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Where Do You Stand on Brexit?


Poe Dameron
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No it's not.

 

In the short run, perhaps. But the EU seems to be an experiment that will not end well for anyone involved. Decades from now, I suspect that the UK will look back in relief that they took the hit now rather than exchange slowing economic benefits for a sense of lack of control.

 

One important question one must ask themselves: If the decision to join were on the table today, would this be a project you'd want your country to be a part of? I think the answer on that is a definitive "No". It is a sense of holding onto sunk costs, fearing the unseen future, and an intensive campaign to normalize an abnormal situation that led "Stay" to do as well as it did.

 

This is a decision that has consequences in the decades to come, positive and negative. But, personally, I would bet my money on my own country over the EU.

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Only the country and by that I mean the United Kingdom is now deeply divided. Scotland want to hold another referendum, and if that happens they will most certainly vote out. Sinn Fein is pushing for a united Ireland (and a united Ireland likely wont want to remain in some "United" Kingdom). Really it feels like the so called United Kingdom is gonna be little old England and Wales on their own.

 

The supposed "short term" is a timeframe of a decade (realistically), before trade deals can begin to be finalised with all our current trading partners. That stat came from an economist I heard on the radio the other morning. Not my arse. I'll be 43 before the economy begins to do well, if the so called ship will right itself. England is still going to want to trade with EU countries, so it looks like we will have to make concessions with the EU anyway if we are gonna want to deal. Probably something along the lines of what Norway has, which economists there admit is a **** deal anyway. Because you gotta pay a massive fee to trade with the EU, and allow people to move through your country and settle (albeit with a little more paperwork), and you get no say on the regulations of how your goods and services are traded. So no real benefit.

 

Regardless, Im not a reactionary-panic-button presser. We're all in the same boat now, and have to just make the best of this situation whatever happens. Better to work this **** out than be divisive and point the finger and scream at people because of differing ideologies. The real shame is that a lot of the people who voted to leave are doing so because they think all the Polish people are gonna be sent back to poland etc.. but that isn't going to happen. So what happens when the EDL and right wing Nazis that voted out realize things are not actually going to change THAT drastically? That the politicians they voted for cant actually kick all the muslims out. (As if that would be possible). Tensions are going to be high for a while, despite the fact we should be working together.

 

No doubt SOME good might come from this, but just when and how no one really knows. I can probably buy lead-white paint soon legally over the counter.

 

But I already know a friend who's small designer business is going to struggle BIG time because the cost on italian leather has gone up considerably. ( I should say thats due to the drop of The Pound).

 

My girlfriend is a senior shoe designer, and her industry is massively concerned. Every contract and trade agreement that the country has with ANY country is now going to be void, because all trade agreements are made through the EU. Everything has to be renegotiated. Its gonna take ****ing ages. And being that I am in training, and was planning on working freelance my entire future is now put into question. I kinda didn't want to have to wait till I was in my 40s before I could reap the benefits of my study.

 

Sorry if this is coming out garbled and is contradictory in parts.. I am typing as I think on the fly. Its all happened rather quickly. And you say we should be optimistic about the future. I think I might rather some certainty and stability. We've only just come out of the depression. There is not that much to be hopeful about. But like good old brits we will just put our heads down, take it from behind and trudge on.

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Scotland want to hold another referendum

 

I rather think Scotland's status was going to be a continuing issue until such time as they left one way or another. I'll grant you this makes Scotland's departure more more imminent, but did you really think they'd still be there 40 years from now? Keeping together an unhappy failing marriage for a few more years doesn't seem like a particularly good reason to keep going.

 

As for trade, wait for self-interest to take hold. I suspect you'll find that the disruption won't be as pronounced as you currently fear.

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There's a petition to trying to get Parliament to hold a second referendum. Any petition with over 10,000 signatures will elicit a response from the government, and petitions with over 100,000 will be considered for a debate.

 

It's currently sitting at 750,000 and climbing.

