Blackit wrote:

It's pc because it's a project that is idealistic and out of touch with human reality...

Umm, aren't you describing Utopia here? Strangely, I never heard Thomas More described as "PC" before.

Blackit wrote:

...that was designed to serve the self-interests of a liberal progressive metropolitan elite,...

This is mumbo jumbo, isn't it? Still at least you haven't specifically blamed the feminist element of your "liberal progressive metropolitan elite" yet. Besides that, aren't you basically describing capitalism here?

Blackit wrote:

...and that was more or less forced upon the mass of downtrodden people who it chiefly affects, and many of whose lives it has and will destroy.

Yes, that's capitalism alright. Or maybe I and my history books are wrong and no ones' lives were ruined when the Pound and the Dollar went tits-up in 1929.


Blackit wrote:

It's PC because its introduction was based upon quasi-religious liberal notions concerning the maleability of human beings and the belief that the state can force wildly varied collections of people and cultures to be the same and act the same, all from the directions of a bureauocrat's office.

"Quasi-religious"? The Euro? Wow, I never knew that. Oh, sorry, you meant its introduction. Which bit of its "introduction" was "quasi-religious"? Did I miss something? A "quasi-Pope" pressing a button at the "quasi-ecclesiastical mint", setting in train the "quasi-initial print run" of the first batch of Euros?

On the other hand, you may just be kicking the wrong ball here. Let me assure you that the "notions" you describe above are by no means exclusive to "liberal" regimes, metropolitan {and eilte?} or otherwise. This Tory government use exactly the same principles, as did the last Labour administration. And when the last "real" Liberal government left office in 1915 they, too, had "notions concerning the maleability of human beings and the belief that the state can force wildly varied collections of people and cultures to be the same and act the same, all from the directions of a bureauocrat's office". So you're not talking about PC at all. You're talking about politicians and the way they all coerce the electorate. If your wish is to reform the way politicians attempt to influence - or control the masses to effect an outcome of their choosing believe me I'm with you all the way. But you can't make fish of those behind what we might call "the European Project" and foul of absolutely everyone else.

Blackit wrote:

A currency can be politically correct just as a stack of bricks and cement (a wall with the words 'paki' sprayed upon it) can be politically incorrect or racist.

You can't be serious. A wall cannot be politically incorrect or racist any more that a car can be pissed at the time of the accident.

Blackit wrote:

Personally I think calling your opponents names is preferable to machine gunning them, but then I'm not a liberal progressive.

An admirable position, and one which I share really. I just put that bit about machine gunning in for effect. Cheap, wasn't it?

Don Juan wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
Yes LO; you see I reckon the thinking behind the Euro is dead right; the failures have simply been bad politicians in different regions.

We should be in the Euro, helping it. Are the Germans THAT much better than us? These days, they would win the war.

My friend told me about this thread.I can guarantee the English were very sensible to stay out.You will be asking for tickets on the titanic next!

Seems you don't exist...so next time I'm in the fighting cocks bar in L'estartit that will save me buying you a bottle of Cruzcampo with a Zocco chaser.
Obviously the concept of informing one's friends about a website is too great for a certain person to comprehend,especially ones with an interest in learning more about the UK,and its language.
Will be back friday evening,that's if I exist of course

DNG wrote:
Locked Out wrote:
IA leaving Spain wrote:
...and that indeed PC experiments were put in front of sensible economic ideas...

