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Lisbon vote October 2nd - How do you intend to vote?

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Comments

  • #1322
    O'Morris
    Closed Accounts Posts: 619 ✭✭✭O'Morris


    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote:
    If the Irish people have agreed to that situation by constitutional referendum, then they have shared that right, in return for the ability to reverse the transaction.

    It's alright when people give their consent through a referendum? What about countries that haven't been given a referendum? Have they also shared that right?

    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote:
    It's shared sovereignty, and there's nothing legally, or morally wrong with it, if agreed by the people.

    So would you like to see the other member states being given referendums on the Lisbon Treaty?


  • #1323
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,093 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    O'Morris wrote: »
    So would you like to see the other member states being given referendums on the Lisbon Treaty?

    And who would 'give' them to the member states exactly?


  • #1324
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    Yes i have, on multiple occasions, but yes-men have the concentration span of a goldfish.

    The democratic legitimacy of international organizations that take serious decisions binding on their membership is only retained by decision-making by unanimity.

    Let me repeat for the hard of understanding... The democratic legitimacy of international organizations that take serious decisions binding on their membership is only retained by decision-making by unanimity.
    The good news is, you only have to repeat it another 46,227 times for it to magically become true without any supporting evidence.

    The bad news is, until then it remains your unsubstantiated opinion. It's an opinion you're entitled to, but it's still just your opinion. And you know what they say about opinions.


  • #1325
    O'Morris
    Closed Accounts Posts: 619 ✭✭✭O'Morris


    marco_polo wrote:
    And who would 'give' them to the member states exactly?

    The same people who give them elections to the European parliament.


  • #1326
    rumour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 836 ✭✭✭rumour


    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    Well you shouldn't because the vast majority of people on both sides had no idea what they were voting on. Saying "respect my vote" is not an excuse for wilful ignorance. A decision made for stupid reasons deserves no respect

    You are assuming that everyone was willfully ignorant. That is the conclusion of the people who lost the last time hardly the best place to determine reasons as most of it was an ass covering exercise by politicians. Using your own methods of opinion polls (as that was method of determining how wilfully ignorant people were) current opinion polls despite protocol assurances haven't rectified the problem. It is possible that the problems with this treaty are much more fundamental than you care to believe and not limited to media soundbites. Reading posts on numerous threads there is a unwillingness to debate by the yes campaign on any intellectual level. They are consumed by a desire to amange perception rather than advocate what is good about this treaty. If they cannot advocate anything good why on earth would anyone agree to it.
    Additionally, it is somewhat contradictory to argue principals of democracy and then reject them when they don't suit on the grounds that people were willfully ignorant.
    At what point do you accept that as the minorty you must accept the decision of the majority?

    However that said, which issue do you think we should be voting on?


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  • #1327
    Freeborn John
    Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭Freeborn John


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    The good news is, you only have to repeat it another 46,227 times for it to magically become true without any supporting evidence.

    The bad news is, until then it remains your unsubstantiated opinion. It's an opinion you're entitled to, but it's still just your opinion. And you know what they say about opinions.

    The supporting evidence is that those international organizations that have retained decision-making by unanimity (e.g. WTO with 153 members, NATO with 28) have not suffered an EU-like breakdown in democratic legitimacy. And that the EU's crisis of democratic legitimacy first appeared in the early 1990s when QMV was first introduced into politically contested policy areas and has grown since as QMV has been extended into new and more politically contested fields.

    Pro-Lisbon supporters on here like yourself have no alternative explanation that fits the facts. All you have is empty assertions that i am wrong, which bear no relationship with the widening and deepening EU legitimacy crisis as evidenced by the long litany of defeated EU referendums in Ireland (twice), France and the Netherlands (on EU constitution), Sweden (on the euro), Denmark (on Maastricht) and Norway and Switzerland (on EU membership) since the early 1990s.


  • #1328
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    rumour wrote: »
    I have a question which all the experts may help me with. In the new referendum on the 2nd of October, should the question read:
    1. Do you vote for the Lisbon Treaty?
    2. Do you vote for the Lisbon Treaty including the protocols as published XXXXX?
    I would be very interested to know opinions on this matter as this is the real choice we are facing now. In my opinion anything other than 2 above will certainly get a 'no' from me because I accept the results of the previous referendum.
    Neither of the above. The question will be on a proposed amendment to the Irish Constitution.


