No to Lisbon

molloyjh · 01-04-2009 1:46pm

whatisayis wrote: »

Interesting quote from former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato (in 2000):

“One must act ‘as if’ in Europe: as if one wanted only very few things, in order to obtain a great deal. As if nations were to remain sovereign, in order to convince them to surrender their sovereignty. The Commission in Brussels, for example, must act as if it were a technical organism, in order to operate like a government … and so on, camouflaging and toning down. The sovereignty lost at national level does not pass to any new subject. It is entrusted to a faceless entity: NATO, the UN and eventually the EU. the Union is the vanguard of this changing world: it indicates a future of Princes without sovereignty. The new entity is faceless and those who are in command can neither be pinned down nor elected …That is the way Europe was made too: by creating communitarian organisms without giving the organisms presided over by national governments the impression that they were being subjected to a higher power. That is how the Court of Justice as a supra-national organ was born. It was a sort of unseen atom bomb, which Schuman and Monnet slipped into the negotiations on the Coal and Steel Community. That was what the ‘CSC’ itself was: a random, mixture of national egotisms which became communitarian. I don’t think it is a good idea to replace this slow and effective method - which keeps national States free from anxiety while they are being stripped of power - with great institutional leaps…Therefore I prefer to go slowly, to crumble pieces of sovereignty up little by little, avoiding brusque transitions from national to federal power. That is the way I think we will have to build Europe’s common policies…”

What is even more interesting is that the source for this quote on all the sites I've seen it on was the same. And that is http://www.free-europe.org/english/. I haven't been able to find any further information on the quote other than the fact that they have been spreading it around a bit, and there is no source on their site that I can find. Couple this with the fact that their about page has the following on it, comparing the EU to the Soviet Union:

Now that the communist threat of the Soviet Union has moved to the scrap heaps of history, we Europeans are faced with a new threat to our Liberty. That threat is not coming from a harsh, iron fisted, totalitarian regime, but from what best can be described as ’soft totalitarianism’, directed by legions of bureaucrats with their centre of gravity lying in Brussels.

Also look at the little image at the top right of their page and the fact that the site is a little less than professional in appearance and content and I'm inclined to take the whole thing with one large pinch of salt. It's all very conspiracy theory. Quick someone call Mulder and Scully, the truth is out there.

O'Morris wrote: »

Very interesting quote. Even more interesting is the source of that quote. Guilamo Amato played a role in drafting the EU constitution on which the Lisbon Treaty is based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliano_Amato

Totally irrelevant wiki link there, but that aside it is only right to point out that we had political representatives from here involved in the drafting of the Constitution aswell. In fact all member states had people involved in its drafting. There was a Convention set up with 105 people from national parliaments of members and candidate countries, the Commission, the EU Parliament and other representatives of government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Future_of_Europe

greendom · 01-04-2009 2:46pm

O'Morris wrote: »

Seconded.

You too should be looking to get Ireland to join EFTA. it's a free trade area and strictly economic. The EU is as much a political union as it is an economic one

The Corinthian · 02-04-2009 3:19pm

greendom wrote: »

You too should be looking to get Ireland to join EFTA. it's a free trade area and strictly economic.

It's worked out well for Iceland...

greendom · 02-04-2009 3:34pm

The Corinthian wrote: »

It's worked out well for Iceland...

Absolutely, can you imagine how much worse things would have been if those idiots in Leinster House had been in charge of our money supply and interest rates.

Thank God for the euro and the EC

dizzywizlw · 07-04-2009 10:59pm

Surely a misinformation campaign centering on Abortion and Conscription counts as a form a 'election' fraud?

I will defo vote Yes again, It was a good thing the first time around and it'll be a good thing second,third and fourth time.

And yes, if ill-informed voters say no, ask again, respect the Irish vote my arse!

Amberman · 07-04-2009 11:14pm

greendom wrote: »

Thank God for the euro and the EC

Blind faith...comes in handy a lot.

dizzywizlw · 07-04-2009 11:15pm

Amberman wrote: »

Blind faith...comes in handy a lot.

Well considering we use a Capitalist market......

Amberman · 07-04-2009 11:51pm

dizzywizlw wrote: »

Well considering we use a Capitalist market......

Well considering we used a Capitalist market......

