What message were you trying to send? [Not "why did you vote No?"]

How Strange

dats_right wrote: »

And I'm equally annoyed with those people who claim to have voted no because "they didn't understand it", can these people not take some personal responsibility? Maybe, they could have got off their arses, tore themselves away from Coronation Street or some other equally important activity and read some of the literature....it mightn't be a very P.C. thing to say, but anybody, in my opinion, who voted no because they didn't understand it are either thick or incredibly lazy. Fair enough vote no because you are opposed on real issues, but voting no out of laziness or thickness that's another story!

So what about the people who voted yes because they didn't understand the treaty but were scared sh1tless by the veiled threats by FF, FG, PD, Green and Lab? Are they thick and lazy or are the good, compliant little sheep who go where they're led.

That argument is b0ll0x because successive treaties have been passed on the precise principle of 'don't understand then vote yes' if you asked 'why' you were told 'because Europe was always good to us so that's the why'.

As I said, stupid, blind little sheep grateful for all the grants the EU threw at us when we were the ragamuffin little poor cousins on the fringes of the EU.

So now we've gained confidence and we see that we're net contributors therefore we've got a right to say 'hang on, I mightn't understand this treaty that was deliberately written to confuse the ordinary punter into compliance but I don't like being treated like that so I think i'll vote no.'

Why are these two ways of thinking any better or worse. The only difference is this time the lazy sheep majority voted the opposite way so the patronising tactics of the main political parties (charged by Brussels with convincing us that the EU is a good thing) bit them on their asses.

Nice 1 was largely rejected by an apathetic electorate that failed to turn out because the main political parties were arrogant enough to believe that we'd vote yes anyway so why waste money on a campaign. Then we got Nice 2.
So why is this treaty in threat of being voted down? IMO because people are wondering why is this happening again. Why isn't the EU listening to the voice of the french and dutch when they said NO 3 years ago.

You can only pull the 'all new, reformed, singing, dancing, treaty' trick out of the bag once. The second time it stinks.

ooter

dats_right wrote: »

And I'm equally annoyed with those people who claim to have voted no because "they didn't understand it", can these people not take some personal responsibility? Maybe, they could have got off their arses, tore themselves away from Coronation Street or some other equally important activity and read some of the literature.

how do you know whether they got off their Arses and Read the Literature?
maybe they did and decided to Vote No,which they are perfectly Entitled to do whether they understood it or not.

dats_right wrote: »

but voting no out of laziness or thickness that's another story!

did the People who Voted Yes and didn't Read the Literature Vote Yes out of Laziness or Thickness?
if so our Taoiseach is as Lazy and Thick as all the others.....

molloyjh

suimhneas wrote: »

casue im a member of the fishing community and Europe has made our lives impossible, could not see one benifit for me to vote yes, would be like selling my community down the river, and there has been enough of that done already. No means NO

I have to say you're one of the few No voters that I genuinly understand. Your reason for voting no is understandable and not a matter of fiction. Fair play to you.

kaiser sauze

This thread is a microcosm of the debate, and it is not a good representation.

The arrogance of both sides is breathtaking.

The deceit, lies and scaremongering of the NO side is repugnant.

The condescension, ineptitude and scaremongering of the YES side is nauseating.

The people who said "I'm voting NO because I don't understand it" are unfit for the duty of voting.

Bertie Ahern bears a lot of the responsibility for this due to him not stepping aside sooner so that the debate could occur effectively.

thelordofcheese

How Strange wrote: »

I mightn't understand this treaty that was deliberately written to confuse the ordinary punter into compliance but I don't like being treated like that so I think i'll vote no.'

You have no idea how much contempt i have for this viewpoint.
There was nothing stopping people understanding the topic at hand except their own laziness.
None.

molloyjh

biko wrote: »

I think that just because you put a few cherries on top of a turd doesn't make it better.

My message to EU is "No, this is not good enough and I do not agree with you".

What exactly is not good enough?

What exactly needs to be done to improve things?

What exactly do you not agree with?

There has been a lot of statements like yours bandied around, but on their own they have no substance. If you can answer those questions then great, go for it. If not then maybe you shold re-examine your viewpoint.

molloyjh

caoimhemo wrote: »

I voted NO and I am very happy that the NO vote seems to have won
Why should we be bullied by politicians into changing our constitution to allow the EU to have more power over our country
We were luckily allowed to vote and a lot of European people are thankful to us as they did not have the opportunity to have a say in their Country
I think its a great day to be Irish

What our politicians say to us has nothing to do with the Treaty itself. We should be voting on the merits o that and that alone.

