John Oliver on Brexit: the EU is the least-worst option, and racists support Leave

[bibliophile20]

Can we just toss all of the Trump voters and UKIP members and others of their ilk onto a nice big space station orbiting the Moon or something?

[anon61221983]

And of course, they wasted all that money paying their labor force for growing, extracting, and preparing the cotton processing (which was done in cotton mills in the north)… oh, wait. No they didn’t. The majority of southern wealth was tied up in human enslavement. Let’s not pretend like it wasn’t.

The people trying to get the UK to leave the EU are really worried about refugees, I think. Economics is a red herring.

[matthjones]

Often it’s more of a nebulous ‘Immigrants’, with no differentiation between refugees or EU economic migrants etc.

[anon61221983]

Sure, but the language they pick obscures the more racist content of their argument. They are specifcially using more respectable language while pandering to xenophobia. It’s no longer “rivers of blood”, but that doesn’t make it any less of a racist tactic. Everyone knows where the immigrants are coming from right now. Just turn on the TV and have a gander at the locations that the US/UK war on terror is unfolding.

[cameronh1403]

how about into the Sun?

[cameronh1403]

@anon61221983

This seems to be your answer for everything lately… as it should be.

See you at the pub/bar for the research!

@Papasan

You Sir, are a genius.

Eventually I’ll just be at ‘pub/bar, research’ since everyone will know what I mean.

[bibliophile20]

Nah, I want to be a better person than they are, and part of that is that whole “sanctity of life” thing that they only hold for their own in-group. So, while tempting, it’s just as xenophobic as their own wishes. I’d rather give them their greatest wish–a world without any of those uppity minorities, all to themselves, free to make their own path…

I’d give it two months before they all kill each other over internal tensions.

[anon15383236]

@ocschwar

I hope you’re right. But I would not bet on it.

“Rumor has it…”

“Some people are saying…”

[ocschwar]

“Rumor has it…”

No rumor. The EU has imposed, and will impose, policies on member nations, with no democratic recourse. “We still have the pound, so it won’t happen to us” is a pretty weak way to address that concern.

[KarlS]

Sure, it is both, but I think you are seriously underestimating anti-Eastern-European prejudice. If you think that their hostility towarsd Romanian and Bulgarian EU citizens is any less real than that towards Syrians or Afghans, then you are wrong. And those are the cases where the EU is actually relevant.

[anon15383236]

@Mister44

I recall on a bus trip to Stonehenge and the surrounding area that the bus driver was telling us (why, I am not sure, no one asked) that if he went over on his allotted driving hours, he would have to pull over to the side of the road and wait for a relief driver.

It might’ve been a private bus company, not one run by the supposed “nanny state.” People I know there complain constantly about how shitty public transport has gotten (and more expensive), now that so much of it is privatized.

[cameronh1403]

In that case, we should put cameras all over the station and do PPV for the masses to watch what happens.

[Phrenological]

That’s what I guess. Obviously the rugged individualists in the states would NEVER take steps to separate a part time employee from fulltime labor through restricting hours!

[KarlS]

@Mister44

I find it HILARIOUS they are complaining about regulations. The UK is such a huge nanny state on it’s own. I recall on a bus trip to Stonehenge and the surrounding area that the bus driver was telling us (why, I am not sure, no one asked) that if he went over on his allotted driving hours, he would have to pull over to the side of the road and wait for a relief driver.

While I agree with the broader point that the UK is no less inclined towards regulation than the rest of Europe, that’s actually an EU-wide rule. Bus and truck drivers cause significantly more accidents when have been driving for many hours without rest. Those are notoriously exploitative jobs where the drivers are/were under immense pressure to drive to the point of exhaustion. Slightly simplified the limit is 4:30h without a proper break and 9h per day.

[anon15383236]

Oh you and your nanny-state common sense! Don’t you know that bus drivers are rugged manly men who can stay awake for several days at a time? Sure, they cause more accidents and kill more people that way, but at least the company owners make more money! And those real men get to remain real men, toughing it out on the open road and all.

[anon50609448]

@anon15383236

Sure, they cause more accidents and kill more people that way, but at least the company owners make more money!

But what about when they don’t even make more money and the entire system seems to be a machine that produces anguish in the service of nothing?

[anon15383236]

Even in that case, it’s all still worth it to be free of the coddling clutches of the nannies!

[Missy_Pants]

Having just been in the UK… we found the tube system delightful and easy to use and fast and clean and frankly lovely.
However… at 4pounds 90pence each, one way… and the Canadian dollar at roughly half a pound it was fucking expensive as fuck!

Still lovely tho.

[GilbertWham]

There’s a perfectly good on-fire gas field going spare in Russia, is there not? Save a bundle on rockets, that. I’m sure they’d let us borrow it for a consideration.

[enso]

@ocschwar

Frankly I’d be more worried about the latter. It’s hard to avoid finding political views in common with contemptible racists, because you’ll find them on both sides on any issue that doesn’t involve depriving Other People of their dignity.

You think Scotland, Wales, or North Ireland are going to remain with England if England forces this on them? I doubt it.