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Thing of it is is that many people hate immigration. It may be an affirmed belief, or it may just be perception, but either way people do not want their pretty little world tarnished by new cultures.

 

From a political standpoint it gets magnified. Immigrants will always vote for the party that let them in, and the other side knows this.

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At some point politicians really should take note that massive amounts of immigration is bad if, for no other reason, how destabilizing it is. I mean, Kyrian's pointing to his not finding any study that mass immigration is bad, but check out the results. Without a pushback on immigration, his side easily wins the referendum. So, there you go. To Kyrian, immigration has caused what he sees as a mistake big enough that he doesn't want to live on this planet anymore.

 

Hope it was worth it.

 

In the United States, without massive illegal immigration, Trump has no opening. There's less racial strife. Latinos would find it much easier to integrate into the mainstream in the way that the Irish and Italians have.

 

The idea that there is only economic gain from mass immigration is demonstrably untrue. Now, you can blame the pushback on xenophobia or whatever (it's a simplistic point-of-view), but there's absolutely no doubt that it is there, and it's stretching the social fabric of multiple western countries for really no good reason. Nationalist movements are springing up all over Europe and the United States powered by opposition to mass immigration. This is bad.

 

Personally, I'm skeptical of mass immigration. I see it as a scam from elites to get cheap labor and cheap votes. Immigration is tough. It requires displacement of people from their homes, cultures, languages, families. It is scary and sometimes painful to the people already here who must compete with those willing to work for less. And, thanks to the way it's being implemented, it engenders a feeling of helplessness to boot.

 

Immigration done right requires time to build bridges between the home culture and those coming in. It needs to be slow enough to let everyone adjust. Simply opening the spigot and calling anyone who opposes it a bigot, as many elite throughout the western world have done, is not the way to do things.

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The immigration could be circled back to us as our fault. If we had or had not chosen to muck about in their countries then maybe they would not need to immigrate. Pretty sure the Syrian refugees would like to go back to the way it was BEFORE Assad started acting poorly in the interests of his country. Media portrayals about these immigrants mean people are not factually informed but given enough to form really bad opinions about it themselves. I mean people in Texas are freaking out about Syrian refugees and don't even know how hard it is to get to the US as a refugee. The ones that have been admitted have been thoroughly vetted and are just escaping a bad situation but it's "they are all terrorists" boogieman!

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The ones that have been admitted have been thoroughly vetted and are just escaping a bad situation but it's "they are all terrorists" boogieman!

 

There we go. I wasn't even talking about Syrian refugees into the United States since that's far from mass immigration, but your solution has been to go on attack of people's character. Declaring terrorism to be a "boogieman" despite a marked uptick in extremist violence over the past few years. You'll cheer on Congress members who will stop business in their houses to curtail American citizens' expressed Constitutional rights over terrorism, but you won't consider it perhaps a bad idea to bring in people from nations where support for radical Islam isn't all that radical, but fairly mainstream?

 

Let it not stop you from guilting people from saying that perhaps our immigration policy should be based on our self-interest and not a vainglorious morality play where everyone you turn down must be morally justified. And then, as angrier voices raise as you curtail their rights and continue policies that they were not consulted on while they're told that they are losing power and their voices don't matter, as members of the minority groups find themselves boxed in and become more isolated themselves, you'll wonder where these movements come from that bring about dysfunction to the national politics.

 

Looped back around, people are not angels. Not citizens, not immigrants. You need to understand that mass immigration has a process of pain that is predictable to the point where it's a wonder why any country allows it. Look on as elites in several countries follow the same basic policy with the same results in each country, yet each blames those results on the moral failings of their own countrymen.

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Wow, Poe, excellent posts. I'll further add that you can point to immigration contributing to the downfall of various cultures, be it the Romans, Greeks, etc. Once the founding culture becomes overrun by immigrants the culture changes and ultimately dies, and only poverty and despair prevails. Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Is it a coincidence that people have migrated west? Farming began in the Near East and over time has inched its way to America. First it was the Near East, then Anatolia, then the Greeks, then the Romans, then the French, then England, then the US. Why the push west? Immigration. People coming into a culure, exploiting its resources, and then forcing the founding culture to move.

