Time to leave the EU ?

[Richard]

Yes yes yes

the theory was that it was creating a large European free trade area .. you can argue about that forever I guess .. but i seem to recall British Beef being banned from France for 2 1/2 year , hardly free trade and indeed it was ruled unlawful ... but nothing was done

however the EU has gone beyond free trade in my eyes , it also makes laws which are imposed on the UK which can not be altered by parliament, it takes billions of pounds each year from tax payers and redistributes it to continental Europe and at no time have we been asked whether we wanted such a superstate

Arguably if the money we give to the EU had been spent on public services in this countrythere is no question that we would be better off.

Which is why I would look at those rules and treaties again and get to the original principles rather than leave it

[YLN]

Yes yes yes

the theory was that it was creating a large European free trade area .. you can argue about that forever I guess .. but i seem to recall British Beef being banned from France for 2 1/2 year , hardly free trade and indeed it was ruled unlawful ... but nothing was done

however the EU has gone beyond free trade in my eyes , it also makes laws which are imposed on the UK which can not be altered by parliament, it takes billions of pounds each year from tax payers and redistributes it to continental Europe and at no time have we been asked whether we wanted such a superstate

Arguably if the money we give to the EU had been spent on public services in this countrythere is no question that we would be better off.

Which is why I would look at those rules and treaties again and get to the original principles rather than leave it

Getting back to those original principles again would involve cutting off our gangrene leg, which is healing slowly. Getting rid of the processes which are in their infancy would grant us some relief, but it would mean we had wasted billions. Imagine the plummeting credibility of the EU institutions then.

'Sorry Cyprus. That's all very nice, unfortunately we've had a change of heart and really us big boys only want to trade with each other from now on. Come back to us in 20 years.'

[villa89]

100% agree. Too many reasons to list.

but what i think the European Union needs to do, is to do less, but do it better.

Cut payments right down by member states, cut red-tape, cut regulations, cut amount of people working for the EU, cut down their ambitions, cut down new member states.

Focus on overall unity, the big picture, and not get involved in every stupid little aspect of national life.

+ 1. The EU has lost its focus and become one big bureaucratic mess.

Edit: This was my 2000th post. I wish I posted something better now.

[villal]

There are people suggesting that a "global" union is a good thing, thats one step away from a one world government - erm no thanks

screw the EU

[Bazdavies79]

We should leave the EU.

[World_Domination]

EU to govern Internet of the future

Published: Wednesday 8 October 2008

The European Commission is aiming to boost the transition to the Internet of the future while at the same time preserving individual rights, seeking a greater role for itself in the governance of the Web,

Q. In many cases, the Commission is underlining privacy risks. Do you think this could hamper the roll-out of RFID?

A. I think there is an economic advantage and a social advantage to RFID. But we have to explain to people what tags mean, and we have to leave them to choose whether they want to activate them or not. It is about European values. The value of privacy is very strong in Europe and we are going to preserve it.

link to EurActiv.com

Human implantation

The Food and Drug Administration in the US has approved the use of RFID chips in humans.Some business establishments have also started to chip customers, such as the Baja Beach nightclub in Barcelona. This has provoked concerns into privacy of individuals as they can potentially be tracked wherever they go by an identifier unique to them. There are concerns this could lead to abuse by an authoritarian government or lead to removal of freedoms.

On July 22, 2006, Reuters reported that two hackers, Newitz and Westhues, at a conference in New York City showed that they could clone the RFID signal from a human implanted RFID chip, showing that the chip is not hack-proof as was previously believed.

This isnt why I started the thread I only read this today but I'm thinking chipping people, goods and services is a bad idea, but chipping them with outdated leftover technology is designed to fail.

Do people really want to pay for this ?

[tonyh29]

such as the Baja Beach nightclub in Barcelona

Baja beach has done that for years .. i went there about 4 years ago for a Stag do and they did it then .. you could pre-register your credit card with them and then when you bought a drink they just zapped you with a bar code reader ..the chip was in your shirt rather than inserted into you .. nothing sinister about it , certainly back then anyway

[World_Domination]

I install prepay systems for a living, I even mentioned at a villa supports meeting the use of our smart card season tickets to cut ques, but I am not a goverment and this is not about cutting ques. It will create a faceless way of distributing benifits, collecting taxes and monitoring activity. Together with using a chip that has already been hacked makes me think the EU is not for the freedoms, fairness and benifit of its members at all.