Lisbon II - Second Poll

robindch · 25-09-2009 1:57pm #1

I'd put this in with the other Lisbon thread, but boards won't let me have two polls in the one thread....

Bearing in mind that the biggest reason for voting no last year was people really understanding what they were voting about, it would be interesting to see in this small forum, how many people have actually read the Treaty and whether or not this influences how they feel about it.

For the purposes of this, I'm assuming that "read" means you've either downloaded the consolidated text of the Treaty of the European Union, or got a print out of it, or found a printed copy of it, opened it up and read and understood more than, say, something like twenty pages. I'm not looking for somebody who's examined all 331 pages with a microscope, though I'm sure there must be a few out there.

Please be honest, btw

.

Zamboni · 25-09-2009 2:20pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

I read it the first time around.
Won't be something I will be doing again too soon.
I'll never get that time back!

Morlar · 25-09-2009 2:25pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

I have read it first time around but apparently my no vote along with that of the majority of the country was not the right answer. I will be voting no again this time.

5uspect · 25-09-2009 2:28pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

I haven't read it but I've taken advantage of Scofflaw's excellent summary.
http://www.lisbonexposed.org/

Dinner · 25-09-2009 2:35pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

I have read it first time around but apparently my no vote along with that of the majority of the country was not the right answer. I will be voting no again this time.

Yeah, it's disgraceful the way the EU tries to address our concerns.

Last week some guy in college offered me a Mento, I said no. Today the same bastard asks me again! I mean whats that all about?! I clearly made my mind up the first time. HOW DARE HE ASK ME AGAIN! RABBLE RABBLE!

Morlar · 25-09-2009 2:38pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

Dinner wrote: »

Yeah, it's disgraceful the way the EU tries to address our concerns.

Last week some guy in college offered me a Mento, I said no. Today the same bastard asks me again! I mean whats that all about?! I clearly made my mind up the first time. HOW DARE HE ASK ME AGAIN! RABBLE RABBLE!

Mento analogies aside - ignoring our referendum result does not bode well for the future. Nor does it address the concerns of the people of Ireland as expressed in our last referendum on this precise treaty.

Morlar · 25-09-2009 2:39pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

Dinner wrote: »

Last week some guy in college offered me a Mento, I said no. Today the same bastard asks me again! I mean whats that all about?! I clearly made my mind up the first time. HOW DARE HE ASK ME AGAIN! RABBLE RABBLE!

Actually he was probably trying to tell you something

Now like a breath of fresh air back to european politics . . . . .

Beruthiel · 25-09-2009 2:40pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

5uspect wrote: »

I haven't read it but I've taken advantage of Scofflaw's excellent summary.
http://www.lisbonexposed.org/

Yup.
I haven't read it, but I've spent a lot of time reading the debates on it. ie - the english version.

I'll be voting Yes.

Bduffman · 25-09-2009 2:58pm

Dinner wrote: »

Yeah, it's disgraceful the way the EU tries to address our concerns.

Last week some guy in college offered me a Mento, I said no. Today the same bastard asks me again! I mean whats that all about?! I clearly made my mind up the first time. HOW DARE HE ASK ME AGAIN! RABBLE RABBLE!

Hmmm. But what if you said no to a mento. And 2 of your mates also said no. He then put the mento in a different sweet wrapper & persuaded you to take it this time thereby also forcing your two mates who didn't get a choice the second time to also take the newly packaged mento.

Sure - who wouldn't find that fair..........?

robindch · 25-09-2009 2:59pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

Mento analogies aside - ignoring our referendum result does not bode well for the future.

The EU has not ignored our referendum result, since it permitted the Irish government to negotiate in additional conditions after the initial rejection.

Morlar wrote: »

Nor does it address the concerns of the people of Ireland as expressed in our last referendum on this precise treaty.

Expressed as percentages, the largest reason for voting "no" was because people didn't understand what they were voting upon -- that's the responsibility of the electorate, not the EU. AFAIR, next up were things like abortion and euthanasia which (while being extremely emotive topics) Lisbon does not change. After that were Mr Ganley's "We're losing an Irish commissioner!!!" and "You'll pay more taxes!!!" claims, both of which were almost completely false, but the EU with considerable restraint, ignored this fact, and provided additional guarantees to "resolve".

You negotiate, vote, renegotiate, vote again. That's how our democracy works.

Morlar · 25-09-2009 3:07pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

robindch wrote: »

The EU has not ignored our referendum result,

We voted NO - this was not good enough and we were forced to vote again. That is not democracy by any convoluted 'we are serving your best interests' convolution.

robindch wrote: »

the EU with considerable restraint,

Perhaps you should listen to yourself sometime ? Set aside for the moment that you are voting yes - and take an honest assessment of how this treaty is being implemented. Does ANY of this not bother you in the slightest ? Hand on heart ? The lack of referenda across europe ? The fact that the one country who had a vote which counted has said NO and is being made to vote again ?