 

We are at a point now where there is nowhere left to move, and there are tons of people who want to come here for a hope of a better life. The problem is that many of them are bitter zealots, and to ignore the threat is just naive. It is not our duty to take in all comers at the expense of our own livelihood.

 

Now some will claim that's a racist attitude. Xenephobia is a term that's tossed around a lot. Much like Homophobia, it's a term used to guilt people into compliance. Both terms were invented to keep people quiet so that the government could better control the people.

 

What we're seeing now in the UK, and what we will see here in the US, is that people are tired of liberal PC bullshit.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Only the country and by that I mean the United Kingdom is now deeply divided. Scotland want to hold another referendum, and if that happens they will most certainly vote out. Sinn Fein is pushing for a united Ireland (and a united Ireland likely wont want to remain in some "United" Kingdom). Really it feels like the so called United Kingdom is gonna be little old England and Wales on their own.

 

I think it would be ironic that after the Brexit is fully implemented (the way I understand it, it will take years to implement), that what you describe comes true: Scotland and Ireland gain independence from the UK. But in order to remain economically viable, both Scotland, and Ireland rejoin the EU. Then later, England comes back in 30 years or so, to the EU.

 

One question I have for you, Odine is if Scotland and Ireland do gain independence from the UK, is there talk of them also leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, as well, or would they stay in? The reason I ask is if they do leave the Commonwealth, they might just have to join the EU.

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Dudes, the Syrian example is just one of many. I could talk about how the war on drugs caused immigration issues too.

 

First, the war on drugs has very little to do with illegal immigration. In the vast majority of cases, they come simply because the money is here. So the very premise is false.

 

Second, even if I were to grant you that you might be right, because I'm sure you can keep picking new tertiary and quaternary reasons for immigration that somehow can be blamed on the United States all day, I'll just put it to rest and say it doesn't matter. Basing potentially destructive and transformative policy on a misplaced sense of guilt is no way to run a country.

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Uhm yes, it does and if you don't understand the war on drugs your are not good at global understanding of how things function. You do know what the major crop was the Taliban grew/grows in Afghanistan?

 

But what do you know besides words you find in the dictionary to pendantically make some esoteric point that realistically just makes me shut down and stop interacting with you?

 

The immigration issue is complicated and made worse by a growing nationalism movement that is gaining traction. The party that wanted to leave the EU even advertised falsehoods like staying in the EU cost £350 million as well as a big billboard with pictures of migrants waiting to get in.

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But what do you know besides words you find in the dictionary to pendantically make some esoteric point

 

Esoteric point? Exactly which part of my posts did you have difficulty following? Because the posts above were written with precision and clarity in mind. The ideas are simple enough and not presented with additional complexity even if my word choice sometimes reaches the grand heights of high school vocab.

 

If it's all the same to you, I don't plan to dumb down my speech.

 

 

 

Uhm yes, it does and if you don't understand the war on drugs your are not good at global understanding of how things function. You do know what the major crop was the Taliban grew/grows in Afghanistan?

 

Last I checked, there isn't exactly an overwhelming rush of Afghan immigrants beating down our door either. I'll repeat that most immigrants are attracted to the United States by economics and stand by both parts of my original statement:

 

1. Your premise is false.

2. Were your premise true, it would not matter in constructing an immigration policy for the needs of the nation.

 

 

 

The immigration issue is complicated and made worse by a growing nationalism movement that is gaining traction.

 

I believe that was my point. The nationalist movements that accompany mass immigration foisted upon the masses by elites are virtually inevitable and damaging all-around. These nationalist movements in turn isolate the immigrant population, and everyone loses.

