I'm not a Brit, nor a European, so I'm far from an expert. However, one need not be an expert on the specifics to understand the principle that having to obey the edicts of a commission composed of members of which you are only one, the edicts of which you do not have veto power over, is a de facto ceding of sovereignty, to at least a degree.

If you either do not value sovereignty in principle, or you think that nothing bad enough happened yet to justify retaking sovereignty, that would be a good clarification for you to make.

Nice try. More leftist propaganda and spin. "You'd hold them hostage against their will, you fascist!" you say after a completely legitimate referendum was held, after years of campaigning for both sides. Now that the media has gone into full-on, we-never-thought-this-would-actually-happen panic mode, and succeeded in scaring people into thinking that the sky is falling--with the helpful scolding of even the UK's allies, Obama even threatening Britain if they follow through!--now you want another vote! "Now they realized their mistake!" you say. Pathetic. Had the referendum been to stay, and the opposition were calling for another vote, you'd be crying foul as loudly as anyone. Hypocrite.

If the British 60 years ago had that attitude, they'd be speaking German right now.

No, it's nothing to do with imperialism or colonialism or being bigger or badder or more powerful than other nations--it's to do with surviving the threats facing Europe today, and the role of leadership the UK played in WWII and the Cold War. If nothing else, the UK needs to be a voice of reason, an example of sanity, and a bastion of Western society and culture (which, though far from perfect, is what has enabled the progress that has been made in the past few millennia), because Europe and the West is currently under siege from barbarians who would return us to a Stone Age society, as well as under renewed threat from Russia (the president of which has stated that "we are in a new cold war").

This appears to me another example of selective omission, minimizing, dismissal, and strawmanning. For the sake of argument, leave out trade and travel agreements--what about all the other aspects of sovereignty?

What is this? Seriously, what is this? Do you deny that Muslim sex slave rings were operating for years, preying upon young girls? And that UK police covered up these crimes for fear of being accused of racism? And that there are Muslim enclaves within the UK into which the police will not venture? Your response is, "Oh yeah, well, David Cameron called some Fox News guy an idiot"? Are those claims true or false?

Oh, well, as long as foreign-born Muslim jihadists aren't the only ones doing it, then I guess it's not a problem, per se; if jihadists aren't butchering British soldiers on the street, some other bad guys will be butchering some other people, so it's all the same in the end, right? And being able to sell stuff to other countries is equally important as not being invaded by legions of madmen who want to kill everyone because of who you are, right? I mean, yeah, you could keep some of those guys out of the country, and maybe prevent some innocent people from dying in mass killing sprees, but then you might not have exactly the same trade agreements with some other countries in Europe, and that just wouldn't do.

Given your words thus far, I have doubts about your sincerity. But in case you are seriously interested in discussing this, I would be interested to hear your opinion on this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

As an outsider, his points seem simple and sensible, and the facts he cites should be verifiable. I would be interested to hear simple, sensible, and factual rebuttals to his points. If he is correct, it seems like leaving the EU is the sensible choice.

I'm no expert, but according to what I saw, the UK alone could not veto EU rules and laws, but only as a whole with the rest of the EU member states by convincing them to agree. In practice, this had only happened successfully one time in the entire history of the UK's EU membership, and in challenging EU rulings in court, the UK had a success rate of only 30%--all of which, of course, could hardly be considered sovereignty. Can you explain this to me?

I don't understand. In the EU, the UK has to go to the EU and beg and plead for concessions, giving up things to get what it wants.

Out of the EU, the UK can do what it wants, when it wants, without begging for permission to administer its own affairs in the way it best sees fit.

And regarding that "slightly better deal," other people say it was not better, that it actually conceded some of the few advantages the UK still had.

Sheesh, can you imagine the same nation that endured the Battle of Britain wanting to live under the thumb of the rest of Europe? What has become of this once-courageous, once-independent nation that it--some people in it--now cowers in fear at the thought of self-determination?

No, that's exactly the problem: leftists cannot see that folly, blinded by their own hubris to even the most egregious horrors of even recent history. To them, the ends always justify the means, and their ends are always correct.

Typical leftist rhetoric. Your opponents are "objectively wrong," they "hate," an "informed populace" could not make such a decision, and anyone who did must therefore be throwing an "overpowering tantrum of xenophobia," "due to extreme ignorance."

Your faux fairness is transparent. You're the one throwing a tantrum that you didn't get your way. You know that it's always easier to maintain the status quo, and after all the controversy and hand-wringing since the referendum, you know a second one would favor remaining. You'll say anything to try to disqualify and discredit the referendum, from ageism to vague accusations of which your side couldn't possibly also be guilty of, according to you and anyone who's "informed."

Pathetic.

And if you're really a patriotic Brit, have a little faith in your fellow Brits, the same nation that bravely endured the Battle of Britain and defeated the Nazis less than a century ago. How cowardly to think that you're doomed without the rest of Europe telling you what to do. For the good of Europe, Britain needs to return to a position of leadership and strength, and for that it needs real sovereignty. And for the good of its own citizens, it needs to control its borders and immigration--or would you have more foreign Muslims running sex slave enclaves where even your own police will not venture, or more cleaver-wielding maniacs chopping up people in the streets and boasting red-handed to the cameras?

