French Minister warns Irish voters if they vote Non

sink

Scofflaw wrote: »

Is it not more a case of following the constitutional structure of the state?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Well yes I suppose so, but it's not possible to have direct democracy that works properly due to human nature so that is why we have to settle for parliamentary democracy.

Darragh29 wrote: »

Your post above demonstrates the typical arrogance of the yes campaign. Your implication above that anyone who votes no does not understand the substance of the treaty is remarkable. There may be people who vote no for the sake of voting no, but I've voted no because I do not believe that the EU will accept a no, so I believe that on this basis, everyone ought to vote no. Voting yes and ignoring the fact that you cannot vote no is simply accepting that you can be silenced as a voter. If the referendum happened to be about something that you felt strongly about, say divorce or abortion, are you telling me that you would tolerate for a second the government and external governments telling you that you MUST vote on particular way on an issue??? There might be nothing amotive about the Lisbon Treaty, but the principal of people being free to vote entirely as they wish and that decision being fully respected, must still stand. The fact that you can ignore the wider implications of what is happening here, which is far more important than anything that is in the Lisbon Treaty, might come back to haunt you when the subject matter may be more emotive but the same approach will be used, i.e: "you MUST vote as we tell you"...

Well I also thought the yes campaign was run terribly. I'm not basing my opinion purely on this referendum. And I'm not knocking all no voters, there are those out there who wanted a return to the EC common market days and nothing more, and their vote was completely legitimate, same goes for people who are against Ireland forming any sort of military links with other states. There are many other reasons to vote no that are perfectly legitimate, they all have something in common, direct cause and effect.

Your reason for voting no is because other sovereign governments are not behaving as you would like, and that the main parties you felt were bullying you. These issues will not be impacted by you voting yes or no, what you are actually doing is disenfranchising yes and no voters who had legitimate reasons for voting the way they did on the treaty. It is not just people on the no side that are disenfranchising voters, but also people on the yes side who are voting along party lines or because they feel it is a 'safe bet' but actually have no clue what is in the treaty. For these people there is no cause and effect so what is the point in them voting?

Darragh29

djpbarry wrote: »

You've already made this claim (either in this thread or another one) and it's already been pointed out to you that this is nonsense. You can vote any way you want, but voting without even considering what you're voting on is pretty daft.
It does. You're basically just complaining that the government is campaigning for a 'Yes' vote, which they are perfectly in entitled to do; as is any other group.

Funny that you don't complain that the 'No' campaigners are "forcing" you to vote 'No'.

There is a world of a diference, as we have seen in this campaign, between "campaigning" to an electorate, which is perfectly legitimate and threatening an electorate. Nobody has forced me to anything, I voted to preserve my right to vote whatever way I want, without fear or favour. This government clearly crossed a line on this occasion, and proceeded to threaten the electorate on not just one but several occasions, which I suspect and I hope might just come back to bite them in the arse tomorrow. There would be riots in Paris if our foreign affairs minister threatened the French people like this. Obviously back on Craggy Island, we just do what we are told, we lack any backbone and cannot see any argument that is not based on economic reasoning.

An EU that attempts to subvert and silence a whole continent of voters and then threatens the one country that has a referendum, with regard to clear negative and immediate consequences of voting no, is no use to anyone. If this is the EU you want to live in, you are welcome to it, I'd rather not to be honest, I hear Zimbabwe isn't a great place to be a citizen of these days.

Rhonda9000

marco_polo wrote: »

So basically a protest vote then? FFS why cant people vote on the merits or otherwise of the Treaty as they percieve them. :mad:

The result will effect Europe long after the current Government are gone.

Hear hear

Darragh29

djpbarry wrote: »

You've already made this claim (either in this thread or another one) and it's already been pointed out to you that this is nonsense.

Just because you or someone else might dismiss something as nonsense, this doesn't make it so.

djpbarry wrote: »

Funny that you don't complain that the 'No' campaigners are "forcing" you to vote 'No'.

Again, nobody forced me to do anything, and I voted without fear or favour to keep it that way. For the zillionth time, I'm cynical and right to be cynical of an EU that sidelines every country bar the one country that it cannot sideline and then starts firing off thretening soundbites about what will happen that country if they don't follow the instructions that were given to them. Anyone who accepts this form of treatment should surrender their Irish passport and go live in Zimbabwe, because that's how they do things over there.

oscarBravo

Darragh29 wrote: »

Just because you or someone else might dismiss something as nonsense, this doesn't make it so.

No, but the fact that it makes no sense does make it so.

djpbarry

Darragh29 wrote: »

This government clearly crossed a line on this occasion, and proceeded to threaten the electorate on not just one but several occasions...

Could you provide some examples of these "threats"?

Darragh29 wrote: »

There would be riots in Paris if our foreign affairs minister threatened the French people like this.

No, I don't think there would. Besides, the French Foreign Minister did not "threaten" anybody; he was asked his opinion (in French, by a regional French broadcaster) and he gave it.

You know it's rather ironic, that for someone who is apparently so anti-establishment, you also seem to be rather anti-free speech.

nhughes100

Inflation up to 4.7% - Guess it is around 5% after all. So much for the comment that it hasn't been at 5% in years - check out this little story - http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/13/business/EU-FIN-ECO-Ireland-Inflation.php