give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU?

Nothingbetter2d

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2065566/Merkel-Sarkozy-spearhead-new-EU-treaties-save-euro.html

also see tonight with vincent browne http://tv3.ie/3player/show/41/0/0/Tonight-with-Vincent-Browne


sign another eu treaty and give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU or say no more to EU? discuss

Simtech

I don't think we have a choice anymore. We are all in the same boat as it sinks or not. Previous referendums and votes in favour of the European project placed us where we are in that respect, we've made our bed and may now lie in it unfortunately.

hatrickpatrick

Not a chance in hell will I vote to give a single letter of sovereignty away, ever again.

Of course, it doesn't matter. If we don't vote the right way, we will have to vote again, in Sarkozy's own words. Even if 100% of the Irish people vote no, it will be rerun and rerun and rerun.

I was thinking this over recently and a hilarious scenario came into my head, whereby they started re-holding the referendum every 2 weeks, every second Friday, and going in to vote no became a routine matter like doing a weekly shop or buying your train tickets.

"What'd you do today?"
"Ah the usual, went to the gym, got some shopping done, voted no on Lisbon 45234346123, took the dog out for a walk and went for a pint with some of the lads. You?"

Bullseye1

Look at it this way can they be any worse than the gob****s we elect to run the country or those faceless civil servants who make huge accounting errors.

hatrickpatrick

The above post was a joke, but I do want to be serious for just a moment.
The Irish, the Dutch, the French, the Greeks, and the British have now all had their democratic wishes bypassed in some way or another. The French and the Dtuch rejected Lisbon so it was simply re-worded to bypass a referendum, the Irish voted no and were bullied and scare-mongered into changing our opinion (well in my case anyway, can't speak for anyone else), and when the Greeks tried to hold a referendum on their bailout it pretty much ended in their government being wrenched from power to avoid it.

How much longer will the people of Europe tolerate this democratic deficit, I wonder? It's getting to the point now where it has gone beyond petty arguing IMO, it's gone beyond the usual banter we have on Boards and elsewhere, it's gone beyond anything even remotely insignificant. We as a nation, as a continent, need to have a very, very serious discussion about this ASAP, before it's too late to ever claw back whatever power the ordinary man on the street still has.

I'm sure those who oppose my views on Europe will mock me for this post and call me paranoid, and that's perfectly fine. But I do have a serious question for you if you do.

How many more times will you be able to watch a democratic decision being bypassed or opposed by those in power in the EU before you actually start to get pissed off about it? If you're ok with everything which has happened up until now with regard to democratic processes being made a mockery of and the people's will being ignored then fair enough, if you think that's an exaggeration then fair enough as well.

But my question is, how far does it have to go before you WILL agree that a line has been crossed and that it cannot be allowed to continue?
We're all going to have to deal with this sooner rather than later, I strongly advise everyone to drop the petty arguments we as a nation usually have about this and start taking it seriously. The meaning of a republic, the meaning of democracy is being repeatedly shat on, and unless you're happy to live without it (which is a perfectly valid viewpoint, but if so then let's call a spade a spade) you're going to need to think about this sooner or later.

Scoffy for instance (not singling you out, just that I have regular debates with you about this so your opinion was the first which jumped to mind): You have tended in the past to defend and excuse the democratic deficit and the numerous examples of the people's clear wishes being bypassed by the steamroller of EU integration. How far does democracy have to be trampled before it upsets you? Or is it simply something you don't attach as much importance to as I do?

When will it start to piss you off? How bad does it have to get before it becomes a problem, in your view?

hatrickpatrick

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Look at it this way can they be any worse than the gob****s we elect to run the country or those faceless civil servants who make huge accounting errors.

IMO they're all sides of the same rotten coin. The only slight difference is that we at least have SOME control over our own Irish government. If the EU gets the power to make such autonomous decisions, you can bet everything you own that you, the ordinary person, will get absolutely no input.

I want to see government diluted more to local government. Giving power away to larger entities does in the exact opposite direction of what (in my view) would lead to a better democracy. We should be reducing the degrees of separation between the power and the people, not adding layers between them.