The people of Europe did get their say. Its not like their legislation just popped up out of the ground one day. The people of all of these countries live in a democracy that they themselves have built. If they don't like the results they are in a position to change things. Either way this has nothing to do with the Treaty itself either. The Treaty is either good or its bad, regardless of whether everyone in the EU got to vote for it or not and regardless of whether our politicians were as nice as pie or not.

How Strange

kaiser sauze wrote: »

The people who said "I'm voting NO because I don't understand it" are unfit for the duty of voting.

You've no right to say who is and isn't fit to vote. You may not like the way they vote but it's every individuals personal decision. That is the core of our democracy. You start qualifying people's rights to vote and you entering fascism.

Remember that the 'I don't know so I'll vote yes' has been largely responsible for ratifying each and every treaty up to Nice 1 and it suited everyone to have the electorate in that frame of mind back then. No there's been a shift in that demographic and all of a sudden it's wrong.

I call that throwing your toys out of the pram because the game isn't being played by your rules anymore.

grahamo

I voted No because the government told us to vote yes. If they had asked us to vote No I would have voted yes.
I am just an ordinary Joe PAYE worker and successive governments have done nothing for me. All the celtic tiger BS doesn't apply to the likes of me ( I may earn more these days but I pay a lot more for the necessities and I had to get a massive mortgage to buy an overpriced house that I will now spend the rest of my life paying for so my pockets are just as empty as they were in the 80's.) and as for their lies about the health service etc.......The govt. have a cheek to ask me for any favours

molloyjh

jackal wrote: »

Ok, by saying its bull**** you have completely blown it out of the water with both well reasoned and incontrovertible evidence. Thanks for your input.

"Wait and see"... more veiled threats?

He is saying that No commits us to a particular direction just as much as a Yes does. By not knowing enough about either you may as well have just flipped a coin. That is no way to vote.

How Strange

thelordofcheese wrote: »

You have no idea how much contempt i have for this viewpoint.
There was nothing stopping people understanding the topic at hand except their own laziness. None.

Yes there was. Scaremongering. On both sides. Arrogance and patronising on the part of the YES side.
You get a demographic who aren't politically motivated and and you talk down to them, you scare teh sh!t out of them and what happens?

Well that depends - up to Nice 1 they voted yes. Since then it depends on which way the wind is blowing.

jackal

molloyjh wrote: »

This is totally unrelated to the Treaty itself so should not impact your vote.


If you don't understand a contract you don't tear it up straight away. You have a stab at figuring it out. If others can figure it out (and we could) why can't you? I'm not being elitist or anything because I really don't think I'm much smarter than most. So if I could figure it out there's no reason, to my mind at least, that others couldn't. Either way its a shoddy reason for voting against something. You'd be better off abstaining if you don't know enough about it.


No does not in any way mean no change. In fact it means there's a much greater level of uncertainty regarding the future. One potential outcome could be that the rest of the EU moves on ahead without us. If they do have you any real idea how that would pan out for us? And regardless of the political consequences, a No vote creates uncertainty over the EUs future (not its survival, but its direction). In the current economic climate uncertainty is going to cause problems. It always does. Can we really afford that now?


The Treaty was modified somewhat, and the changes made were done so in consultation withe the French and the Dutch Governments. Diplomacy and politics always have an element of to-and-fro about them where a proposal is made, amended slightly to account for certain objections and put forward again. It happens every day.


The Treaty is not a complete mish mash of unrelated things. Above you stated that you didn't understand it, so how do you qualify as being able to state such a thing?

There are no concrete hard-fast reasons there for the way you voted. In fact there is only one that is anyway relevant and understandable.
1. Shouldn't impact your vote
2. Is more of a reason to abstain than vote either way
3. Is, at very best, debatable. Probably more like wishful thinking.
4. Is debatable, and while I see the point we should be voting on the merits of the Treaty anyway, not anything else. It shouldn't matter what someone else thinks of it, be they French or another Irishman.
5. Is not an accurate statement and ties back in with the "You probably should have abstained" point in 2.