If you are able to discard for the moment the substance of the treaty and look at this implementation in principle - does none of that make you uneasy?

robindch wrote: »

You negotiate, vote, renegotiate, vote again. That's how our democracy works.

Democracy works by respecting the wishes of the majority as expressed in a referendum.

The Mad Hatter · 25-09-2009 3:07pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Is the consolidated version of the treaty the 30-or-so page booklet you can get in libraries and such? (Got noted waiting for the page to load.)

robindch · 25-09-2009 3:18pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

Does ANY of this not bother you in the slightest?

It bothers me that people are voting who don't have a clue -- one way or the other -- what they're voting on. It bothers me that there are a lot of liars out there, almost all of them on the No-side. And it bothers me that a lot of people adopt a confrontational, emotionally-based approach to working out whether to vote on way or the other, rather than reading the treaty and then disagreeing with what they're being offered in a simple, straightforward way that makes it possible to address their concerns.

What treaty articles do you object to specifically? And what is your legal basis for these concerns?

robindch · 25-09-2009 3:24pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Is the consolidated version of the treaty the 30-or-so page booklet you can get in libraries and such? (Got noted waiting for the page to load.)

Nope. The Lisbon Treaty itself is a long and immensely dull series of "delete this bit of text; move this bit here..." instructions which coalesces the founding Treaties of the EU -- Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice -- into a single, easy-to-read-document which is known as the Consolidated Text and which is behind the link in the OP above.

I haven't seen that 30-pager, but there is this document which gives a pretty good summary of what it's all about:

http://www.jasonomahony.ie/The_Improved_Spoofers_Guide_To_The_Lisbon_Treaty.pdf

...while still managing to make people grin, which is something of an achievement, given the topic-matter

Morlar · 25-09-2009 3:41pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

Does ANY of this not bother you in the slightest?.........The lack of referenda across europe ? The fact that the one country who had a vote which counted has said NO and is being made to vote again ?

robindch wrote: »

It bothers me that people are voting who don't have a clue -- one way or the other -- what they're voting on.

Of course that applies to people who are voting yes as well as some of those voting no. What do you think is the reason for that ? It is too convenient to put that down to public ignorance or lack of interest. Those reasons do not amount to much in my view. Perhaps that the treaty itself is for all practical intents and purposes unreadable by design ?

robindch wrote: »

It bothers me that there are a lot of liars out there

I take that as a NO to the original question. You have no reservations over the approach or methods of those who wish to implement this treaty across europe ?

robindch wrote: »

And it bothers me that a lot of people adopt a confrontational, emotionally-based approach to working out whether to vote on way or the other,

Having an approach that encompasses the fact that there is a principle being trodden all over here is not confrontational or emotionally based. Those are dismissive comments with no substance.

robindch wrote: »

What treaty articles do you object to specifically? And what is your legal basis for these concerns?

I have no interest in a full blown debate on 'the legal basis for the concerns' behind why I am voting no, not with you and not on an internet forum at least, nor on why I object to any given line of the treaty, (or of hearing your propaganda in response each of those) there have been enough threads along those lines on here to last a lifetime, and life is too short for that at the moment. I object to it for many reasons, just as you I presume support it for many reasons. Some of the reasoning behind why I object to it at this point come down to the motives and methods of those who wish to implement it who I have absolutely no faith in whatsoever & who have ignored the wishes of the Irish public as expressed in the refferendum we have already had on it.

Malari · 25-09-2009 3:45pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

No I haven't read it - and if I did I wouldn't be any wiser I imagine!

But I have looked at the very condensed summaries and asked my local Labour TD what he thought!!!

I'm voting yes. I can't see any convincing reason why not to.

Dinner · 25-09-2009 3:51pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

Mento analogies aside - ignoring our referendum result does not bode well for the future. Nor does it address the concerns of the people of Ireland as expressed in our last referendum on this precise treaty.

It addresses the concerns of the public as discovered through studies such as the Millward Brown one. They took those issues to the EU and sorted them out with the legally binding guarantees.

It's a perfect example of democracy, find the problem -> solve the proble. Once the issues have been dealt with it is not unreasonable to put it before the people again.

Fianna Fáil don't do a whole lot right, but in this situation they have acted in a perfectly democratic way. They haev addressed the issues that many members of the public had.