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You make me sad, Poe. I will just say I don't want my Sunday to devolve into posting a message with more than a few sentences. I am basically a lazy poster. I think you need to think a bit about this globally to understand my point but I can't be bothered to state it in long form. I was just doing what I do which is to throw something out there that randomly passed through my mind. Terrorism was funded on the poppy grown in Afghanistan and like a butterfly that flaps its wings many global economies are affected by this from Mexican Cartels that get it to the US, financing centers and gang wars in Central and South America which cause instability for people who want an honest living. I can think of a couple of South American countries coming apart at the seems - one of which is hosting the Olympics. Then of course there's a lot of displaced people in the middle east through wars waged against and for the Taliban who are victims of a small group that comes to power or has a bit of money to make themselves dominate.

 

About what Chalupa stated, I can see Scotland voting again to leave the UK soon. Not sure yet about Ireland. But this leaving the EU is not going to happen right away. This was just a referendum to consider it.

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At some point politicians really should take note that massive amounts of immigration is bad if, for no other reason, how destabilizing it is. I mean, Kyrian's pointing to his not finding any study that mass immigration is bad, but check out the results. Without a pushback on immigration, his side easily wins the referendum. So, there you go. To Kyrian, immigration has caused what he sees as a mistake big enough that he doesn't want to live on this planet anymore.

 

Hope it was worth it.

 

In the United States, without massive illegal immigration, Trump has no opening. There's less racial strife. Latinos would find it much easier to integrate into the mainstream in the way that the Irish and Italians have.

 

The idea that there is only economic gain from illegal immigration is demonstrably untrue. Now, you can blame the pushback on xenophobia or whatever (it's a simplistic point-of-view), but there's absolutely no doubt that it is there, and it's stretching the social fabric of multiple western countries for really no good reason. Nationalist movements are springing up all over Europe and the United States powered by opposition to mass immigration. This is bad.

Wow, OK, not even sure how to address this. First off, it's demonstrable that immigration has no negative effect on the economy; the only way it's seen as a bad thing is in things where the clash of cultures turns ugly and we see racially motivated assaults, rapes, and a low level of integration. It's these incidences, which are admittedly rare, that shape public perception, and it's that public perception that's driven the result. Future generations will study ours as an example of the destructive power of corporate controlled mass media, and Brexit and Trump will be the biggest events they can turn to.

 

Second of all, illegal immigration is another issue. There's no real way of measuring illegal immigration, and it is a big issue, one that I personally think is handled badly by my own country. Even if we ignore the economic side of things, looking at the impact on communities, there's an argument to be made that things have become something of a vicious circle. Immigrants end up being seen as insular, rude, "coming over here, taking our jobs" etc, but imagine you're the immigrant - the people living in the country you've decided to move to (legally or otherwise), upon finding out that you're an immigrant, become generally quite hostile towards you, so you're naturally going to gravitate towards people of your own culture, or even other immigrants, in order to find some acceptance/piece of mind. To those natives on the fence, this "community within a community" is seen an exclusionary and can push you away from acceptance, and to those already harbouring a hatred of immigrants, it's further proof that they don't want to integrate and should therefore go home, when in fact, they're the cause of the insularity in the first place. If we were more welcoming, less hateful towards them, there wouldn't be a need for immigrants to group together in certain areas and form their own groups to reinforce and defend their interests.

 

Wow, Poe, excellent posts. I'll further add that you can point to immigration contributing to the downfall of various cultures, be it the Romans, Greeks, etc. Once the founding culture becomes overrun by immigrants the culture changes and ultimately dies, and only poverty and despair prevails. Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Is it a coincidence that people have migrated west? Farming began in the Near East and over time has inched its way to America. First it was the Near East, then Anatolia, then the Greeks, then the Romans, then the French, then England, then the US. Why the push west? Immigration. People coming into a culure, exploiting its resources, and then forcing the founding culture to move.

 

We are at a point now where there is nowhere left to move, and there are tons of people who want to come here for a hope of a better life. The problem is that many of them are bitter zealots, and to ignore the threat is just naive. It is not our duty to take in all comers at the expense of our own livelihood.

