UK Trident vote today

[C0ckney]

that would just lead to mutant jihadis.

[Dauphin]

If they were also teenage ninjas, it would be an awesome TV show.

[The Mad Monk]

Most of them are teens, I expect, so that just leaves the one requirement...

[Elok]

Well, they're good at sneaking and assassinations; do they have to be trained in a Japanese style for it to count?

[Aeson]

They wear black and cover their faces.

[dannubis]

They have long beards as well...

[notyoueither]

so you would use nuclear weapons if putin invaded estonia? yeah, that's madness. and making sure that people with your views can never use nuclear weapons is a good reason not to have them.

also, you and others keep asserting your last statement, but that doesn't make it true. i suppose in a way it's unrebuttable, rather like someone saying that god exists and that everything we see around is his creation; but i doubt you or i would take such an argument seriously...

That's funny, because my views ('we' will use nukes to defend NATO and each and every member) has been policy since about 1950. It's that certainty that helped keep the peace in Europe since 1945, such as it has been.

It's your weak willed, pacifistic sort that is sort of new. The roll over and play dead brigade. Those views are a real threat to peace since such craven opinion and policy would only encourage adventures by Boris and his ilk.

Finally, good will and brotherly love did not keep the US and the Soviets from annihilating each other and the rest of us. MAD worked, or so goes the consensus. If the loons on the left want to revisit that and revise history you'll have a rather large hill to climb. You should get to it rather than muttering that it's hard to prove that black is white and night is day.

[C0ckney]

it is certainly not western policy to use nuclear weapons should the baltic states be attacked. that is why conventional forces exist.

and while i think that boris johnson will not make a great foreign secretary, i doubt that he is going to go on many 'adventures', never mind start world war three. or perhaps that's not what you mean. it can be quite hard to understand your posts due to all the blather; but then you clearly don't understand mine, so i suppose fair's fair.

[Bereta_Eder]

It is also a bit strange to use false pararels.
(US & others against USSR and others) and today's world

as laz said communism the way it was applied went out of fashion when the chechs started demanding bluejeans (well I'm paraphrasing a bit)

[Bereta_Eder]

That's funny, because my views ('we' will use nukes to defend NATO and each and every member) has been policy since about 1950. It's that certainty that helped keep the peace in Europe since 1945, such as it has been.

If you mean that's what has kept europe in a cast then I'd agree.

[Bereta_Eder]

I was watching a documentary about an american documentary about the '50s about Greece.
It's great to have a (slightly deranged) quasi socialist government that for all its aesthetic and ideological hang ups does the job.
This way not only you have public TV but you also get interesting stuff to watch on it.

The documentary was portrarying a "small but brave country" (that's us) almost in the claws of vile communism and some loyal fierce proud warriors (the king, governmental forces) which were defending freedom.

The reality was very different (which I think was the point of the public TV displaying this)

persecutions, social exclusion, repression, autocracy, regression.

Well finally the LEFT I mean the real left, the children of that time has won power. With the whole bunch of responsibility that comes with it. (I mean we already had won it before, because we are a democracy)

It is a bit demystifying. For the first time I can come to disagreement with myself.

[Giancarlo]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-26/rajoy-s-pp-set-for-election-gains-as-spaniards-vote-after-brexit

I despise Rajoy and prefer the PSOE, but this is the second test for those who claim populist antiestablishment politics is sweeping Europe. Failed. Spanish voters went back to the two major establishment parties (despite the PSOE losing a few seats - not much).

I think voters are getting spooked by the irrational populist parties. I don't think this is only Spain. People looked at Brexit and are saying "well that's just stupid!".

[Bereta_Eder]

People looked at Brexit and are saying "well that's just stupid!".

I agree with that. Everyone is saying this here too (left and right).
I won't preclude the outcome (because i'm not god to know everything).
Reality will tell

[Bereta_Eder]

However, nye, sounded the cold war alarm and that's just stupid apart from vexing.

is russia really the danger now?
or some islamists blowing up things (actually that's a greater danger for france and belgium)

or is the matter at hand the globalization and the accumulation of wealth, the systematic abolishion of social provisions and how the political power can reclaim its role without enchroching too much on financial freedom?

[Bereta_Eder]

But you know what gian?

Sure, podemos didn't get in power but they indeed managed to paralyze the political status quo and lead spain into concurrent elections and paralysis (correct me if I'm wrong)

And from that first ripple in the sea (the whole grexit year) the UK got the hell out.

I'n not saying the UK is some sort of angels and the EU is hell (nor the opposite) but "dissidence" is growing. Even in the US with trump which I know you don't like.