Bduffman wrote: »

Hmmm. But what if you said no to a mento. And 2 of your mates also said no. He then put the mento in a different sweet wrapper & persuaded you to take it this time thereby also forcing your two mates who didn't get a choice the second time to also take the newly packaged mento.

Sure - who wouldn't find that fair..........?

I'm going to drop the analagy for this one. France and Holland rejected the EU Constitution. Their governments tried to discover why. Their findings were that (aside from protest votes etc) many French and Dtuch people objected to the state like language in the Constitution. Because these issues were based on the actual text of the treaty, the Constitution was scrapped but the parts that were not objected to were put into Lisbon, along with some additional items added by the Dutch government.

It's important to note at this point that the format was not changed from a Constitutional Document to an amendment treaty to 'avoid' referenda in some countries.

So the French and Dutch Governments ratified Lisbon without referendum, safe in the belief that the concerns held by the public have been satisfied.

Once again the EU has demonstrated a disgusting betrayal of democracy by (shock!) addressing the concerns of the public.

So yes, I do find it fair.

robindch · 25-09-2009 4:45pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

Perhaps that the treaty itself is for all practical intents and purposes unreadable by design?

That's an old Ganley one (AFAIR) that -- turns out the rumour that the Treaty was designed to be unreadable derived from an intentionally dishonest misreading of part of a paragraph in one article that Giscard D'Estaing wrote for a provincial French newspaper. Needless to say, D'Estaing meant nothing of the kind -- exactly the opposite actually.

Morlar wrote: »

I object to it for many reasons, [....]

So how do you expect your objections to be addressed if you're not going to tell people what they are?

I mean, you probably don't go into a restaurant and have the waiter read the menu to you, then serve you whatever he reckoned you got least offended at hearing?

Morlar wrote: »

Some of the reasoning behind why I object to it at this point come down to the motives and methods of those who wish to implement it who I have absolutely no faith in whatsoever & who have ignored the wishes of the Irish public as expressed in the refferendum we have already had on it.

So you're objecting to the Treaty not because there's anything in it you specifically dislike, but because you don't like the people offering it to you?

If that's the case, then I would advise you to spoil your vote (cross 'yes' and 'no' on the ballot). That's the rational course of action when you disagree with the entire basis of an election, rather than giving support that you do not have to one side or the other.

Mena · 25-09-2009 4:50pm

There's no "I've read the treaty and would be voting yes but am not eligible to vote so I will be "abstaining"" option

Mena · 25-09-2009 4:59pm

Morlar wrote: »

The lack of referenda across europe ?

I've seen this one brought up a number of times. Could I be so bold as to ask, what makes you so special as to dictate how other countries run their democracies?

People elect people to office. Those people then make decisions on behalf of the constituents. Not every country has this silly proportional representation malarkey. We in Ireland are constitutionally bound to make this type of decision via a referendum, however other countries are not bound by the same rules.

Who are we to tell them how to run their countries and reach decisions...

Morlar · 25-09-2009 5:02pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "Yes"

robindch wrote: »

rumour that the Treaty was designed to be unreadable derived

That's not a rumour it's an assessment/opinion.

robindch wrote: »

So how do you expect your objections to be addressed if you're not going to tell people what they are?

My expectation is that the democratic will of the people of Ireland be respected in Brussels.

robindch wrote: »

you're objecting to the Treaty not because there's anything in it you specifically dislike, but because you don't like the people offering it to you?

Accidentally misreading, or deliberately misreading /taking things out of context and misrepresenting them may give a false impression to someone speed-reading through this but otherwise add nothing to the thread.

I have no interest in a full blown debate on 'the legal basis for the concerns' behind why I am voting no, not with you and not on an internet forum at least, nor on why I object to any given line of the treaty, (or of hearing your propaganda in response each of those) there have been enough threads along those lines on here to last a lifetime, and life is too short for that at the moment. I object to it for many reasons, just as you I presume support it for many reasons. Some of the reasoning behind why I object to it at this point come down to the motives and methods of those who wish to implement it who I have absolutely no faith in whatsoever & who have ignored the wishes of the Irish public as expressed in the refferendum we have already had on it.

robindch wrote: »

spoil your vote ..... That's the rational course of action when you disagree with the entire basis of an election, rather than giving support that you do not have to one side or the other.

See above about misreading/misrepresenting someones position back to them in a disingenous, dismissive and condescending manner and the value that does not bring to a thread.

robindch · 25-09-2009 5:32pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

That's not a rumour it's an assessment/opinion.

It's an opinion based upon an intentional misreading of what D'Estaing wrote. He posed a crass hypothetical, then rebutted it as unworthy of the EU in the following sentences. The hypothetical got acres of coverage from the no-side, the rebuttal didn't see the light of day. That's dishonest.

