Proud to vote NO..consider your Europeans who could not vote

Rb

rebelmind wrote: »

My heart has nothing to do with this.
My knowledge of power & democracy does.

If the tea that just flew out my nose does any permanent damage to my macbook, I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to chip in for the repair costs.

hatrickpatrick

Rb wrote: »

If Italy was having a referendum and I popped onto one of their national forums and asked them to vote in one way or another for the benefit of Ireland, I'd expect to be told to fuck off and rightly so.

Would you? To be honest I find that fairly ridiculous and I wouldn't actually be surprised if you'd find it's against the rules of this site. I'm too tired now to get into this (and this surely isn't the right place to be discussing this either) but I would have thought that personal attacks and abuse were very much against the rules. If I am mistaken about that then so be it. Anyway I don't mean to hijack the thread, I just saw some particularly harsh post directed at one of these people earlier today and it really pissed me off. Then I realized that something similar seems to happen in most threads like these. As I said, IMO it's always possible to disagree with someone in a dignified manner...

EDIT: Just to also reply to this idea that I'm saying others should have referenda - I've already stated numerous times that in my view Lisbon and the Constitution are more or less the same thing, therefore this entity has now been rejected by three separate electorates. And we also know that the Brits were promised a referendum and this was reneged upon. There's another thread going in which this is already being debated so perhaps we'd be better off talking in there about that specific issue...

Scofflaw

rebelmind wrote: »

Never said I did.
I'm talking principle here, not outcome.
The NO I mentioned was in reference to the results of Ireland/France/Holland re Lisbon, which might be a good indication of how the rest of Europe would vote.

Really? Why those, as opposed to Spain/Luxembourg? Answer - because France and Holland voted No, which is what you want.

rebelmind wrote: »

Again, democracy is the will of the people, do you agree?
If so, let them decide, not their representatives.
My heart has nothing to do with this.
My knowledge of power & democracy does.

If you prefer to put it that way. Direct democracy isn't the only form of democracy, nor even necessarily the best, although I like it myself.

regards,
Scofflaw

Rb

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Would you? To be honest I find that fairly ridiculous and I wouldn't actually be surprised if you'd find it's against the rules of this site. I'm too tired now to get into this (and this surely isn't the right place to be discussing this either) but I would have thought that personal attacks and abuse were very much against the rules. If I am mistaken about that then so be it. Anyway I don't mean to hijack the thread, I just saw some particularly harsh post directed at one of these people earlier today and it really pissed me off. Then I realized that something similar seems to happen in most threads like these. As I said, IMO it's always possible to disagree with someone in a dignified manner...

EDIT: Just to also reply to this idea that I'm saying others should have referenda - I've already stated numerous times that in my view Lisbon and the Constitution are more or less the same thing, therefore this entity has now been rejected by three separate electorates. And we also know that the Brits were promised a referendum and this was reneged upon. There's another thread going in which this is already being debated so perhaps we'd be better off talking in there about that specific issue...

Well, you brought up some good points and I hope I addressed them sufficiently, given your lack of response to them I'll assume I did

The only people I've seen nasty comments towards were the Polish bloggers and the British Independe guy who popped in earlier and both, admittedly, I was behind. One were spammers, the other was pushing an agenda that had nothing to do with the treaty and was causing an unnecessary stirr in a debate he really had no place in.

dRNk SAnTA

rebelmind wrote: »

Again, democracy is the will of the people, do you agree?
If so, let them decide, not their representatives.
My heart has nothing to do with this.
My knowledge of power & democracy does.

Do you have some sort of ideological problem with representitive political systems? would you like to have a vote on everything a government does? do you think ireland would be a better place for that?

Colpriz

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Do you have some sort of ideological problem with representitive political systems? would you like to have a vote on everything a government does? do you think ireland would be a better place for that?

We are what was and shall say again..unite Ireland, unite the unheard voice of Europe, our Europe, the one We/They want to be very much part of...

rebelmind

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Do you have some sort of ideological problem with representitive political systems?

Only when they are not representative, then you have fascism.

hatrickpatrick

Rb wrote: »

Absolutely. If you can't trust the experts, who can you trust? Psychics?

These people aren't idiots, they're liable to make mistakes like all of us and it sucks when it happens, but I'd trust their word over anybody pushing for a No on this forum, that's a certainty.

That's fine because admittedly this forum is full of propaganda, but would you honestly trust the word of the people who have advised FF for the last 8 years? Take a good look around... I wouldn't trust them to govern a toilet.

How many of those people with half a brain used this knowledge to their advantage so? I've met many people who claimed to see this coming, why the hell didn't they sell their overpriced house and rent for a few months and then buy a castle?

