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Originally Posted by Damien
It going to happen, all the good points of europe i know has be taken from another source so they must be pro-european and hence worthless 
After all the independent is a pro-european paper so the pro european augment is already down the drain, if only we had the backing of the mail and the sun then we will be right |
The Independent's editor is clearly highy pro-EU, as today's front page is the second time in a week that he has chosen to turn the newspaper into a political pamphlet. The newspaper is, however, clinging to its claim to be 'independent' by the skin of its teeth, by publishing an interesting comment by Bruce Anderson under the headline 'The European Constitution remains an outdated solution to the wrong problem.' It includes a number of interesting thoughts, for example:
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... [when writing their constitution] the Americans were able to be frank about their objectives ... [Valery Giscard d'Estang] was not allowed to be so candid, for fear of frightening off many of the conscript citizens of his covert state. But his remit was indeed state-building. The EU already had a parliament, a civil service, a national anthem and a flag. Now, it is to acquire a President, a Foreign Minister, a diplomatic service and a defence capability. That is statehood.
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Every time we have signed up to a European treaty, we have found ourselves committed to far more than we expected. This would be no exception. Mr Blair's defences would prove thin red lines indeed when enfiladed from all sides by the forces of the EU Court of Justice.
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This document is the last attempt by the French to create a Europe which could be run as a Franco-zone.
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I have absolutely no objection to people acquiring information about Europe from the newspapers, or even considering and adopting opinions similar to any particular newspaper, whether it be broadly pro- or anti-EU. What I do wish we had a little less of is mindless repetition of newspaper opinion pieces without any attempt to process or internalise the information into a personal opinion. It is irritating when people do this, and it is irritating when those same people assume that that is what everybody else does, because the end result is something along the lines of:
1. You are anti-EU.
2. The Sun is also anti-EU.
3. The Sun's position is clearly ridiculous, and wrong.
4. Therefore you are wrong.
This is a logical fallacy, specifically, the 'Straw Man' fallacy (I'm going to make Graham regret he ever linked to this website:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html ) This is what this morning's Inde does in generous measure, by presenting the pro-EU point of view as 'reality' and the anti-EU view as 'myth' and then illustrating the myth by reference to some of the more lurid claims in the weekend's papers.
EDIT
Damien, why did you feel the need to change your most recent post so completely?