  • #1329
    rumour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 836 ✭✭✭rumour


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    Neither of the above. The question will be on a proposed amendment to the Irish Constitution.

    Please excuse my inaccuarcy. Should the amendment to the constitution be based on either option 1 or 2.


  • #1330
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    The supporting evidence is that those international organizations that have retained decision-making by unanimity (e.g. WTO with 153 members, NATO with 28) have not suffered an EU-like breakdown in democratic legitimacy. And that the EU's crisis of democratic legitimacy first appeared in the early 1990s when QMV was first introduced into politically contested policy areas and has grown since as QMV has been extended into new and more politically contested fields.
    See, you're just repeating yourself again, and you're still arguing from your conclusion. You claim that there's a breakdown in democratic legitimacy, but you just refuse over and over again to define democratic legitimacy except in terms of your premise that democratic legitimacy exists only in the form of nation-state governments, which is yet another unsubstantiated opinion.

    Look: you have a view on the world. That view is that the nation-state is the final and immutable result of a process of political evolution; that there can never be any improvement on the perfection of the nation-state; that any steps beyond that point at which evolution has reached its perfect pinnacle must be fought at all costs.

    It's a view. I disagree with it. That doesn't make it wrong; it just makes it a difference of opinion between us.

    I think that nationalism is, historically, a dividing force in the world. I think it's xenophobia with a thin veneer of respectability. I think it was a step along an evolutionary process towards finally getting over our respective hangups about foreigners, but I think we have a long way to go.

    It's a view. You disagree with it. That doesn't make it wrong; it just makes it a difference of opinion between us.

    The other major difference between us is that I'm not proclaiming my worldview to be the One True Way, and preaching sermons at people who disagree with me. I'm certainly not casting aspersions on people's intelligence just because they disagree with me.

    It's just politics. Stop treating it like religion.


  • #1331
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    rumour wrote: »
    Please excuse my inaccuarcy. Should the amendment to the constitution be based on either option 1 or 2.
    The proposed amendment has been published. You can read it here.


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  • #1332
    marco_polo
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 10,093 Mod ✭✭✭✭marco_polo


    O'Morris wrote: »
    The same people who give them elections to the European parliament.

    It is up to the Member states themselves to decide how to ratify the treaty, nobody has authority to 'give' a member state a referendum.

    Do you consider the current status quo legitimate?, because not everyone had a referendum on the last EU treaty, or the previous ones either.


  • #1333
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    rumour wrote: »
    Reading this as a debate between yourself and Freeborn John, I think you have lost. Please concede and move on.

    Who appointed you as a judge?


  • #1334
    Freeborn John
    Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭Freeborn John


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    See, you're just repeating yourself again, and you're still arguing from your conclusion.

    I am repeating the case, because someone with a short memory said i had not made it already! Now you accuse me of repetition!

    I have a joined-up argument that explains the facts. All you can say is that i am arguing from my conclusion but that is very weak stuff from someone incapable of coming up any alternative explanation for the EU's problems. My explanation is coherent and exactly fits with the real world events we have seen (e.g. all the defeated EU referendums since the early 1990s in a widening list of countries). You have no explanation for this pattern of events but are still advocating the ratification of Lisbon which by my explanation would make the EU democratic legitimacy problem worse.

    Please admit you are at a complete loss to explain the widening and deepening EU legitimacy crisis, but are blindly recommending continuing with the same old federalist agenda (which is what Lisbon is) that led directly to the current problem!


  • #1335
    rumour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 836 ✭✭✭rumour


    oscarBravo wrote: »
    The proposed amendment has been published. You can read it here.

    In your opinion should the protocols become a condition of what we are voting on?


  • #1336
    rumour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 836 ✭✭✭rumour


    P. Breathnach wrote: »
    Who appointed you as a judge?

    The EU Commission :)


  • #1337
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    ... Please admit you are at a complete loss to explain the widening and deepening EU legitimacy crisis ...

    As you are the one who has asserted that there is such a crisis, I think it incumbent on you to explain it.