It was too late by the time it became clear for a lot of people. The US subprime crisis spilled over in July '07, it was in August of that year that all of our bank shares tanked, and it was in November that banks started to collapse. It was predicted time and time again by George Lee that it was the end of the line for the property boom, and yet our government apparently stuck their heads in the sands for almost a year after all this before finally admitting that there was a problem. And even then, they claimed it would be over quickly.

At the end of the day, noone predicted how bad this was going to get. Those who claim to have done can feck off.

But our government certainly denied it would get even nearly as bad as many at the time predicted it would. As it happened, it got worse than both the government AND the early doomsayers predicted.

Again, this is the researched reporting of experts in their respective fields and if they made a bad prediction so be it, I'd rather them be advising the Government than the lunatics we're seeing splurging crazy crap all over this forum recently.

I don't include you in that, for what its worth.

Well to be fair there's absolutely no doubt about that but no one's suggesting I should be. All I'm trying to say is that the people who are saying "The government says this is good for us, therefore we should automatically assume they are correct" are being very, very naive. As naive in fact as the people who say "I saw on some poster that our minimum wage will be knocked down to €1.84, and because it's on a huge poster it clearly must be the truth".

Both groups have their heads firmly buried in the sand. Who has it buried deeper than the other is arguable, but does it really matter?

dRNk SAnTA

rebelmind wrote: »

Only when they are not representative, then you have fascism.

Well then why are you being so ignorant of other countries democratic decisions. Do you not respect any of the laws or legislation the Swedish/German/Danish parliaments have passed recently because they weren't put to referendum

Scofflaw

rebelmind wrote: »

Only when they are not representative, then you have fascism.

But who decides that they're not representative? In this case, it appears that you have decided it, because you "know" that people would have voted No.

Your argument looks like this:

1. the people of country X would have voted No if they'd had a referendum

2. the parliament of country X voted Yes

3. therefore, the parliament of X is failing to represent its people

Unfortunately, (1) is pure assumption on your part.


My own view is that a more objective view can be taken like this:

1. we don't know how the people of country X would have voted

2. the parliament of country X voted Yes

3. if the parliament of country X is significantly failing to represent its people, there should be some significant form of demonstration of dissatisfaction

4. there doesn't appear to be any

5. therefore, the parliament of X is either representing the will of the people of X, or the people of X don't consider the issue significant

We have something of an acid test in the shape of Germany, which No proponents on these boards have claimed "would have voted No if given the chance". They've just had a chance to show Merkel (who ratified Lisbon) the door, and haven't. That suggests to me that it was OK with the German people that Lisbon was ratified - either through being pro-Lisbon or not considering the matter important.


cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I haven't said that at all in this thread. All I've said it that people could (and should) be a little more civil to eachother, particularly when it comes to "foreigners" (and yes I realize some of them are actually plants) who come here to campaign "on behalf of their country" or whatever. Yes, there are arguments on both sides, yes, there are a lot of things you could say about this, but I still say that just being downright nasty to these people is completely uncalled for. It's not impossible to disagree with people without that sort of harshness. And you can tell me if I'm being a hypocrite here because I certainly don't want to be, but I don't recall ever actually participating in any of that during my time here.

Before the second election of George W. Bush I went into a US forum to talk about it. I didn't even say anything bad. I pretty much said "I'm from Europe and I think..." Then got fúcked from a height, I mean they really abused me. They didn't give a shít whether I agreed with them or not, they didn't want to hear what I had to say.

ancientirish

In relation to the EU Constitution dressed up as a thing called a Treaty , I will be voting a NO.
WHY? Because the Irish Constitution will be overruled and a Dictatorship installed.
We will become a mere REGION of a Union, which in turn will become a part of a bigger Global Union. ALL Nations will cease to exist. The rite of Habeas Corpus , the backbone of any sovereign Constitution,will no longer exist. One may be arrested without a crime having been committed,no trial,no jury just jail.
No to Dictatorship. We already had 800 years of tyranny that will make the EU Dictatorship look like kindergarden.

Scofflaw

ancientirish wrote: »

In relation to the EU Constitution dressed up as a thing called a Treaty , I will be voting a NO.
WHY? Because the Irish Constitution will be overruled and a Dictatorship installed.
We will become a mere REGION of a Union, which in turn will become a part of a bigger Global Union. ALL Nations will cease to exist. The rite of Habeas Corpus , the backbone of any sovereign Constitution,will no longer exist. One may be arrested without a crime having been committed,no trial,no jury just jail.
No to Dictatorship. We already had 800 years of tyranny that will make the EU Dictatorship look like kindergarden.

