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Comment by saubeidl | Hacker News Reader

Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?

What you're asking for is effectively to become a client state of one of the above.

I notice you didn't address the elephant in the room regarding the National Rally, i.e. its founders being actual Nazis. (like, the Hitler kind, not just random right wing extremists).

Changing their name does not make this any less true - hell, one of their founders was talking about putting a Jewish singer in the oven (!!!) only a few years ago.

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> What you're asking for is effectively to become a client state of one of the above.

You optimist! It seems more like one has to be a client state for all of the above simultaneously and be punished whenever contradicting orders are handed down.

>Do you think Lithuania can in any way negotiate on anything approaching equal terms with any of those?

Do you think Lithuania, or other such small countries like Serbia, Albania, Bosnia, Georgia, etc, can negotiate on equal terms with the EU?

I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.

Lithuania doesn't need to negotiate with the EU, they are the EU.

The others can't, of course. That's the point! We become one of the predators instead of staying prey like them.

> I got news for you, when you're small country bordering large empires, you're gonna get absorbed into one or the other, whether you want to or not, because you don't really have a choice.

Exactly! That's why we need to build our own empire based on our own rules instead of letting foreign dictators gobble us up.

>Lithuania doesn't need to negotiate with the EU, they are the EU.

Unless the EU gangs up on you and takes away your veto ability "in case of emergency", in which case you have to shut up and take it.

>The others can't, of course. That's the point! We become one of the predators instead of staying prey like them.

Do you not see the irony here?

The EU is us, not national governments. National governments are a relic of old tribal days, we are all Europeans.

I do not feel represented by my national government at all, all they do is get in the way. If we can finally get rid of those impediments, we will be able to project so much more power.

Among the populations of all regions of the EU, only the city of Budapest identifies more with Europe than with their country or region. Even that might be just a protest against Orbán.

>National governments are a relic of old tribal days, we are all Europeans.

Says who?

Tribalism along with own group preference, is one of the core human instincts, in line with the search for food, shelter and the reproductive instinct. You are free to ignore this instinct because you feel more academically enlightened or something, but you will be in for a rude awakening when you'll find yourself in the minority and eliminated from the gene pool by those who let themselves driven by basic instinct and will vote and reproduce accordingly.

>If we can finally get rid of those impediments, we will be able to project so much more power.

Yes, if we can get rid of local democratic governments with direct accountability and replace them with an unaccountable EU dictatorship, we'll have so much power projection.

> Yes, if we can get rid of local democratic governments with direct accountability and replace them with an unaccountable EU dictatorship, we'll have so much power projection.

I'm glad we agree! I think a Titoist approach would work best, though I also like some elements of Xi Jinping thought - namely the technocratism. What would your preferred model be?

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