News / Tusk turning his back to idea about Intermarium (New Commonwealth), seeing only EU as future for Poland [124]


Why not, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia Bosnia and Montenegro would all fit right in. Serbia is not at all strategic to anything Poland wants to do and the idea that it is, is just kind of silly.

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


How's that worked out for Greece? Europe has many different kinds of economies and uniting them without massive financial interventions (in the form of transfers) is impossible.

And.... it's very undemocratic. Do you seriously think you could get that vision passed in elections? You couldn't manage to win a referendum that should have been a slam dunk. Different peoples and nationalities like being different and will resist nudges from on high to become Euro-cogs.

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


or encourage them (crackdowns mean price increeeeeaaaases).


it's almost as if unregulated free trade across borders weren't an absolute good to be pursued no matter what....

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


Pretty much.


Government double think.

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


Milk those tax cows! Yaaaahhoooooooo!

You can't have it both ways. If the number of smokers (as in people wanting to smoke) is decreasing then there wouldn't be a big market for free trade cigarettes.

The revenue from jacked up prices can't be that important because the government itself is, in theory, trying to destroy that revenue stream entirely.

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


You are almost touchingly naive.

you should read this blog //velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/ lots of interesting info on governments fudging data on smoking figures (and unintended consequences of ineffective tobacco control policies)

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]


but you keep giving evidence to the contrary.

If tobacco taxes are levelled across the EU then one of the two scenarios will play out

- the prices will be aimed at Western Eruope and make tobacco products very, very expensive in places like Poland creating a very big market for smugglers (the original proponents of free movement of goods!).

- the prices will be aimed at Eastern Europe dramatically dropping the price of tobacco products in the west which probably means more smokers


Why makes you think the UK government wants to reduce the number of smokers? Tobacco taxes are a very high source of revenue. That's why governments have actually attacked electronic cigarettes (possibly the most effective in stopping people smoking as it still gives them the oral stimulation that gums and patches and abstention don't).

UK, Ireland / Polish lorry driver arrested for smuggling 9 million cigarettes [64]

Wow... it's almost as if border controls were a good idea..... I'm surprised to see you make the case, but well done!

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


This. Poland is not a place where people feel compelled to follow rules that don't benefit them and that applies to politicians as well. the Polish way is to simply stop playing along and let the other side deal with it.

It's largely how the country broke out of the Soviet sphere (or at least how it was ready and able to take care of a possibly short window of opportunity).


And how are they going to deal with Adrian? (nickname of Duda)


Poles don't do totalitarianism (toooooo much effort!), it would be weakly authoritarian. The Media 'reform' and reactions to it will be very telling.

Language / Slang term for "pants" in Polish? Gacie. [32]


This is a UK / US difference (not sure where Ireland comes in)

UK pants = majtki / figi damskie = US panties

US pants = spodnie = UK trousers

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]


huh? Do you mean auto-da-fé (part of the inquisition) or intifada (part of Palestinian resistance against Israel)?

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


That's the problem, Poland has enough on its plate without jumping into risky unknown territory


This. If France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands etc have failed to deal with this, what is Poland supposed to do? Just happily join the club?

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]

Because we never get real, convincing answers, just pre-cooked boilerplate. If you actually had convincing arguments you'd use them. You don't so you just dismiss claims and hand wave real concerns away and ignore the worst results of your preferred policies.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]

If the EU ca


Honestly, how are you different from Polonius? You just want people to endlessly repeat the results of one contextless poll without noticing any other issues?

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


And how did they get that way?

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


The question is which will be more important when push comes to shove.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


Yes, but that's movement within the EU I'm talking about movement from outside the EU into EU member states and a lot of it is pretty unnecessary. What have Moroccans done for Spain lately beyond kill people for their religion?

People of north african origin have been heavily overrepresented in recent terror attacks - there's no reason for most of them being in Europe.

What I'm saying is that a single poll that finds 88 % saying they're in favor of the EU is essentially meaningless and could change if the EU keeps pursuing policies that are not in Polish (or EU) interests.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]

Exacly, there are plenty enough native nutters. There's no need to activley import more.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


EU policy could decide that parts of the world with greater than average levels of violent mental disturbances should not be a prime source of immigration.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


Do the mods even read the threads? The topic of mostly muslim refugees being settled in Poland against the wishes of the majority of the population is crucially tied to support for the EU.

To say anything intelligent aobut that it's necessary to give background information.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


I disagree with that, the muslim world was rapidly secularizing through the 1960s, that only started turning around in the 1970s through a bunch of events that people have mostly forgotten about (like the seizure of the grand mosque in saudi arabia - resolved partly through giving religous nut jobs more legal authority which is where Saudi funding religous crazies abroad started from).

The young nature of Islam isn't about particular beliefs but how rapidly they can change. A religion is like a pendulum that never stops swinging but over time the amplitude of the swing gets smaller and smaller (as in modern judaism and christianity) islam was set in motion more recently and so the swings are bigger between larger extremes.

But that's not Poland's job and nothing Poland could do would produce any better results for a muslim minority than in any other European country which is why Poland should resist efforts by clueless outsiders to create a muslim 'community' here.

Stick to the topic everyone, please

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


What I see (off the top of my head) are South Asian, East Asian and African in that order. A lot are probably working or "studying" in Poland. The South Asians are mostly hindu I think (more Indian at least)


The terror people worry about now is by disaffected muslims (who turn to religious based violence because they're failures and alienated from the societies they're living in). That's a very good reason for Poland to want to avoid growing a large muslim miinority on its own and to resist efforts by clueless outsiders to jump start one.

The one thing that could save the muslim minority in Europe is a massive turn toward secularism, abandoning alienating customs like hijab, not fixating over trivia like halal meat and the sexes mingling, pursuing secular education and keeping their religion at home and the mosque. A don't see that happening, instead the rolling disaster that is muslim dysfunction in Europe will get worse until something drastic happens...

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


There is nothing brave about a bunch of bimbos being manipulated by a guy....

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


I wrote in the third person... Poles and Russians, them and them.

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


Well that's already going on. It is presently impossible to walk around a large Polish city (at least Poznań where I live) for more than 5 or 10 minutes without seeing people who are visibly not Polish but who appear to be living here.

Being okay with that is a very far road away from letting Angela frickin' Merkel determine Polish migration policy and accepting her second hand refugees.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


When Poles control their own affairs, the model is (flawed) democracy. When Russians control their own affairs the model is a big man absolute leader.

The surface changes, the water underneat remains the same.

History / What should Russia and Poland do to become if not friends, then at least not enemies? [945]


Nothing will change. Russia has had the same system for hundreds of years, absolute rule by a big man (whether tsar, party chairman or whatever title Putin has at present), supported by a coterie of ogligarchs, a suffocating bureaucracy and no concern for the masses (who cannot envision any system beyond supporting whatever big man is in power at the moment). There are brief periods of unrest between different big-man-in-charge systems but the overall pattern remains the same....

News / Poles say a big YES to our European Union [996]


Well isn't Poland lucky about that? How long before Poland gets its own 'crazy muslim religous fanatic drives a truck into a crowd' event?

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]


"There's no business like Shoah business" (title of an article about the book IIRC)

History / Can anyone from Poland tell me about Auschwitz and The Ghetto? [625]


No, because your points are all wrong/irrelevant.

The fact is that the holocaust is dying as a thing that people get worked up about. Why should people born 50 years (2 generations) after the end still be concerned? It had a good run, but it's over.

No tragedy concerns people forever. Remember Kampuchea and the Khmer Rouge? Rwanda? That was just over 20 years ago and the world has forgotten.