DarkJager

Allowing the fourth reich to take full of control of eurozone affairs is an absolute no no. I don't care what power the Germans or French wield in the EU, this is not their country to run.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Amberman

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Well then, pick the dictatorship of your choosing and go and live there.

Problem solved.

femur61

DarkJager wrote: »

Allowing the fourth reich to take full of control of eurozone affairs is an absolute no no. I don't care what power the Germans or French wield in the EU, this is not their country to run.

I don't want to give up our soverignty either but we've no money. Wages in the PS will not be paid. Today in the Irish Times it is saying there is ing to be a 5% reduction in allowances in the PS rising to 10%, but with money from somewhere else we simply cannont afford to pay the high wages of the PS. It really is a catch 22 situation.

Maura74

I feel it is the only way to go...governments of the default countries have proven that they are incompetent and corrupt regarding running their country. At least this way we should get some control how the money is spent and will do away with the top pensions as well as the ex-politicians and retired one that get outrageous benefits.

Hope the EU reform will clean up the mess the PIGS are in.

Tora Bora

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The above post was a joke, but I do want to be serious for just a moment.
The Irish, the Dutch, the French, the Greeks, and the British have now all had their democratic wishes bypassed in some way or another. The French and the Dtuch rejected Lisbon so it was simply re-worded to bypass a referendum, the Irish voted no and were bullied and scare-mongered into changing our opinion (well in my case anyway, can't speak for anyone else), and when the Greeks tried to hold a referendum on their bailout it pretty much ended in their government being wrenched from power to avoid it.

How much longer will the people of Europe tolerate this democratic deficit, I wonder? It's getting to the point now where it has gone beyond petty arguing IMO, it's gone beyond the usual banter we have on Boards and elsewhere, it's gone beyond anything even remotely insignificant. We as a nation, as a continent, need to have a very, very serious discussion about this ASAP, before it's too late to ever claw back whatever power the ordinary man on the street still has.

I'm sure those who oppose my views on Europe will mock me for this post and call me paranoid, and that's perfectly fine. But I do have a serious question for you if you do.

How many more times will you be able to watch a democratic decision being bypassed or opposed by those in power in the EU before you actually start to get pissed off about it? If you're ok with everything which has happened up until now with regard to democratic processes being made a mockery of and the people's will being ignored then fair enough, if you think that's an exaggeration then fair enough as well.

But my question is, how far does it have to go before you WILL agree that a line has been crossed and that it cannot be allowed to continue?
We're all going to have to deal with this sooner rather than later, I strongly advise everyone to drop the petty arguments we as a nation usually have about this and start taking it seriously. The meaning of a republic, the meaning of democracy is being repeatedly shat on, and unless you're happy to live without it (which is a perfectly valid viewpoint, but if so then let's call a spade a spade) you're going to need to think about this sooner or later.

Scoffy for instance (not singling you out, just that I have regular debates with you about this so your opinion was the first which jumped to mind): You have tended in the past to defend and excuse the democratic deficit and the numerous examples of the people's clear wishes being bypassed by the steamroller of EU integration. How far does democracy have to be trampled before it upsets you? Or is it simply something you don't attach as much importance to as I do?

When will it start to piss you off? How bad does it have to get before it becomes a problem, in your view?

I agree 101% with you.

I have always been, 101% pro the EU project, as I always, believed Ireland would be best served by being part of the centre, as opposed to a rocky outcrop looking in.
I voted yes to Lisbons 1 and 2.

BUT .... about 5 minutes after I came out of the ballot box for the second referendum, I felt I had mad a mistake. I really felt, I should have voted no, not because I was not in favour of the principle behind the idea, BUT, because I felt I had let democracy down, by not accepting the majority vote in the first referendum.

I am now of the opinion, that I will never again vote for more integration in any shape or form.

I do not want to be a door mat for Sarkozy and Merkel.

Nody

Tora Bora wrote: »

I agree 101% with you.

I have always been, 101% pro the EU project, as I always, believed Ireland would be best served by being part of the centre, as opposed to a rocky outcrop looking in.
I voted yes to Lisbons 1 and 2.

BUT .... about 5 minutes after I came out of the ballot box for the second referendum, I felt I had mad a mistake. I really felt, I should have voted no, not because I was not in favour of the principle behind the idea, BUT, because I felt I had let democracy down, by not accepting the majority vote in the first referendum.
I am now of the opinion, that I will never again vote for more integration in any shape or form.