  • #1338
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    rumour wrote: »
    In your opinion should the protocols become a condition of what we are voting on?

    They are.


  • #1339
    Sam Vimes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    rumour wrote: »
    You are assuming that everyone was willfully ignorant. That is the conclusion of the people who lost the last time hardly the best place to determine reasons as most of it was an ass covering exercise by politicians.
    I'm not assuming anything. The people were asked and they told us why they voted whichever way they did.
    rumour wrote: »
    Using your own methods of opinion polls (as that was method of determining how wilfully ignorant people were) current opinion polls despite protocol assurances haven't rectified the problem.
    That's mostly because of people telling them the protocols are worthless and coming out with still more lies and scaremongering. They still don't know what's in the treaty
    rumour wrote: »
    It is possible that the problems with this treaty are much more fundamental than you care to believe and not limited to media soundbites. Reading posts on numerous threads there is a unwillingness to debate by the yes campaign on any intellectual level. They are consumed by a desire to amange perception rather than advocate what is good about this treaty. If they cannot advocate anything good why on earth would anyone agree to it.
    You will notice 10 reasons to vote yes in my sig. There is a book coming out called 100 reasons to vote yes. There are lots of reasons to vote yes but people are ignoring them. There is an unwillingness to debate from the yes side because there are only so many times you can correct the same nonsense before you get mighty tired of it. If you try to correct someone's misconception and they won't listen what else can you do?
    rumour wrote: »
    Additionally, it is somewhat contradictory to argue principals of democracy and then reject them when they don't suit on the grounds that people were willfully ignorant.
    The principles of democracy place a responsiliby on the people to inform themselves along with the right to vote. People want the right without the responsibility. Having people walk in and randomly draw an X somewhere on a page is not a way to run a country
    rumour wrote: »
    However that said, which issue do you think we should be voting on?

    See my sig


  • #1340
    Freeborn John
    Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭Freeborn John


    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    You will notice 10 reasons to vote yes in my sig...

    Nine of those are reasons to vote NO. The other does not need a treaty.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055637316


  • #1341
    Spiritoftheseventies
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,082 ✭✭✭✭Spiritoftheseventies


    taconnol wrote: »
    As an environmentalist, I'm personally happier that we have been investing in renewable energy instead but I still don't see what the EU (or Lisbon for that matter) has to do with the above...?
    I'm saying that as a nation that relies a lot on Europe do we use them as a safety net. Lets say hypothetically speaking we chose to opt out. And say okay we are going to become self sufficient in terms of developing the technology to harness our own natural resources. If we have oil and gas on these shores and we have the people from within who can process it we can therefore export it while keeping the money here in the economy.
    And it strengthens our hand abroad.


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  • #1342
    RandomName2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,575 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    P. Breathnach wrote: »
    As you are the one who has asserted that there is such a crisis, I think it incumbent on you to explain it.

    Come now, we should be able to settle this amicably.

    Freeborn should explain it as best he can.
    You can agree or disagree, even if you don't entirely understand him.
    Freeborn can ask it again if you disagree, and give guarantees that your misgivings about him are mistaken.
    If you disagree twice though he just might kill you :D


  • #1343
    Sam Vimes
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    Nine of those are reasons to vote NO. The other does not need a treaty.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055637316

    Your only actual reason to vote no is:

    1. I do not like the EU

    Most of Ireland and the rest of Europe want to continue the European project and it's undemocratic for a few hundred thousand people in Ireland to force the plans of 500 million people to grind to a halt. There is nothing that could change in the treaty that would make you happy, you simply do not like the EU, just like most no campaigners, the rest being made up of people who have believed the scaremongering of the rest.

    Why don't you start a campaign to get Ireland to leave the EU to see what people really think of it instead of scaring people into fearing the big bad bogeymen in Brussels?


  • #1344
    Freeborn John
    Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭Freeborn John


    RandomName2 wrote: »
    Freeborn can ask it again if you disagree, and give guarantees that your misgivings about him are mistaken./quote]

    Not sure i understand what is being asked of me?


  • #1345
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    I have a joined-up argument that explains the facts.
    No; you have a joined-up argument that justifies (to you) your opinion.
    All you can say is that i am arguing from my conclusion but that is very weak stuff from someone incapable of coming up any alternative explanation for the EU's problems.
    You're asking me to come up with an alternative explanation for what you consider the EU's problems.