A vague attempt to stay within the confines of the thread topic and/or reality might be nice.

cordially,
Scofflaw

MrMatisse

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Get ready for people to tell you "our vote is none of your business" or "petition your government and leave us alone"

Of course, the people who will say that to you always seem to ignore the oft-repeated fact that Lisbon is the twice-rejected constitution with 4 tiny sections removed out of more than 400...

Those 4 sections did not impress the voters.

Scofflaw

Really-Stressed wrote: »

Those 4 sections did not impress the voters.

Nor were they the only things removed, nor the most important change - and, of course there were things added.

The most important change was that the Constitution contained a claim to quasi-state status for the EU, with an official flag, anthem, a 'Foreign Minister'. That claim has been dropped, because the French and Dutch objected to it - what's left in Lisbon are the reforms, without the claim to quasi-statehood.

In addition, the French had certain objectives changed (mostly watering down of what they regarded as excessively market-liberal language), and the Dutch added the "orange/yellow card" subsidiarity mechanism.

But you knew all this, right?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Rb

Scofflaw wrote: »

A vague attempt to stay within the confines of the thread topic and/or reality might be nice.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Within the borders of sanity would also be appreciated

A Primal Nut

You don't need a referendum. If you are unhappy about the effect Lisbon has, then you can vote the politicans out next time round.

I understand the Lisbon Treaty, but the fact is only a very small percentage of people in Ireland understand it - so why should they be allowed vote. Perhaps only those who pass a test on it should be allowed vote?

Understanding these treaties and doing whats best for the country is what the Government is there for. Having a referendum on something most people don't understand is rediculous; which is why no other country is doing it. If it turns out to have a negative effect, vote the Government out. Thats what elections are for.

MrMatisse

Scofflaw wrote: »

Nor were they the only things removed, nor the most important change - and, of course there were things added.

The most important change was that the Constitution contained a claim to quasi-state status for the EU, with an official flag, anthem, a 'Foreign Minister'. That claim has been dropped, because the French and Dutch objected to it - what's left in Lisbon are the reforms, without the claim to quasi-statehood.

In addition, the French had certain objectives changed (mostly watering down of what they regarded as excessively market-liberal language), and the Dutch added the "orange/yellow card" subsidiarity mechanism.

But you knew all this, right?

cordially,
Scofflaw

How do you know exactly why a french man or a dutch man voted no?

You dont really know why they did it.

It was a personal choice they made at a polling centre.

Maybe we should let them vote on it again since thats all they wanted changed.

MrMatisse

A Primal Nut wrote: »

You don't need a referendum. If you are unhappy about the effect Lisbon has, then you can vote the politicans out next time round.

I understand the Lisbon Treaty, but the fact is only a very small percentage of people in Ireland understand it - so why should they be allowed vote. Perhaps only those who pass a test on it should be allowed vote?

Understanding these treaties and doing whats best for the country is what the Government is there for. Having a referendum on something most people don't understand is rediculous; which is why no other country is doing it. If it turns out to have a negative effect, vote the Government out. Thats what elections are for.

Why is only the Yes voters who are considered to understand it?

Clearly Vincent Browne is an idiot.

Scofflaw

Really-Stressed wrote: »

How do you know exactly why a french man or a dutch man voted no?

You dont really know why they did it.

It was a personal choice they made at a polling centre.

Maybe we should let them vote on it again since thats all they wanted changed.

Oh, they did a post-referendum analysis, as usual. I read that sort of thing, when I want to understand things - sadly, I lack the (apparently common) ability just to look into my heart and know how people would vote.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Really-Stressed wrote: »

Why is only the Yes voters who are considered to understand it?

No idea - the post you're quoting doesn't say that.

Really-Stressed wrote: »

Clearly Vincent Browne is an idiot.

You're entitled to your view on that as well, I'm sure.

cordially,
Scofflaw

A Primal Nut

Really-Stressed wrote: »

Why is only the Yes voters who are considered to understand it?

Clearly Vincent Browne is an idiot.

I'm not talking about the no voters. I was talking about the dozens of people who come on here who and admit that they can't understand it. And virtually everyone I know IRL. If you don't understand, don't vote. This will be one referendum I hope there will be a small turnout for.

Whiskeyjack

major bill wrote: »

would the people of ireland have been giving a second referendum by the government if it was a yes vote? doubt it european democracy contridicts itself.

amused
major bill

I didn't like my salad so the waiter came back with a different one. If I said I wanted the new one would be bring me another?Doubt it.What a ****.