 

Now some will claim that's a racist attitude. Xenephobia is a term that's tossed around a lot. Much like Homophobia, it's a term used to guilt people into compliance. Both terms were invented to keep people quiet so that the government could better control the people.

 

What we're seeing now in the UK, and what we will see here in the US, is that people are tired of liberal PC bull****.

It's also called progress. Immigration is a part of every culture, whether you like it or not. Society marches on, it's up to you to keep up or sit stubbornly in your hole, yelling at everyone who tries to drag you out of it.

 

Also, to point to immigration as the main factor in the downfall of every major civilisation is to profess a wild ignorance of the unique socio-political and economic hallmarks of each society. Every civilisation falls, that much is true, but there's no one reason for all of them.

 

Though I will agree with something you appear to be alluding to: humanity is essentially a parasite. We move across land, consume all the resources and move on. That's something that really ought to change, but not without a lot of upheaval, pain and misery, and is also a completely different issue.

 

 

One question I have for you, Odine is if Scotland and Ireland do gain independence from the UK, is there talk of them also leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, as well, or would they stay in? The reason I ask is if they do leave the Commonwealth, they might just have to join the EU.

 

There's been no Commonwealth talk yet that I've seen, the media is mainly concentrating on the shambles the Leave campaign has left behind (ie. literally no plan now they've been successful, how their campaign was built on lies the Leave campaigners are rapidly backpedalling away from, etc) and Nicola Sturgeon's attempts to force the UK to either stay in the EU or let Scotland leave.

 

 

Last I checked, there isn't exactly an overwhelming rush of Afghan immigrants beating down our door either.

That's because they're all coming over here... It's a lot easier to get to Europe than it is to get to the US. Have you ever watched any of the programs about border control agencies prior to the Arab Spring? The vast majority of illegals trying to get into the UK prior to that were from Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that our countries had anything at all to do with that. Nope, completely innocent. But, again, those are illegal immigrants, and it's immigration in general that is the main issue here - everyone agrees that illegal immigration is a problem (whichever side of the issue you're on), it's the legal ones that are causing all the debates and schisms.

 

EDIT: I feel it's also worth pointing out that immigration wasn't the only issue people were voting for. Yes, there was the big lie about £350 million going from the EU to the NHS, but a lot of people here feel that Brussels interferes too much. I had a conversation with my mum about it, and she voted Leave because she's sick of European courts being able to over-rule British courts. A lot of people mention the whole "unelected officials" spiel (completely ignorant of the European Parliament, it seems), but it's true that, even in my lifetime, I've seen European courts over-rule decisions made by our courts that I don't agree with, like the infamous Romanian rapist allowed back into the UK because it violates his human rights to bar him re-entry. It's something that I don't particularly like; how can these judges make decisions on our legal system when not only do they not have a complete understanding of how ours works, but also when they're not from here and therefore have no true understanding of our way of life, our mentality and our sense of justice (which appears to be at odds with Europe a lot of the time)? I heard someone say the other day that Britain likes the EU, we just don't like Brussels, and it really rang true. Will the Brexit allow us to still be a part of the things in the EU that we like whilst being able to discard the things we don't? Or will we end up more like Norway, essentially forced to accept terms in order to be a part of things but with no say or power over what those terms are?

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Only the country and by that I mean the United Kingdom is now deeply divided. Scotland want to hold another referendum, and if that happens they will most certainly vote out. Sinn Fein is pushing for a united Ireland (and a united Ireland likely wont want to remain in some "United" Kingdom). Really it feels like the so called United Kingdom is gonna be little old England and Wales on their own.

I think it would be ironic that after the Brexit is fully implemented (the way I understand it, it will take years to implement), that what you describe comes true: Scotland and Ireland gain independence from the UK. But in order to remain economically viable, both Scotland, and Ireland rejoin the EU. Then later, England comes back in 30 years or so, to the EU.