    Do you see what I mean by arguing from a conclusion?
    My explanation is coherent and exactly fits with the real world events we have seen (e.g. all the defeated EU referendums since the early 1990s in a widening list of countries).
    What's your explanation for all the successful EU referendums of the past several decades?


  • #1346
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    O'Morris wrote: »
    It's alright when people give their consent through a referendum? What about countries that haven't been given a referendum? Have they also shared that right?

    He's talking about sharing of Irish sovreignty, I don't feel that other countries referenda should have any bearing on that.
    O'Morris wrote: »
    So would you like to see the other member states being given referendums on the Lisbon Treaty?
    I didn't say how consent should be given, I wouldn't be against other member states having referenda, but frankly, it's none of my business, or yours.


  • #1347
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    Not sure i understand what is being asked of me?

    That's progress.

    Up to now, you have given the impression that you are totally sure about everything. Clearly irony is not in your compass.


  • #1348
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    Freeborn John wrote: »
    The democratic legitimacy of international organizations that take serious decisions binding on their membership is only retained by decision-making by unanimity.

    Why?


  • #1349
    rumour
    Closed Accounts Posts: 836 ✭✭✭rumour


    Sam Vimes wrote: »

    The principles of democracy place a responsiliby on the people to inform themselves along with the right to vote. People want the right without the responsibility. Having people walk in and randomly draw an X somewhere on a page is not a way to run a country


    See my sig

    The principals of democracy place a moral obligation as distinct from a responsibility. Infact our democracy has not seen fit to make it a responsibility to vote, something I think should be adressed as this lack of respensibility corrodes democratic legitimacy. (I shall say no more here as it is in full swing elsewhere on this thread:))
    However you are straying into extremely non PC terroitory with where you are going. By implication it appears some people shouldn't really be allowed vote (I get serious enjoyment out of people avoiding saying this!!). And this may well be true until you are included in that category. I allude to VGD who really didn't want the public of Europe consulted on this at all.


  • #1350
    Macha
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 6,391 Mod ✭✭✭✭Macha


    bayviewclose wrote: »
    I'm saying that as a nation that relies a lot on Europe do we use them as a safety net. Lets say hypothetically speaking we chose to opt out. And say okay we are going to become self sufficient in terms of developing the technology to harness our own natural resources. If we have oil and gas on these shores and we have the people from within who can process it we can therefore export it while keeping the money here in the economy.
    And it strengthens our hand abroad.
    It is not possible for us to become entirely self-sufficient with our own resources. Fossil fuels are finite resources and will eventually run out so banking on them is quite pointless. Renewables work better when part of a larger grid as it results in greater load-levelling as there's only so much storage that can be created in a small energy market like Ireland (or the SEM).

    Also, we want to export our energy surplus to other countries when we have it - ie to our European neighbours.

    Opting out does not help us in terms of energy at all. And as a country with 89% dependency on imported fuel (SEI, 2007) I think it's in our best interests to improve indigenous resources BUT recognise their limitations and how they work best when deployed in tandem with close geographical neighbours.


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  • #1351
    Freeborn John
    Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭Freeborn John


    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    Most of Ireland and the rest of Europe want to continue the European project and it's undemocratic for a few hundred thousand people in Ireland to force the plans of 500 million people to grind to a halt. There is nothing that could change in the treaty that would make you happy, you simply do not like the EU.

    The plans were made by a handful of people in the inner presidium of the EU convention that excluded all non-federalists. There is nothing democratic about that plan which would (as Charlie McCreevy has said somewhat understating the case) be defeated in 95% of EU member states.

    Federalists dominated the EU Convention that wrote the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty but they are a tiny minority in every European country. The number of people who support the federalist objective of hollowing out nation-states and transferring as many of their powers to Brussels as possible is tiny. No more than 15% in any even the most federalist country (Luxembourg) and just 3 to 4 per cent in Ireland. It is precisely because federalists lack the numbers that they resort to subterfuge ('integration by stealth'), and undemocratic means ('keep voting til you get it right') to achieve a goal by hook or by crook which is not shared by ordinary voters.


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