12/17/2020 at 9:27 AM, toaoaoad said:

Trust me, you don't want to smell that

  On 12/19/2020 at 12:22 AM, prdctvsm said:

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Think I got quoted in the wrong topic here, but lol 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/18/lorry-drivers-heading-to-eu-face-ham-sandwich-ban

  Quote

Lorry drivers will be banned from taking a ham and cheese sandwich or other meat and dairy products from the UK into the EU from 1 January, even if it is just to eat while driving, UK government officials have said.

It feels like people in UK are just beginning to understand what being on the other side of EU border means. Norway and Switzerland have similar prohibitions. There are police check points for salmon smuggling at the Norway/Sweden border and the Swiss are really strict about meat products from what I've heard. And both countries have quite liberal trade deals with EU. The Russia/EU, Belarus/EU, etc borders are of course even more controlled.

  On 12/19/2020 at 9:48 AM, zkom said:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/18/lorry-drivers-heading-to-eu-face-ham-sandwich-ban

It feels like people in UK are just beginning to understand what being on the other side of EU border means. Norway and Switzerland have similar prohibitions. There are police check points for salmon smuggling at the Norway/Sweden border and the Swiss are really strict about meat products from what I've heard. And both countries have quite liberal trade deals with EU. The Russia/EU, Belarus/EU, etc borders are of course even more controlled.

From the article: “If you are carrying prohibited items in your luggage, vehicle or person you will need to use, consume, or dispose of them at or before the border.” 

I’m picturing lorry drivers shoveling ham and cheese sandwiches into their mouths at the border. 
 

This is also the ultimate in pettiness by EU officials. Those ham and cheese sandwiches aren’t going to magically change into death infused poison pills overnight. Like the lorry drivers who enter on the 30th are carrying the same Asda sandwiches as those entering on the 31st. 

Overnight? That's a very optimistic projection for how long it will take for British trucks to enter the EU.

  On 12/19/2020 at 9:48 AM, zkom said:

There are police check points for salmon smuggling at the Norway/Sweden border 

LOL, u high? Look out, it's the salmon police!!!

  On 12/20/2020 at 12:07 AM, psn said:

LOL, u high? Look out, it's the salmon police!!!

I don't know about the south but they have been checking cars on the Narvik-Kiruna route to check that people aren't taking salmon across the border.

Here are the fish quotas when you are leaving Norway: https://www.toll.no/en/goods/fish/quota/

I'm pretty sure some English language newspaper ran a story about this also but I'll be fucked if I can find it now.

Edit: Norway seized 6.5t of smuggled fish in 2018 https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/05/02/norway-seized-over-6-5t-of-smuggled-fish-in-2018/

Here's a Politico article comparing the Sweden-Norway border with the upcoming UK-EU border: https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-ireland-border-customs-norway-sweden/

It mostly talks about smuggling alcohol though.

Yeah, there are general toll places, but they're mostly concerned with alcohol, drugs and human trafficing. Since food and drinks is expensive in Norway you'll sometimes be busted for bringing too much meat or alcohol back home. 

  On 12/19/2020 at 9:48 PM, chenGOD said:

 

This is also the ultimate in pettiness by EU officials. Those ham and cheese sandwiches aren’t going to magically change into death infused poison pills overnight. Like the lorry drivers who enter on the 30th are carrying the same Asda sandwiches as those entering on the 31st. 

Gotta love the spin on this.

UK decides to seal itself off from the places it does half of its trade with. Newspapers: “oh my god truck drivers can’t eat ham sandwiches anymore”.

Its absolutely incomprehensible that this is still going ahead in the midst of a pandemic. I quite literally now fucking hate my own nationality. I haven't seen my extended family (not my parents) for a long time because I might actually accidentally kill them with corona but I know they are staunch tories and I genuinely don't know how to respect people who view tory politics and brexit as sane, intelligent, or moral people any more. I'm losing the plot with humanity. I never assumed aged 15 in high school I could feel such an intense loathing for my own birthplace and nationality.

I think there's a good chance a lot of people were kinda tricked into voting for leave / brexit.

People in general -from anywhere anytime- are/were/will be easily manipulated.
Either by charismatic leaders, sweet lies, and/or empty promises.
It seems to be in our human nature.

I think it may be closely related to groupthink, in which a group of people gain such a strong desire for cohesiveness or conformity that things result in irrational or dysfunctional decision-making, to agree at all costs, minimizing conflict and reaching consensus decisions without critical evaluation. (taken from wikipedia)

But I guess there's also the misguided nostalgic desire for the once-great-and-proud global power, the British Empire.
Yearning for more social connectedness, positive self-regard, existential meaning, greatness, pride, comfort,...

And then there are those with ill-will who understand these weaknesses of human nature, seeing a great profit for themselves, often even nonsensically believing that they themselves do good, but really only in their point of view.

So, thus, I reason/believe:
Everyday-people / citizens, like you and me, are mostly seen by these higher-up grand-manipulators as petty little toys to be played with, to be kneaded, twisted and turned as they see fit, an easy means to their end, for their never-ending desire for personal wealth and power, doing things no matter the cost, unashamedly wickedly gambling with the future and well-being of their country, their fellow citizens, and even the world at large.

In the end we have to rationalize all this, even it doesn't make any logical sense to what happened, is happening, and will happen.
Maybe things have always been this way throughout history... sadly enough.
Can we, as citizens, as humans, as the human species, as the as-of-yet-only-known intelligent life-form in the universe, overcome our shortcomings? Or are they part of what defines us and what has brought us so far?

  On 12/20/2020 at 2:23 PM, MaartenVC said:

But I guess there's also the misguided nostalgic desire for the once-great-and-proud global power, the British Empire.

Which is silly. People are much better off in the modern UK than they were at times when the UK was the world power. The dominance of a country on the world stage is only loosely related to the life standard of the people living there.

I don't get people's emotional attachment to royal families, either. All monarchs should be disowned of their royal property. Turn their castles into museums and use their money to do something useful.

I was just thinking the other day that how much did the fact that countries like Spain and Portugal used to be huge global empires contribute to them becoming later nationalist dictatorships? Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal. Something like a hurt imperial pride that tried to heal itself by going full on into nationalism that relied on nostalgia of former glory.

  On 12/19/2020 at 9:48 PM, chenGOD said:

From the article: “If you are carrying prohibited items in your luggage, vehicle or person you will need to use, consume, or dispose of them at or before the border.” 

I’m picturing lorry drivers shoveling ham and cheese sandwiches into their mouths at the border. 
 

This is also the ultimate in pettiness by EU officials. Those ham and cheese sandwiches aren’t going to magically change into death infused poison pills overnight. Like the lorry drivers who enter on the 30th are carrying the same Asda sandwiches as those entering on the 31st. 

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The reason isn't the pettiness of EU officials. You can't simply import stuff from third countries just like that, it's the outer border of the largest economic area of the planet and protects 27 countries and the standards of procedure that the EU members agreed to have to apply here. Of course there is a procedure for treating goods from third countries and of course these procedures are applied to all third countries, including the UK. The laws wouldn't make sense if you could just arbitrarily make exceptions, it's not how a state of law works. I'm sure with a sensible Brexit deal lorry drivers could take sandwiches across the border. A lot of time had been spent to make such a deal but the British government didn't accept it. The pettiness really isn't on the EU side here

Exactly - "No Deal Brexit" wasn't part of the referendum. On the contrary, the Tories promised THE BEST DEALS EVER. This discrepancy is the heart of the matter when it comes to the cynicism/incompetence of Boris Johnson and his unabashedly anti social/anti human party.