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The "chief industry: renting parasols" is a fair enough description of post-privatisation-devastation Croatia. No Croatian war criminals will be coming for you for saying that, rest assured, everybody here knows it's so. Rimac has been making some cool cars lately, there's that. But thing is, before the 90s Croats were making a whole lot of things. (not "nostalgia", just observation)

OK, we also make a buttload of guns, although we're about as likely to own one as a Hungarian or Swede is. Tiny us are the fourth biggest supplier of the US, there are way more Croatian guns in the US than there are Croats.

(as for the 90s privatization robberies, ouch no, I won't go back there, there's too many present-day problems as it is)

I wasn't aware we ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2018 until you pointed it out, TBH. The Istanbul Convention sure is a poster boy for "motte and bailey argumentation", but it had not been born as such. It was a motte, originally.

Turkey likes to proclaim itself the bridge between the West and the Middle East, often illustrating it with some scenic picture of the Bosphorus. And in a sense, Turkey *is* that: it is at the same time middle-eastern enough to have "honor killings" and western enough to honestly want to stop them. Whence the Istanbul Convention; its motte is genuine.

But then Europe's doctrinary ghouls had a field day with the woke bailey. Countries must pledge to criminally prosecute catcalling. Article 40. How can you be against that? Means you are obviously in favor of killing women. What do you mean that in Europe beating and killing women befell under criminal law even before 2013? Stop taking apart our motte from our bailey. Yes, we *will* shove our bailey down your throat.

A few countries have called BS on the woke bailey. Politely so, of course, known as "signing but not ratifying." Quite inexplicably *without* seeing the numbers of their female population plummet. On the other hand, it is indicative of Croatia that it ratified the convention in 2018, then started being flooded by legal third-world immigration from 2019, then the newfangled Mozemo! conquering Zagreb in 2021... we are set on our path of ascension to serfs of the Globalist Empire with a speed and expedience that I find astonishing. "Gradually, then suddenly" as Papa had poignantly coined.

P.S. I didn't mean to be obscure with a reference to Guignol. "Punch and Judy" is the Anglo version of that. Anyway, puppets punching each other to the great amusement of the theatregoers. There's no Slavic version of that, that I know of. (if excluding governments)

P.P.S. "EPP vision for a sustainable planet: Cutting the emissions while creating jobs - Resolution adopted at the 2019 EPP Congress in Zagreb, Croatia." I know that your qualification of EPP as a "human centipede" is a bit harsh, but I still can't stop laughing.

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Any thoughts on faktograf.hr?

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Update: the centipede is coming. The EPP is now indistinguishable from the blob.

A delegation from the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education to arrive in Budapest

The delegation will be led by Sabine Verheyen, EPP (European People's Party), German MEP. According to Verheyen, the delegation wants to hear first-hand and from all sides about recent developments in Hungarian education, culture and media policy.

The MEP said the visit was taking place because they had heard about worrying phenomena from Hungarian public educatiors, the arts community and civil society.

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I got my education from 4chan and 5 hour rants of unlisted Youtube skizos, so broadening my intellectual horizon is always welcome, I like to think that I'm humble enough to admit if I need to do some research on haute references.

I guess when you rent out parasols, you have a lot of spare time to read classics.

"motte and bailey argumentation" was new to me. I was late to the Scott Alexander game, I only learned about his blog by the time he was being harassed by the New York Times cca. 2020 and he already took it offline.

It's back, and I guess this is his OP from 2014:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/

Rubes: worth a read.

Regarding your globalist serfdom: what is the closest competitor that Croatian progressives measure their country to? I'd guess Slovenia?

I have two sources on Slovenia:

1. I once visited a high way rest stop, transiting the country. It was fine, not as nice as the MOL ones (soon to be near you)

2. Vagrant Holiday squatted in Laibach in one episode, it looked unremarkable, unwelcoming and redundant.

It doesn't feel that I'm missing out on much if I ignore Slovenia, Italy is right next door, so why stop there? Also, I've been binging on "dalmatinski", which is apparently a musical genre that Youtube has plenty of.

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