I do not want to be a door mat for Sarkozy and Merkel.

You are aware that having multiple referendums about the same thing has happened multiple times already on non EU related items yes? For example:

• Divorce
• Constituencies
• Abortion

Having multiple votes regarding such an item is not about being "anti democracy " which is popular to band around here by the "No" camp but rather the simple fact that people's oppinion change over time on subjects (or why would we bother to have normal elections?). Hence why today the idea of slavery is not accepted yet 300 years ago it would be a non issue (and multiple closer once such equal rights etc.).

You have the list of all Irish referendums here if you want to see them.

Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The above post was a joke, but I do want to be serious for just a moment.
The Irish, the Dutch, the French, the Greeks, and the British have now all had their democratic wishes bypassed in some way or another. The French and the Dtuch rejected Lisbon so it was simply re-worded to bypass a referendum, the Irish voted no and were bullied and scare-mongered into changing our opinion (well in my case anyway, can't speak for anyone else), and when the Greeks tried to hold a referendum on their bailout it pretty much ended in their government being wrenched from power to avoid it.

How much longer will the people of Europe tolerate this democratic deficit, I wonder? It's getting to the point now where it has gone beyond petty arguing IMO, it's gone beyond the usual banter we have on Boards and elsewhere, it's gone beyond anything even remotely insignificant. We as a nation, as a continent, need to have a very, very serious discussion about this ASAP, before it's too late to ever claw back whatever power the ordinary man on the street still has.

I'm sure those who oppose my views on Europe will mock me for this post and call me paranoid, and that's perfectly fine. But I do have a serious question for you if you do.

How many more times will you be able to watch a democratic decision being bypassed or opposed by those in power in the EU before you actually start to get pissed off about it? If you're ok with everything which has happened up until now with regard to democratic processes being made a mockery of and the people's will being ignored then fair enough, if you think that's an exaggeration then fair enough as well.

But my question is, how far does it have to go before you WILL agree that a line has been crossed and that it cannot be allowed to continue?
We're all going to have to deal with this sooner rather than later, I strongly advise everyone to drop the petty arguments we as a nation usually have about this and start taking it seriously. The meaning of a republic, the meaning of democracy is being repeatedly shat on, and unless you're happy to live without it (which is a perfectly valid viewpoint, but if so then let's call a spade a spade) you're going to need to think about this sooner or later.

Scoffy for instance (not singling you out, just that I have regular debates with you about this so your opinion was the first which jumped to mind): You have tended in the past to defend and excuse the democratic deficit and the numerous examples of the people's clear wishes being bypassed by the steamroller of EU integration. How far does democracy have to be trampled before it upsets you? Or is it simply something you don't attach as much importance to as I do?

When will it start to piss you off? How bad does it have to get before it becomes a problem, in your view?

The answer is, I think, that the things you believe are "undemocratic" are things I don't think are undemocratic - they're mostly what I would consider part of how democracy works.

You've cited a number of things there, such as the belief that parliamentary ratification is undemocratic, that repeat referendums are undemocratic, and that the decisions of the Greek parliament were undemocratic. I suspect I could probably add that you believe the formation of a technocratic government in Italy is undemocratic, although you didn't mention that one.

I don't think any of those things are undemocratic - each and every one of them is part of democracy. Arguing that they're undemocratic, to me, simply says that the person arguing it doesn't understand how democratic states function constitutionally, or apparently that there even any possibility of different constitutional forms of democracy. That the same people often fail to understand the nature of the democratic deficit in Ireland (or the EU) just reinforces that view.

So the answer to your question is that I'll see a problem with "democracy being trampled on" when that's actually what's happening.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tora Bora

Nody wrote: »

You are aware that having multiple referendums about the same thing has happened multiple times already on non EU related items yes? For example:

• Divorce
• Constituencies
• Abortion

Having multiple votes regarding such an item is not about being "anti democracy " which is popular to band around here by the "No" camp but rather the simple fact that people's oppinion change over time on subjects (or why would we bother to have normal elections?). Hence why today the idea of slavery is not accepted yet 300 years ago it would be a non issue (and multiple closer once such equal rights etc.).

