Thread

1. Barrin92 · 1789556684 · focus · HN ↗

   I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave.

   In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength in autocracy and force and it's often why I think the EU receives so much disproportionate hate.

   1. graemep · 1789556911 · focus · HN ↗

      The UK left, Iceland just voted not to join.

      The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.

      1. Barrin92 · 1789582309 · focus · HN ↗

         >The UK left, Iceland just voted not to join.

         I don't know if you even made it to the end of the first sentence I wrote, but the fact that the UK could leave and is treated with respect, the fact that Iceland, a country of four hundred thousand people, which we could but will never threaten either economically or militarily, can decide their own future is a strength of the union.

         We do not coerce our neighbors, no matter how small.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.