Morlar wrote: »

Accidentally misreading, or deliberately misreading /taking things out of context and misrepresenting them may give a false impression [...]

<cough>

Morlar wrote: »

[...] to someone speed-reading through this but otherwise add nothing to the thread.

Well, you gave only one reason, so it's unreasonable to expect a response to anything else. If there's something specific to the treaty that you don't like, then please tell.

drkpower · 25-09-2009 5:32pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

The obsession with, and the suggestion that you cannot formulate a reasonable view as to the merits of the Treaty without reading it is kinda funny.

I never read the contract when purchasing my house but noone ever suggested that I was crazy in that regard.

robindch · 25-09-2009 5:39pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

drkpower wrote: »

I never read the contract when purchasing my house but noone ever suggested that I was crazy in that regard.

You need much better legal advice next time

Dinner · 25-09-2009 5:40pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

drkpower wrote: »

The obsession with, and the suggestion that you cannot formulate a reasonable view as to the merits of the Treaty without reading it is kinda funny.

I never read the contract when purchasing my house but noone ever suggested that I was crazy in that regard.

I think you can formulate a reasonable opinion without reading the entire document.

I don't think you can forumulate a reasonable opinion by applying your own suspicians and paranoia without checking the text, even if it is just to read 1 article, say for example, some people believe that the treaty is self amending. A quick read of Article 48 will show that any changes that affect our soveriegnty must be ratified according to our constitution. But unless you check, all you have done is apply your own opinion to rumours flying around.

drkpower · 25-09-2009 5:52pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Dinner wrote: »

I think you can formulate a reasonable opinion without reading the entire document.
.

Agreed; of course, I think the occasional reference to the text is important, particularly where diametrically opposing views are being asserted. However, the amount of traction Cowen's "I didnt read the Treaty" admission got was a little ridiculous. And it fostered a view that you were some kind of second-class voter if you didnt sit down with your slippers, a vat of cocoa and the entire original text to the Treaty every Friday night until you had read the thing cover-to-cover.

Sometimes, particularly in respect of issues as complex as the Treaty and its consequences, you do need to take the advice of others with particular legal and other expertise who you know and respect. To paraphrase a famous line, a man who is his own advisor has a fool for a client.

stevejazzx · 25-09-2009 6:31pm

robindch wrote: »

If that's the case, then I would advise you to spoil your vote (cross 'yes' and 'no' on the ballot). That's the rational course of action when you disagree with the entire basis of an election, rather than giving support that you do not have to one side or the other.

Even though I have my probelms with the process this is what I'll be doing. I completely agree that a 'no' vote out of anger is just silliness.

Tim Robbins · 25-09-2009 7:12pm

I've read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Article 8(b) states means that one million people can request the commission to consider something for legisation.

There is easily one million atheists in Europe.

Could you imagine all the fun asking the commission, to come up with legislation:

(a) to provide equal access to schools for non-religious kids
(b) having a yearly secular holiday day
(c) complete separation of church and state
(d) to insist that states provide ample ways for non religious people to get married (that means on a Saturday currently the HSE won't do this!)
(e) to insist that states provid a secular alternative to religious funnerals for non religious people.

Oh the list in endless.

You would really want to be a head in the sand atheist to miss the potential amount of great fun Lisbon could provide us.

To Lisbon!

Coriolanus · 25-09-2009 8:44pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

I haven't read the entire treaty or the consolidated one's but I've two days off and it's on my list of things to do. I have however read pretty much all of the coverage on it in the Guardian, Irish Times and the BBC for the past two years so barring some global media conspiracy on the issue, I'm going to consider myself "well informed".

AtomicHorror · 25-09-2009 10:12pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Read various summaries, debated it at length with a couple of friends but did not read the treaty or the consolidated text. I'm not a lawyer nor a politician so I see it as being asked to make a decision I'm not really qualified to make. A bit like allowing parent's groups to dictate school science syllabi. It's nonsense. I elected people (or rather tried to vote them out) to do this for me but for some reason this turned into a constitutional thing, which rather suggests to me that our constitution has it's fingers where they ought not be. So I muddle through. I voted yes the last time and will do so this time.

Húrin · 25-09-2009 11:50pm

I haven't read the Treaty and I'll be voting "No"

Morlar wrote: »

Mento analogies aside - ignoring our referendum result does not bode well for the future. Nor does it address the concerns of the people of Ireland as expressed in our last referendum on this precise treaty.

Last year, 42% of people who voted no said that they did so because they didn't know enough about the treaty. I think that level of ignorance (probably also found among those who voted yes) justified a rerun.

Lisbon II - Second Poll

Read it or not, and approve or not? 107 votes

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