MEPs pen letter to the British public asking them to reconsider.

Hey, I just read 'em. I didn't write 'em.

But it is an interesting article, expressing a viewpoint I've not seen here a lot.

But it is an interesting article, expressing a viewpoint I've not seen here a lot.

Really? You've never heard this expressed right here on this forum?

"their decision to be the first country to withdraw from the EU is revealing of a basic inability to grasp their vastly diminished place in the world. That they are a member of the United Nations Security Council means little; that reflects merely the power that the British Empire had in 1945, not the U.K.’s power today'

Because empire is everything. Suez was brutal. Bretton Woods too. It is not easy moving downward in the world at all.

There is no reason to feel bad about it or to think it is being mean to England to say so.  The US will one day be, and probably is well on its way now, on the declining slope. A self-sense of exceptionalism will not change this.

"Not seen here a lot" meaning here in the bigger sense, not here in this tiny little box on the internet. 

The US will one day be, and probably is well on its way now, on the declining slope.

Evidence of this was Trump actually being laughed at when delivering a speech to the UN.  By Diplomats.  Who were on the clock.

Evidence of this was Trump actually being laughed at when delivering a speech to the UN.  By Diplomats.  Who were on the clock.

Yeah, well, there's only so long you can ride the post-war boom. The US didn't get directly touched by the World Wars in the sense that the infrastructure wasn't obliterated. We had endless resources and cheap labor, and a market in the countries that needed our resources and products during the war and that were severely damaged by the war and needed our products thereafter. There's only so long you can exploit all of those, before the saturation point hits or the market dries up.  And then, what's left? A damaged environment, rust belt cities, unsustainable expectations from the citizenry.

I am glad I didn't go into government service. That is what I trained for, in grad school. I was really gung-ho about going into federal service. At about the time I was finishing up, the feds were in one of the popularly-mandated downsizing phases, so I went into a different sphere of work. Looking back over the last 20 years, I think that was probably a good thing, as federal workers are underpaid (as a whole), undervalued, and, now, are having to use soup kitchens to get by.  As always, the fatcats aren't hurting. It's never the fatcats who do, is it.

Good lord we are downers.

And then there's this one -  https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/brexit-theresa-may-will-continue-limp-along-people-u-k-ncna959461

Politically, the U.K. is facing the equivalent of three people locked in a room with a time-bomb. One insists cutting the red wire is the only way to survive. Another screams that it must be blue. And the third is perfectly happy to let the bomb to go off.

Good analogy.

Ten weeks.

And the third is perfectly happy to let the bomb to go off.

Most of them prefer a “managed” bomb. As long as it’s loud enough to make a few foreigners leave, I don’t care if it blows my legs off.  I’ll just pop down to A&E where the lovely Spanish nurses will sew it back on again.

"The Almighty tells me he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're f***ed"

Ah, King Stephen....