Paradox? Or am I missing something?
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff.
The Tenth Doctor
There are times that Austria makes perfect sense. More sense than home, sometimes, and I find myself asking "why don't we do it that way?"
And sometimes it doesn't. Like yesterday. October 26 was Austria's National Day. Which is the anniversary of Austria's Declaration of Neutrality in 1955. We've had long discussions about how this is a lame day for Austria to have their national day on, mainly because they were basically forced to declare neutrality in order for the Soviets to finally leave and the 10-year Allied occupation of the country to end. But there's really no other day that they could celebrate. And we won't even go into the discussion of how everyone knows that Austria isn't actually neutral, it just pretends to be. You can't be neutral and in the EU. It just doesn't work like that, guys.
And their national day is noticeably more subdued than the 4th of July. For the most part, it seems to be a holiday where everything is closed and most people just stay home and enjoy the day off with family. The Parliament is open for walkthrough (which I did), and you can visit and shake hands with the President and the Chancellor (which my roommate Sarah did). And there's a festival with traditional food and stuff in the Hofburg.
And then in the middle of this festival, right near the booths for Sturm and Laugenbretzls... are a couple helicopters. And tanks. And army recruiter booths. And I don't think I've seen so many guys in uniform in one place.
I understand that as a neutral country, you have to have an army. A good one. But. I just think that if they're going to at least put up the pretense that they're neutral, on their national day, which is neutrality day... shouldn't the army take a back seat?
The Tenth Doctor
There are times that Austria makes perfect sense. More sense than home, sometimes, and I find myself asking "why don't we do it that way?"
And sometimes it doesn't. Like yesterday. October 26 was Austria's National Day. Which is the anniversary of Austria's Declaration of Neutrality in 1955. We've had long discussions about how this is a lame day for Austria to have their national day on, mainly because they were basically forced to declare neutrality in order for the Soviets to finally leave and the 10-year Allied occupation of the country to end. But there's really no other day that they could celebrate. And we won't even go into the discussion of how everyone knows that Austria isn't actually neutral, it just pretends to be. You can't be neutral and in the EU. It just doesn't work like that, guys.
And their national day is noticeably more subdued than the 4th of July. For the most part, it seems to be a holiday where everything is closed and most people just stay home and enjoy the day off with family. The Parliament is open for walkthrough (which I did), and you can visit and shake hands with the President and the Chancellor (which my roommate Sarah did). And there's a festival with traditional food and stuff in the Hofburg.
And then in the middle of this festival, right near the booths for Sturm and Laugenbretzls... are a couple helicopters. And tanks. And army recruiter booths. And I don't think I've seen so many guys in uniform in one place.
I understand that as a neutral country, you have to have an army. A good one. But. I just think that if they're going to at least put up the pretense that they're neutral, on their national day, which is neutrality day... shouldn't the army take a back seat?