You have the list of all Irish referendums here if you want to see them.

Yes, but only after a reasonable time has elapsed between first referendum and the second.

In the Lisbon case, it was back to the polling station with embarrasingly undue haste. Backroom beurocrats, perverting the will of the people, without allowing a long enough time frame for proper debate and reflection.

books4sale

Pity a number of ye didn't think about all this before ye kept ticking the FFail box at every election.....hyprocrites the lot of ye!

Its the ordinary people who sold this country and gave FFail the power to do it.

jmayo

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

This statement comes from the same poster that always tells us our capitalist system is the best there is so we should just put up with it.

When some of us state that the current capitalist system needs to be overhauled (particularly world financial markets) you dismiss us, yet you want our democracy to be scrapped.

We (some of us anyway) may have fooked up our country over the last 15 years, but would you rather the choice about where our country was headed was handed to the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany ?
That is a receipt to creating backwater Ireland where the citizens have shag all control of their destiny.

You are always pro business, pro small government yet you want a large uncontrolled bureaucracy such as the EU and probably decisions taken (i.e. taxes) that would only favour business within the heartland of Europe ?

Maura74 wrote: »

I feel it is the only way to go...governments of the default countries have proven that they are incompetent and corrupt regarding running their country. At least this way we should get some control how the money is spent and will do away with the top pensions as well as the ex-politicians and retired one that get outrageous benefits.

Dream on.
If the EU/ECB were so keen on reining in pensions and wastage of money on public spending they would have demanded that the CPA was scrapped.
You think that the French President is going to overhaul our public sector system ?
This would be president from a country whose labour laws and labour inefficiences which often makes ours look positively productive.

Maura74 wrote: »

Hope the EU reform will clean up the mess the PIGS are in.

And who will reform the EU and the ECB.
You do know that the same PIIGS did not magically pull all the money out of their ar**es.
It was primarily borrowed from institutions that happen to be based in the very countries whom you think will set everything right.

A borrower and lender do not exist in isolation.
One needs the other and a hell of a lot of people appear to forget this.

We have people here complaining about how our banks excercised shag all control on their lending, but they fail to notice how World and EU institutions did the exact same when lending to our banks.

Nody wrote: »

You are aware that having multiple referendums about the same thing has happened multiple times already on non EU related items yes? For example:

• Divorce
• Constituencies
• Abortion

Having multiple votes regarding such an item is not about being "anti democracy " which is popular to band around here by the "No" camp but rather the simple fact that people's oppinion change over time on subjects (or why would we bother to have normal elections?). Hence why today the idea of slavery is not accepted yet 300 years ago it would be a non issue (and multiple closer once such equal rights etc.).
...

The big difference you fail to mention is that those referendums were not run/rerun at the behest of a body to which we are a member or on the orders of the leaders of other soverign states.

Oh and stop drawing in a red herring like how our attitudes changed to slavery.

Wibbs

Nody wrote: »

You are aware that having multiple referendums about the same thing has happened multiple times already on non EU related items yes? For example:

• Divorce
• Constituencies
• Abortion

Having multiple votes regarding such an item is not about being "anti democracy " which is popular to band around here by the "No" camp but rather the simple fact that people's oppinion change over time on subjects (or why would we bother to have normal elections?).

Can you outline the time differences between each of those above referendums? Hint; it wasn't a rush job with external pressure barely year later.

As for Scofflaws response, clearly people have different opinions on what constitutes democracy. From the simplest form of a show of hands in the town square to secondary forms up the line. Obviously the show of hands democracy is largely unworkable on every single issue, hence the various forms of constitutional democracy we see out there, but where does one draw the line? For me? It would be my opinion that any reduction in the input of people in how their state is run gets further and further away from the basic show of hands model. Do people in various countries in the EU have less say in how their state operates compared to 20 years ago? To 10 years ago? I would argue most definitely yes. Regardless of ones stance on the importance or not of this that is most certainly happening bit by bit at the moment and is quite clearly reducing democracy. To suggest otherwise is IMHO sophistry to avoid the issue.