We keep on hearing this charge of the Euro as being some kind of "PC experiment". I see nothing "PC" about it, but it's notable that the sort of people who have been moaning about the Euro from day one are exactly the same sort of people who tend to blame "PC" for just about every ill they care to conceive of. If they are challenged for using words like "Wog" and "Pakki" they start yelling about "PC gone mad". And those whose thinking in any way transcends their utterly narrow view of the world and its workings get labeled "The PC Brigade". I would personally machine gun these people tomorrow, fascist that I sometimes am. They're the same sort of people who found decimalization here "confusing" and "complicated" and "couldn't understand this new money". Time has shown that the world constantly needs new markets and new trading blocs. It doesn't take a genius to work out that the economic superpower that was the USA {before the Lehman Brothers debacle} could only be challenged here in Europe by a similar confederation of States and it made sense that all those States should all speak the same language currency-wise. It still makes sense now.
It seems faintly ridiculous that this late in the game this simple concept should have to be explained to anyone. Yet, very clearly, the same dunderheaded "nation-of-shopkeepers" little Englanders to whom I was referring a moment ago find this concept too revolutionary to cope with. Hardly surprising, then, that this country is stuck, hidebound, in a backward-looking foxhole of its own making, a land in which evocation of a long-lost Empire still seems the only thing to stir the blood of every good Englishman and true, yet fails to deliver anything beyond lacklustre performance. A land which is doomed to remain for the foreseeable future as an economic backwater, clogging up every day, week, month and year with yet more publicly planted and sponsored economic and cultural knotweed. You may have noticed I'm passionate about this. I see nothing wrong with that, and note that there seems very little passion coming from the other side of the argument, just the same tired old "PC" charges, bereft of inspiration or even alternative beyond reverting to what went before {and we all know where that led}. You may think I'm simply knocking this country {and how utterly sick I am of anyone criticizing the status quo being accused of "talking down" the economy}. Not so. I long for the days when we were the workshop of the world. Once upon a time we could - and did - make anything and everything. I'd love it if we could rekindle even half of that old spark. Much is being made this weekend of the Diamond Jubilee, and in another couple of years Elizabeth II will have out-reigned Victoria. Going on what the two Queens presided over in economic terms, Elizabeth should perhaps reflect on the failings of her tenure {for grave they have been} as well as the successes {and there have been far, far too few}. I can be patriotic too, but not for a country which has done so little to earn my respect and so much to encourage my contempt.

And while we're about it, in what was is the Euro "politically correct"? How can a currency be "politically correct"?

You certainly talk some crap! Just because you supported the wrong side you have to get nasty at those who got it right.[/quote]

No doubt you're also a puppet of Doctor Evil

Blackit wrote:
Locked Out wrote:
IA leaving Spain wrote:
...and that indeed PC experiments were put in front of sensible economic ideas...

We keep on hearing this charge of the Euro as being some kind of "PC experiment". I see nothing "PC" about it, but it's notable that the sort of people who have been moaning about the Euro from day one are exactly the same sort of people who tend to blame "PC" for just about every ill they care to conceive of. If they are challenged for using words like "Wog" and "Pakki" they start yelling about "PC gone mad". And those whose thinking in any way transcends their utterly narrow view of the world and its workings get labeled "The PC Brigade". I would personally machine gun these people tomorrow, fascist that I sometimes am.

And while we're about it, in what was is the Euro "politically correct"? How can a currency be "politically correct"?

It's pc because it's a project that is idealistic and out of touch with human reality and that was designed to serve the self-interests of a liberal progressive metropolitan elite, and that was more or less forced upon the mass of downtrodden people who it chiefly affects, and many of whose lives it has and will destroy. It's PC because its introduction was based upon quasi-religious liberal notions concerning the maleability of human beings and the belief that the state can force wildly varied collections of people and cultures to be the same and act the same, all from the directions of a bureauocrat's office.

A currency can be politically correct just as a stack of bricks and cement (a wall with the words 'paki' sprayed upon it) can be politically incorrect or racist.

Personally I think calling your opponents names is preferable to machine gunning them, but then I'm not a liberal progressive.[/quote]

Nicely put

Blackit wrote:

A currency can be politically correct just as a stack of bricks and cement (a wall with the words 'paki' sprayed upon it) can be politically incorrect or racist.

You can't be serious. A wall cannot be politically incorrect or racist any more that a car can be pissed at the time of the accident.

You seem to be confusing the ascription of mental states to inanimate objects with the making of evaluative judgements regarding the pyschological intentions behind human artefacts . Describing a 'car as being pissed' is an example of the former, and describing a wall as 'racist', or a currency as 'pc', or a portrait of a Jewish man with an exaggeratedly big nose as 'anti-semitic', are all examples of the latter.

A person waving a white power symbol can be described as racist, and the white power symbol itself can be described as racist. This does not mean that the white power symbol itself, being an inanimate object, has racist feelings.

When people describe the Euro as 'PC', they are referring to the Euro as a political project - what the Euro represents.

Most people who understand English would just intuitively grasp this, and I assume you're feigning an inability to understand 'for effect'. But please do let me know if you need any more help.

I genuinely apologize, but I didn't have time to read the rest of your reply.

Locked Out wrote:
Perhaps someone should give whoever is working Don Juan a nudge and tell him that failing to leave gaps and the inconistent use of capital letters fails to deliver a convincing impression of the sort of educated, cosmopolitan Spaniard who would naturally refer to a BBC webpage in order to make his point. Can we in future also expect to hear from "Manuel", "Pierre", "Wolgang", "Don Corleone" and "Zorba"? Still, I guess attempts at pretending to be Johnny Foreigner - however limp - make a change from the usual aliases.

Cabron