Or maybe you're just a pro-EU troll, mindlessly imitating the shrill cries of leftists everywhere as a member of the collective reached to pull its plug and wake from its slumber.

No, that's not logical at all. It's a transparent attempt at manipulating the feeble-minded, or grade-B trolling. Perhaps your post history would reveal which.

What did you do with your sense of humor?

When the legislative representatives of the People place restrictions on the Executive branch, that's the People restricting the Government. That's really quite simple to understand.

That must have been a weak slashdotting.

Anyway, what's your point? Why the negative talk? What good does it do? Let's either help or just wait and see.

No, but neither would I try to recreate the kernel from scratch, nor would I try to turn the BeOS kernel into Linux. If all the software since 2007 disappeared, and I wanted Linux back, I'd most certainly start with Linux from 2007. Wouldn't you?

It's not about money, it's about time and effort. Volunteer time and effort is costly and shouldn't be wasted.

You don't? Slashcode from 2007 basically does what Slashdot does now--at least, what it did back then, which hasn't fundamentally changed. I was happy with Slashdot in 2007. What does Slashdot do now that it didn't do then?

And why would I want to use a wiki instead? Have you looked at how discussions work on wikis? Ugh!

Neither do I. But wikis are wikis; you just use them, right? Why don't we just start a wiki on some free wiki host and start posting the kind of stories Slashdot posts, and let people edit the page and add comments?

...What's your point? And who is "science," and why do you trust him?

You might be right about all you said. But I still don't see how requiring the government to disclose to the People the information it uses to justify its regulations could possibly be a bad thing, except for people who want to enact unwise, unfair, damaging regulations that benefit special interests. How do you justify secrecy? This isn't a matter of national security.

This is alarmism and panic and Chicken Little at its finest. You've convinced yourself that you understand something as enormous and complex as the earth's climate and ecosystems over an enormous time scale so well that you are certain you know what's going to happen far into the future. Human arrogance doesn't get much bigger than this. The earth is amazingly adaptable and flexible, and so are its ecosystems and inhabitants. No doubt, the weather will be the weather, i.e. always changing. That doesn't mean we're all going to die--I mean, we are all going to die, because that's what humans do, but you know what I mean. :p

Do you hear yourself? "Yeah, yeah, but that's not how it's working this time. This time we're all DOOMED! It's about to SNOWBALL OUT OF CONTROL! It's over folks!" I can't help but wonder what your motives are.

No, it really shouldn't. For one thing, if the climate were to go nuts, we'd all be dead long before that happened. For another, we're far, far more likely to die of a million other things than climate change. For another--and this is probably more important than any other point--the earth and its systems are enormous. The CO2 that humans emit is only a tiny fraction of what the oceans emit. But we--well, some of us--think that we have such an enormous impact on the global climate. We are tiny and pathetic compared to the earth and all of its many parts. You really give humans far too much credit. But the bottom line is that the numbers tell the true story: humans have a miniscule, if any, effect on the climate.

Your logic is simply flawed. It's like saying, "He's been in a slump for 8 games, so he's due for a hit any at-bat now." And it's really just silly that you would compare a catastrophic, unpredictable event like a large asteroid impact to human beings' putting out a small fraction of the total CO2 emitted for the past, what, 150 years? Dude, you yourself said that there's no such thing as a "normal" climate, that it's always changing and something major is always messing it up every once in a while. So what makes you think we can have any impact on it? Obviously, the climate is going to do what it's going to do, and we're basically along for the ride.

More panic based on more speculation, exaggeration, and flawed thinking. Even if the climate did become less hospitable to humanity, it wouldn't suddenly only be able to sustain a few hundred million. The earth and its systems are enormous. They change slowly. And the sun and the oceans totally dwarf everything humans do.

And on top of all that, you seem to think humanity is going to stop advancing, and that we won't be able to make any changes to adapt to a changing climate. Well, you'd better hope you're wrong about that, because if the climate does radically change someday, it won't be sudden, and it won't be within our power to control, so we will have to adapt--just like humanity has been doing for thousands of years.

Chill out, dude. (Haha, I said "chill out" to someone worried about global warming.)

...Are you so dense? The point is that the AC was either lying or lacks critical thinking skills. Either he knows those media sources are extremely biased, or he's so gullible he fell for it. This is simply more of liberal media's smear campaign against conservatives. What's sad is that so many people fall for it.

What's your point?

No, those who restrict the Government are the People. The Government doesn't govern itself; the Government governs the People, and the People authorize the Government.

That is simply illogical. Reducing the government's power is not big government; it's the opposite. That's the whole point.

This is a false dichotomy. Who said the EPA would have to be "constantly running billions of dollars of research to justify ever proposed regulation"? This is about forcing the EPA to disclose its research rather than keeping it secret. You're making up objections based on pure speculation and exaggeration. Try being honest.