Debtocracy

Scofflaw wrote: »

You've cited a number of things there, such as the belief that parliamentary ratification is undemocratic, that repeat referendums are undemocratic, and that the decisions of the Greek parliament were undemocratic. I suspect I could probably add that you believe the formation of a technocratic government in Italy is undemocratic, although you didn't mention that one.

There’s a simple logic as to why Lisbon 2 was not proper democracy – If we had said yes, the referendum would never have been re-run again. Thus, the structure of the referendum process alone (independent of the associated politics) increased the chance of the yes vote.

Technocratic banker governments would appear to be on the very low end of the democratic continuum. I'm sure the people of Iceland would find this version of democracy humorous.

Scofflaw

Wibbs wrote: »

Can you outline the time differences between each of those above referendums? Hint; it wasn't a rush job with external pressure barely year later.

As for Scofflaws response, clearly people have different opinions on what constitutes democracy. From the simplest form of a show of hands in the town square to secondary forms up the line. Obviously the show of hands democracy is largely unworkable on every single issue, hence the various forms of constitutional democracy we see out there, but where does one draw the line? For me? It would be my opinion that any reduction in the input of people in how their state is run gets further and further away from the basic show of hands model. Do people in various countries in the EU have less say in how their state operates compared to 20 years ago? To 10 years ago? I would argue most definitely yes. Regardless of ones stance on the importance or not of this that is most certainly happening bit by bit at the moment and is quite clearly reducing democracy. To suggest otherwise is IMHO sophistry to avoid the issue.

That sounds rather like you're dismissing the opposing argument before even setting out your own! Why do you think people have less say in how their state operates than 20 years ago? Or, to put it another way, and a quite important one, can you show that they actually had more say in how their state operated than 20 years ago? Because if you can't, then the assertion that they have less say now is basically meaningless.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Debtocracy wrote: »

There’s a simple logic as to why Lisbon 2 was not proper democracy – If we had said yes, the referendum would never have been re-run again. Thus, the structure of the referendum process alone (independent of the associated politics) increased the chance of the yes vote.

Technocratic banker governments would appear to be on the very low end of the democratic continuum. I'm sure the people of Iceland would find this version of democracy humorous.

That's a viewpoint that, while widely held, is actually ludicrous. As you put it, ironically, that's something in the structure of a referendum itself. A decision to change the Constitution is a decision to change the Constitution. Changing it back is a separate process. A yes does not mean a "temporary condition of potential change" but an actual change, whereas a no is a decision not to implement the change on that occasion - and that's true for every referendum.

For example, the question of Oireachtas inquiries is not settled in perpetuity by the recent no vote. All that has happened is that government has been denied the change it sought, on this occasion. It can put it to the vote again and again, as often as it likes, legally and constitutionally - the only reason for not doing so is that it erodes the government's credibility to do so.

And if we had voted Yes, as we did in the Judge's pay referendum, then the change happens. Again, if you wanted to take the judges' pay provisions out of the Constitution, you would need a separate and different referendum.

That was, in fact, one of the arguments against the Oireachtas inquiries amendment - that once you said yes, you've said yes. It's true for all referendums, whereas if you voted No, the government was free to come back and either explain it better or change the terms.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wibbs

Scofflaw wrote: »

That sounds rather like you're dismissing the opposing argument before even setting out your own! Why do you think people have less say in how their state operates than 20 years ago? Or, to put it another way, and a quite important one, can you show that they actually had more say in how their state operated than 20 years ago? Because if you can't, then the assertion that they have less say now is basically meaningless.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Nope. Try again. I'm not dismissing the "opposing argument" without setting out my own. Indeed I put no argument for or nay as to whether this is a good or bad thing. EG "Regardless of ones stance on the importance or not of this"*. I simply stated my opinion that democracy is getting further away from the direct model. IMHO to argue differently is an odd stance. And we don't even have to go 20 years back. Look to Greece currently. How many of the current Greek government were voted in an election? The current Italian government? Go back a year. Compare and contrast. Now of course this may be explained away as an "emergency situation", but history has shown emergency solutions to such situations had an unfortunate habit of becoming more long term. For good or ill? Too early to tell.

As for the referendum question. Bringing in previous referendums with years between them as a an explanation for the unseemly haste of Lisbon is either disingenuous or wooly thinking. That unseemly haste was on the back of EU pressure to run it again. To say otherwise is frankly daft. Oh and BTW I voted Yes first time out so that dog won't hunt.