 

One question I have for you, Odine is if Scotland and Ireland do gain independence from the UK, is there talk of them also leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, as well, or would they stay in? The reason I ask is if they do leave the Commonwealth, they might just have to join the EU.

Kyrian already fielded that one... There has been no talk of the commonwealth yet, no.

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You make me sad, Poe. I will just say I don't want my Sunday to devolve into posting a message with more than a few sentences. I am basically a lazy poster.

 

Then why continue? You've not even attempted to dispute the much more important notion that whether you're right or wrong, it doesn't matter in forming an immigration policy that is good for the nation.

 

You continue with this three-cushion shot about how immigrants come here because of the United States' policies. Let me assure you that the attraction of economic opportunity would exist no matter which policy were being followed. Unless and until these countries were on par with the United States on that level, the flow of humans to places of greater opportunity is inevitable.

 

But again, it doesn't matter even if you are right. Your argument fails on both the merits of its validity and whether it matters at all. If you wish to continue, be my guest. But please address the more important barrier to your theory as well instead of relying on vague notions.

 

 

 

Wow, OK, not even sure how to address this. First off, it's demonstrable that immigration has no negative effect on the economy

 

That is the statement of pure faith from immigration advocates. In a macro view, it is simple enough. More people means greater GDP.

 

But people don't exist on pure economic theory. I again point out that without immigration levels that many of your countrymen find distressing, the Remain side would have won the referendum. You believe that Leave is going to hurt your country's economy. Does it not follow that immigration has had a negative effect on your economy? That is demonstrable enough for me.

 

Economists don't really talk to sociologists when it comes to this issue. And, frankly, both of the sciences have a bias within their population that prevents them from even seeking negative effects of mass immigration.

 

 

 

Second of all, illegal immigration is another issue.

 

Indeed. I specifically stated I was talking about the United States when I mentioned illegal immigration.

 

 

 

Immigrants end up being seen as insular, rude, "coming over here, taking our jobs" etc, but imagine you're the immigrant

 

I did. Please read my post. As I stated, immigration is a painful process for everyone. It's why governments should keep immigration at bite-sized levels so that the pain is not as pronounced.

 

In the United States, immigrants are treated as cheap labor. Used, worked hard, and exploited. I imagine the economic benefits of immigration are universal in that respect. Immigration is always good for industries' labor costs. This is not a good method for bringing about happy new neighbors. Children watching their parents being used and their bodies worked into early old-age likely doesn't help the 2nd generation any better.

 

 

 

If we were more welcoming

 

People are not angels. You can go on and on about what people SHOULD be all day. But they're not going to react the way you want. These conflicts are inevitable and happen in every single country where mass immigration is tried. At some point, policy should be based on what IS instead of what it should be if only your country were more uniformly right thinking. The quaint notion that immigration is progress is another statement of faith.

 

This immigration issue is obviously hurting your country as it is all countries that are experiencing a nationalist wave. One cannot ignore that these waves would not be happening if not for the immigration happening in the first place.

 

 

 

I feel it's also worth pointing out that immigration wasn't the only issue people were voting for.

 

Didn't say it was. But it certainly provided the difference in the outcome. Would there have even been a referendum in the first place without the stressor of immigration? I think not.

 

Personally, as an American, the concept of the EU is anathema to the values of my own country. Distrust of unaccountable centralized powers is baked into the DNA of my civics. For that reason alone, I have no doubt I would have been Leave if given a vote. I am a firm believer that societies work best when the people within them have a strong sense that they are in charge of their own destinies (even if it's somewhat illusionary). It is a battle that is currently being waged here as well.

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Poe actually raises some valid points that are often misunderstood by liberals. Chiefly, you can't say that there are no negative results from an action as a way of discounting the negative results.

 

I consider myself to be fairly liberal on many issues, including immigration, so we certainly don't come to the same conclusion, but he's absolutely right on his point. In fact, his point is the thing that annoys me most about liberals today: discourse is killed by an attempt to silence the other side.

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