Thanks for your input. I had a stab at reading the treaty. **** that, I would rather pull my toenails out. I had a stab at reading the summaries of the treaty. Depending on who was putting forward these summaries they were either vague, contradictory, pure propaganda (in the NO camp especially) or simply listed lots of things that *wont* change if we vote yes.

The main problem area for me was that fact that we the people will no longer be asked to have a vote on issues. It is left up to our politicians. They are an unaccountable, deceitful, shameless bunch, who piss on our shoes and tell us its raining, and I would not trust them to make decisions in the future when they cannot explain to us the ramifications of the decision we are being asked to make in the present.

Saying that the treaty was "modified somewhat in consultation with the French and Dutch governments" is a bit misleading, because the modifications were done so that the governments in question would not have to ask their people a second time.

I never said lets tear up the treaty. If I could not understand a contract which I wanted to sign (remember I am pro-Europe in a general sense) I would get a solicitor, acting in my interest, to read it and explain what it meant to me in plain English. Our government, acting in their own interest did not do this either because they are incapable or unwilling.

I read it, I didn't understand it. There is stuff in there about things ranging from Energy to Military to tackling domestic violence, crime, energy, discrimination, setting up a humanitarian organisation, the death penalty... etc etc. All worthy, but what the hell? Why is this all in one big treaty?

The scary part of the treaty is in regards to EU law superseding Irish law in many areas. This is the part that people need clarification on, this is the part that required us to have a referendum.

:mad:

Telling someone they should abstain if they do not understand fully is really really condescending and annoying. Good on you for understanding the treaty, but YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY. Get it?

kaiser sauze

How Strange wrote: »

You've no right to say who is and isn't fit to vote. You may not like the way they vote but it's every individuals personal decision. That is the core of our democracy. You start qualifying people's rights to vote and you entering fascism.

Remember that the 'I don't know so I'll vote yes' has been largely responsible for ratifying each and every treaty up to Nice 1 and it suited everyone to have the electorate in that frame of mind back then. No there's been a shift in that demographic and all of a sudden it's wrong.

I call that throwing your toys out of the pram because the game isn't being played by your rules anymore.

Yes I do.

The only reason this treaty was voted down is because Sinn Fein finally got a campaign up and running, with the undeclared support of Libertas [read as: money]. Sinn Fein have voted NO to everything. Where would we be now if they had gotten their way since 1973?

People have a duty to inform themselves of what they are voting for; it is clear that many didn't. They should have simply abstained from voting. It's not a difficult concept.

molloyjh

whitser wrote: »

first of all come back with a treaty that the ordinary man on the street can understand. look the pros and cons were put to the people and we said no. if the 3 biggest parties cant sell a deal to the people then its a bad deal. its quite clear that even ff,fg and labour voters went against this treaty. if they cant sell it to their own then something is rotten with it.

I'm pretty ordinary (ow, it hurts to say that!:o) and I understodd Lisbon....

How Strange

kaiser sauze wrote: »

People have a duty to inform themselves of what they are voting for; it is clear that many didn't. They should have simply abstained from voting. It's not a difficult concept.

But you're selectively picking who you have contempt for then. Do you have equal contempt for those who voted yes since 1973 based on the same principle?

Rented Mule

The problem that I saw leading up to the vote is the fact that the people who were pushing the 'Yes' had never read the document. (I will agre that this is the same on the 'No' side as well)

How do you vote to change the Irish Constitution when your leaders haven't a clue what they are asking you to vote for ?

molloyjh

alanmurphy83 wrote: »

I voted No because the rest of Europe’s citizens are not being allowed a vote on the treaty. Does this make me a bad person?

Its not a good reason to vote No I don't think. What if the Treaty itself was a positive thing for all EU citizens? You voted No because there was no legal requirement for anyone else to have a referendum, rather than voting based on how god/bad the Treaty itself was.

Darragh29

bill_ashmount wrote: »

People were simply saying they didn't agree with the treaty and decided not to ratify it.

Why do the people who voted Yes have such difficulty understanding the basic concept of saying No to something.

