The European Constitution

[Sgt. Boomer]

The main problem is that the vote doesn’t really matter. The “constitution” was largely just meant to codify what was already being done in the EU. Schroeder has already said that the constitution “was still needed to build a strong Europe and the ratification process should continue as planned.” The no votes might slow down the process, but to quote the Torygraph: “…the project was never meant to be democratic. From the first, the EU\'s founding fathers understood that it needed to be immune to public opinion.” [Mere democracy won't stop the EU machine]

As for reasonable debate leading up to the referendums, most bureaucrats were predicting the apocalypse should it fail: “…both the Dutch prime minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, and Sweden\'s EU commissioner, Margot Walstrom, declared that the alternative to the constitution was the death camps of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. These historic crimes had been produced not by Nazism but by (in Walstrom\'s words) “the old intergovernmental way of doing things”.” [If the constitution falls... By John O'Sullivan]

So the question of whether you agree with the current policies and ideology of the EU is far less relevant than whether you want to entrust your future to a less open, less accountable political body and system that will only get worse as their power increases.

[Jackeh]

i just want to know how they expect us to seriously vote yes when hardly any of us know whats in it

[Smithcraft]

Did someone say it\'s TWO HUNDERED pages long?

Is that all the localizations, or just the whole enchilada?

SC

[shift]

To be expecific, the integral text of the Constitution provided by my country in pdf is 349 pages long. So printed versions are about that ammount.

You know, easy reading.

Anyway, simplified versions were distributed apart from that.

[EDIT]
Oops, forgot to mention that you could read the Protocols and Add-ons to the Constitution if you liked too.
They sum up 382 more pages

[The_Punisher]

Oh yeah. You\'re making the constitution way way way too complex.

[=D.C.L.I=Everest]

shift Wrote:

=D.C.L.I=Everest Wrote:

shift Wrote:having the extreme right in the "NO" group gives me anything but good feelings.

That\'s because it\'s about dead center. I\'d be more scared if the extreme right would be in the "YES" side of the spectrum. Wouldn\'t you?

Aw, ok, let\'s put it this way:

Sure a lot of ppl are in the NO because of the low social level and globalization threats of this thing, and I can empathize with that, but I have the impression that this is just the superficial layer. The underlying reasons in quite a bunch of ppl are basically xenophobia and chauvinism. THEY\'ll come here and steal our jobs. THEY\'ll take out our relevant status. You know the deal.

But it\'s just a personal impression, so take it as it is.

As always, how do you see the bottle? Half empty or half full?

More than xenophobia, it\'s history. Look at the USA, for example: they grew up together. Their states share both history and language. Now, Europe is thousands of years old, with literally hundreds of peoples spread across it. Our cultures differ more because of that than the USA\'s. The Civil War proved how hard it was for a country that was only about 250 years old (counting from the first settlements). How on earth is it going to work in Europe?

[shift]

As long as it\'s economically profitable, it can work.
Anyway, they\'r failing in supplying also ideals to please the people and make them support them.

As far as I know, that Civil War was about abolition of slavering, an ideal, but the real reason was to get their hands on the economical power of the south regions. Correct me if I\'m wrong.

The problem is that in both the pro and anti constitution groups you find lights and shadows, and any of those positions can be right or wrong. As long as we can\'t see the future it\'s all just a matter of personal perception of things. You can believe that it\'ll work and it\'ll improve, and vote yes, or just distrust all this and vote no.

[Sgt. Boomer]

The EU as a loosely defined economic association with a free trade agreement is a good idea – and profitability is enough to keep people happy.

But the EU as a centralized, integrated super-state, particularly with a “progressive” (read: radical meddling social-engineering) minded government is a very, very bad idea.

=D.C.L.I=Everest Wrote:Look at the USA, for example: they grew up together. Their states share both history and language. Now, Europe is thousands of years old, with literally hundreds of peoples spread across it. Our cultures differ more because of that than the USA\'s. The Civil War proved how hard it was for a country that was only about 250 years old (counting from the first settlements). How on earth is it going to work in Europe?

That about sums it up. The US also had two other powerful assets: a sense of nationalism that bordered on the religious; and a single religion that permeated the public consciousness and conscience. European nationalism works against the EU, and modern liberalism has virtually destroyed the Christian/conservative ethic of self-sacrifice for the greater good.

European nations have had time to adjust to the idea of wealth redistribution and social change and compromise within their countries – but neither came without major upheaval. Trying to impose more of the same, and for the sake of other nations and cultures, would take either tremendous prosperity to keep everyone placated, or a very strong (i.e. tyrannical) central government.

The EU constitution as it’s written is broad enough and vague enough to allow an ever stronger central government to override the democratic process of individual nations. Just look what judicial activists have done in the past few decades by having judges overturn or create laws by interpreting the US constitution however they pleased. And the US constitution is short and concise.

Whether you agree with the judicial definition of progressive is irrelevant, what’s important is the issue of accountability. Once you start yielding power to government it can be difficult to impossible to get it back.

shift Wrote:As far as I know, that Civil War was about abolition of slavering, an ideal, but the real reason was to get their hands on the economical power of the south regions. Correct me if I\'m wrong.

:con: ? So you’re saying the civil war was about blood for cotton?

No, it wasn’t about economics. The 1850’s had been a time of extreme tension between the North and South over the issue of slavery. It was so bad that on one occasion, after an abolitionist senator made a particularly critical speech, a Southern congressman beat him unconscious with his cane. By the time the South seceded, the anger on both sides was such that compromise was out of the question.

So the war was about slavery, though not in the sense that every Northerner was a virtuous abolitionist fighting for the ideal of freedom. For many it was about ideology, for most it was about the expansion of the West. The 1857 Dred Scott decision struck down the 1820 Missouri Compromise (as unconstitutional :roll: ) thus permitting slavery in the Western territories. To many Northerners, with dreams of going West, that meant the possibility of competition with both large slave plantations and free blacks in the new territories (a bit of xenophobia and chauvinism). And for the South, it was anger over economic and ideological interference in their lives and culture.

In short, just about everything that p****s people off and makes them want to kill each other.

[The_Punisher]

The confederacy was in play both during the civil war and just before the US Constitution was written. Both times it failed.


Because of the way the southern states were joined through confederacy, they were coming apart at the seams economically

[Big-Al]

I\'m for...