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Showing posts from September, 2018

Brexit: It's all about Empire, Federation or Community

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Some of the criticism of the EU from people against it is that it has a central ruling elite who are disconnected from the everyday population. This makes it sound like an empire but is it actually a valid criticism? And what is the gulf that separates the UK and the European Union? Throughout the ages we have had empires from the Chinese, Roman, Ottoman, British and a plethora of others. The point about an empire is that its population is ' culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture '. It is contrasted to a federation, which is a ' union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ' or a community which is a ' social unit that has something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity '. To consider the European Union some form of imperial empire one needs to consider it from a phenomenological point of view. I would argue that the approach i

Multi-dimensional politics

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Brexit has made me think a lot more about politics than I ever have in my life and about how following in the footsteps of the Messiah relates to politics. I think it has made me realise that I had become complacent with the status quo and more than anything that the direction the English speaking world is taking is definitely not the way of Christ. Historically we have used a left <-> right scale that have had Christians scattered across the line. The reason for this scattering is that there are other dimensions and some Christians have desired those other attributes of the related party and then assumed because of that almost everything with the party must implicitly be Christian. The left <-> right labels of  Democrat vs Republican or Labour vs Conservative I find particularly unhelpful. This is even worse when one tries to translate between America and the UK with these terms. When I saw the political compass I thought that was a really useful addition. Especiall