Here here, to be honest, it should be us asking you why on earth you voted yes. I voted no for perfectly good reasons, the way this treaty was being pushed on us was not acceptable, in particular I noted Eamon Gilmore coming to a joint press conference on this earlier on this week acting time some kind of kindergarten school principal telling us, "now is not the time to be throwing a wobbly on Europe". Who does he think he is, first of all speaking to us like that and secondly making out that anyone who was not in full communion with his opinions was therefore "throwing a wobbly on Europe"??? The stupid cu*t.

cornbb

Rented Mule wrote: »

How do you vote to change the Irish Constitution when your leaders haven't a clue what they are asking you to vote for ?

Thats a ludicrous suggestion. They led the negotiations for a lot of the document!

Spud83

alanmurphy83 wrote: »

I voted No because the rest of Europe’s citizens are not being allowed a vote on the treaty. Does this make me a bad person?

Nobody answered me.:(

molloyjh

whitser wrote: »

i voted no simply because if the eu is going to threaten states for not doing its bidding then something is rotten at its core. the eu was supposed to be co-operation between states not saying if you dont do what we ask then you'll be sorry and we'll go on with out you. the people rejected this trash cos its bad for ireland. as i said if the 3 biggest parties cant sell this to their people then something is defo rotten.

The EU did nothing of the sort. a couple of daft politicians did, but they the EU does not make. Yet another non-reason......

kaiser sauze

How Strange wrote: »

But you're selectively picking who you have contempt for then. Do you have equal contempt for those who voted yes since 1973 based on the same principle?

Have the YES side been proven wrong?

Has the EU, formerly the EEC and EC, actually been shown up as the wrong decision? No, they have not.

You see, I am applying the logic as you state.

themont85

grahamo wrote: »

I voted No because the government told us to vote yes. If they had asked us to vote No I would have voted yes.
I am just an ordinary Joe PAYE worker and successive governments have done nothing for me. All the celtic tiger BS doesn't apply to the likes of me ( I may earn more these days but I pay a lot more for the necessities and I had to get a massive mortgage to buy an overpriced house that I will now spend the rest of my life paying for so my pockets are just as empty as they were in the 80's.) and as for their lies about the health service etc.......The govt. have a cheek to ask me for any favours

Nothing to do with the treaty. If you have such a problem with our country do it at the GE and vote SF and see where that gets us. We put our trust in 166 TDs to work for us, 160 say to do something but we reject it, a protest if you will but I know in an election tomorrow roughly the same results would come out.. Our attitude to Europe stinks, putting domestic arguments at EU matters is irrelevant, if you feel that way lets get out of Europe then. The old argument you get the government you deserve applies here.

molloyjh

gixerfixer wrote: »

I voted No because of the promised setting up of a european army.When the EU come back to me with an improved deal for me and my family i'll see how i vote then.Hard luck the Yes campaign:)

The EU will likely not be able to come back with a better deal for you and your family. Most of the things that will affect you most are domestic issues that the EU has no say in like Budgets, health, road safety, policiing etc.

Caoimhín

Another civil war anyone?

Im cleaning my gun right now.

molloyjh

JC 2K3 wrote: »

The expansion of QMV and changing of voting weights did not sit well with me at all. Nor did things such as the creation of uniform European intellectual property rights. And that is why I voted no.

What was wrong with the expansion of QMV? I didn't think it stepped into any areas it shouldn't have, especially given all the opt out we got. And I also felt that the new QMV method for voting was quite reasonable. What was the issue with that?

kaiser sauze

alanmurphy83 wrote: »

Nobody answered me.:(

It makes you a person suffering from ill-thought out reasons that have no right to bear any influence on your decision.

minidazzler

I read people saying "Politicians couldn't convince "Intelligent" People to vote yes."

From what I have seen Intelligent people generally understood or tried to understand the treaty and Voted accordingly. (Most Intelligent people I know voted yes)

Unintelligent people didn't even try to read the document itself. They were told it was too hard to understand so didn't even try. And these are mainly the people who voted No. (Out of the People I know.)

And I would be so bold as to suggest that this is what happened in this country.

molloyjh

How Strange wrote: »

So what about the people who voted yes because they didn't understand the treaty but were scared sh1tless by the veiled threats by FF, FG, PD, Green and Lab? Are they thick and lazy or are the good, compliant little sheep who go where they're led.

Simply put, yes. Anyones who makes no effort to understand what they are voting for should not be voting. I don't care what way they intend on voting, they have not honoured their responsibility to the process.

Caoimhín

minidazzler wrote: »

And I would be so bold as to suggest that this is what happened in this country.

You expressed yourself better than i did.