*indeed my position is closer to "too many people are dribbling morons or woefully uniformed, so asking them to make complex decisions is often fraught with danger. Further IMHO a vote is not a right and should be earned by a broad written examination to cull the dribblers" No direct democrat am I.

liammur

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2065566/Merkel-Sarkozy-spearhead-new-EU-treaties-save-euro.html

also see tonight with vincent browne http://tv3.ie/3player/show/41/0/0/Tonight-with-Vincent-Browne


sign another eu treaty and give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU or say no more to EU? discuss

Why not lose it all? I for one would be happy. The biggest ones to complain and the biggest losers will be the politicians.

amen

Not a chance in hell will I vote to give a single letter of sovereignty away, ever again

Hell I'd vote to give it all away. As a country we have an inability to govern ourselves in a manner that is fair and equitable to all. We cannot balance our budget, we have an inability to plan, measure and follow through.

Let someone else try.

Scofflaw

Wibbs wrote: »

Nope. Try again. I'm not dismissing the "opposing argument" without setting out my own. Indeed I put no argument for or nay as to whether this is a good or bad thing. EG "Regardless of ones stance on the importance or not of this"*. I simply stated my opinion that democracy is getting further away from the direct model. IMHO to argue differently is an odd stance. And we don't even have to go 20 years back. Look to Greece currently. How many of the current Greek government were voted in an election? The current Italian government? Go back a year. Compare and contrast. Now of course this may be explained away as an "emergency situation", but history has shown emergency solutions to such situations had an unfortunate habit of becoming more long term. For good or ill? Too early to tell.

As for the referendum question. Bringing in previous referendums with years between them as a an explanation for the unseemly haste of Lisbon is either disingenuous or wooly thinking. That unseemly haste was on the back of EU pressure to run it again. To say otherwise is frankly daft. Oh and BTW I voted Yes first time out so that dog won't hunt.


*indeed my position is closer to "too many people are dribbling morons or woefully uniformed, so asking them to make complex decisions is often fraught with danger. Further IMHO a vote is not a right and should be earned by a broad written examination to cull the dribblers" No direct democrat am I.

Perhaps we should try that again, because all you've done there is repeat your two assertions that (a) things have got less democratic; and (b) anyone who thinks differently is weird.

You're definitely making an assertion, and you're definitely not backing it up - all you've done is waved your arms in the general direction of a couple of recent events in other countries. Sure, it's an opinion, but an opinion with nothing to back it isn't worth very much!

cordially,
Scofflaw

HivemindXX

I thought we had already given up our sovereignty, sold ourselves in to slavery and were under the complete control of Brussels and/or Berlin.

Pick your story and stick to it guys...

Crazy Horse 6

Maura74 wrote: »

I feel it is the only way to go...governments of the default countries have proven that they are incompetent and corrupt regarding running their country. At least this way we should get some control how the money is spent and will do away with the top pensions as well as the ex-politicians and retired one that get outrageous benefits.

Hope the EU reform will clean up the mess the PIGS are in.

I would have been against this train of thought not that long ago but tbh with every day that passes it gets more tempting.

Crazy Horse 6

books4sale wrote: »

Pity a number of ye didn't think about all this before ye kept ticking the FFail box at every election.....hyprocrites the lot of ye!

Its the ordinary people who sold this country and gave FFail the power to do it.

So bloody true and whats worse is the same people have voted in a government now that is just as culpable.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

hatrickpatrick

Scofflaw wrote: »

The answer is, I think, that the things you believe are "undemocratic" are things I don't think are undemocratic - they're mostly what I would consider part of how democracy works.

You've cited a number of things there, such as the belief that parliamentary ratification is undemocratic, that repeat referendums are undemocratic, and that the decisions of the Greek parliament were undemocratic. I suspect I could probably add that you believe the formation of a technocratic government in Italy is undemocratic, although you didn't mention that one.

I don't think any of those things are undemocratic - each and every one of them is part of democracy. Arguing that they're undemocratic, to me, simply says that the person arguing it doesn't understand how democratic states function constitutionally, or apparently that there even any possibility of different constitutional forms of democracy. That the same people often fail to understand the nature of the democratic deficit in Ireland (or the EU) just reinforces that view.

So the answer to your question is that I'll see a problem with "democracy being trampled on" when that's actually what's happening.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I don't actually consider parliamentary ratification or repeat referenda as undemocratic, it is the manner in which they are performed which makes them undemocratic.
For instance: When the people flatly reject a document, to openly and literally re-word it so as to remove the necessity for asking the people again, while doing everything possible to preserve the integrity of the document, is in my view profoundly undemocratic. It's bypassing the decision of the people based on technicalities. When the French and Dutch rejected the Constitution, we must assume they were rejecting the entire document, not merely the elements of it which made a referendum necessary in the first place.

Likewise, the issue I have in the case of Greece is fairly simple: The government of Greece announces a referendum, and are immediately attacked on all sides by other nations over the referendum itself, and the wording of that referendum. These other nations even go as far as to propose the wording of that referendum themselves, a wording which is totally removed from the original intention of the referendum, even though as external actors they have absolutely no right whatsoever to dictate what an internal poll in a member state should look like.

In the case of Ireland, we were deceived by lies. I don't need to go into detail on this one as it has, in my view, been done to death on these boards, however I will simply cite two examples:

1: Brian Lenihan after Lisbon II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sED3iApAvE

Summary for those who can't watch: Brian Lenihan claimed in an interview that "We never promised jobs" (I forget which interview but I'll link to it as soon as I remember), and you will then see many images of him holding "VOTE YES FOR JOBS" signs.

2: We were given guarantees under Lisbon II about our corporate tax sovereignty, yet over the course of the last year this has come up again and again and again as something Sarkozy has attempted to destroy. While this isn't direct dishonesty with regard to Lisbon specifically, it's still incredibly dishonest. We were lead to believe that these guarantees safeguarded our corporate tax regime and that the EU would back off. This did not happen.

I will also give you a simple quote from Sarkozy himself: "The Irish must vote again."
What gives him, or anyone else, the right to tell us what a democratic nation "must" do when their democratic decision doesn't go his way? Oh sure, you can say, as you have before, that Sarkozy doesn't speak for the EU, but that press conference last week on Greece where Sarkozy and Merkel implied themselves as the be all and end all of decision making in Europe begs to differ.

and that the decisions of the Greek parliament were undemocratic. I suspect I could probably add that you believe the formation of a technocratic government in Italy is undemocratic, although you didn't mention that one.

It is undemocratic in the sense that the sovereign, elected government of the nation tried to do one thing, and the EU more or less piled on enough pressure to force them to change their mind or get out of office. This is fundamentally despicable. In the case of Greece, after the referendum was announced, the press conference essentially broadcast a message of "either change your decision or GTFO". And I honestly don't understand how anyone who believes in any form of democracy can be anything but appalled over how these events have played out.

In terms of Italy, I'll confess that I need to update myself on that situation, I haven't let it slip by me out of apathy but simply because there is so much going on right now all over the world and I've been playing catch up n several other stories for the last week or two. I'll read up on this one and make an argument about it as soon as I'm clued in.

But my original question still stands. How far does this autocratic overriding of national sovereignty by the EU have to go before it upsets you? Or is it simply that you don't really mind it, and it wouldn't upset you at all?

When I see Merkel and Sarkozy giving a joint press conference and painting themselves as the ultimate rulers of Europe, I see a serious, serious democratic problem there. They certainly had no right whatsoever to attempt to interfere in an internal referendum in a sovereign state.

Back on topic, in this thread we are talking about signing away further sovereignty to the EU. Again I ask you, if you are ok with that, then that's a perfectly valid viewpoint. I'm curious to know, however, where you draw the line, if indeed you do draw any line. At what point will it have gone too far for your liking? At what point will the Irish parliament be so powerless to decide on Irish law and Irish affairs that you can no longer tolerate it?

whatstherush

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

In the case of Ireland, we were deceived by lies.

Speak for yourself, if you can't parse political promises and slogans for what they are, thats your own problem. I never believed that a vote for yes would automatically deliver jobs or lead me to be conscripted into a European super army at a rate of €1.84 an hour.