Fixed your post

Carlow52 · 08-04-2009 11:04pm

From http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0408/budget2.html

This budget does nothing to address the costs of running the Public Service.
Instead it will take 4 weeks net pay this year.
At least another 2 weeks in 2010/11/12/13
So by end 2013 we will be paying 12 from 52 weeks in taxes/levies etc.

In addition the budget robs the OAPs of their Xmas 'bonus' and does nothing for job creation.

Europe, as a massive version of our faceless PS likes this, of course they would.

Hitman Actual · 08-04-2009 11:42pm

Carlow52 wrote: »

From http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/0408/budget2.html

This budget does nothing to address the costs of running the Public Service.
Instead it will take 4 weeks net pay this year.
At least another 2 weeks in 2010/11/12/13
So by end 2013 we will be paying 12 from 52 weeks in taxes/levies etc.

In addition the budget robs the OAPs of their Xmas 'bonus' and does nothing for job creation.

Europe, as a massive version of our faceless PS likes this, of course they would.

Wow. The list of idiotic reasons to vote No keeps on growing. It's your assertion that because the various EU institutions have a public service, the EU approve of our budget because it didn't tackle our public service expenditure? And you want to vote No because of this?

The reason that the EU approve of the budget is that the measures taken will help (hopefully!) to bring the budget deficit to under 3% by 2013 (along with more measures in the next few years), in line with the Growth and Stability Pact that we're bound to as members of the EMU. In fact, members of the EMU are supposed to keep their deficit under 3% every year (I think ours will run around 9% this year), so we're actually getting quite a bit of lee-way in this.

But go ahead and vote No because of this. Heaven forbid, you might actually vote on something related to the treaty.

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 12:01am

Hitman Actual wrote: »

Wow. The list of idiotic reasons to vote No keeps on growing. It's your assertion that because the various EU institutions have a public service, the EU approve of our budget because it didn't tackle our public service expenditure? And you want to vote No because of this?

The reason that the EU approve of the budget is that the measures taken will help (hopefully!) to bring the budget deficit to under 3% by 2013 (along with more measures in the next few years), in line with the Growth and Stability Pact that we're bound to as members of the EMU. In fact, members of the EMU are supposed to keep their deficit under 3% every year (I think ours will run around 9% this year), so we're actually getting quite a bit of lee-way in this.

But go ahead and vote No because of this. Heaven forbid, you might actually vote on something related to the treaty.

Also, Lord knows we could dream of a public service the same relative size as the EU. Well, maybe not, it would be a bit on the small size - Ireland would have 272 central civil servants, and another 1173 in all the agencies. I suspect the libertarians would go for it, though.

cordially,
Scofflaw

the-island-man · 09-04-2009 1:30am

I just bought a "Respect the irish vote" T-shirt

!
You can get one too here:
http://shop.cafepress.com/design/28702991

Irish citizen by the grace of God, European citizen by the curse of the devil :mad:

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 1:32am

the-island-man wrote: »

I just bought a "Respect the irish vote" T-shirt !
You can get one too here:
http://shop.cafepress.com/design/28702991

Irish citizen by the grace of God, European citizen by the curse of the devil :mad:

Wearer of Tory Party T-shirts by the affliction of idiocy...

amused,
Scofflaw

the-island-man · 09-04-2009 1:37am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Wearer of Tory Party T-shirts by the affliction of idiocy...

amused,
Scofflaw

What do you have against the Tory party?

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 1:53am

the-island-man wrote: »

What do you have against the Tory party?

Margaret Thatcher, mostly. In the case of these T-shirts, it seems more than slightly ridiculous to be wearing something popularised by English MEPs. As someone put it:

How the history books would be written differently if the English paid this much attention to votes carried out by the Irish people.

cordially,
Scofflaw

the-island-man · 09-04-2009 2:04am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Margaret Thatcher, mostly. In the case of these T-shirts, it seems more than slightly ridiculous to be wearing something popularised by English MEPs. As someone put it:

cordially,
Scofflaw

Fair enough. Although i do find it amusing that a person that seem's to be all for a foreign entity partly ruling Ireland to have such a grudge against the Brits!

Personally i don't mind where the T-shirts come from as long as they get my opinion across to whoever i should happen to walk past!

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 2:12am

the-island-man wrote: »

Fair enough. Although i do find it amusing that a person that seem's to be all for a foreign entity partly ruling Ireland to have such a grudge against the Brits!

I'm in favour of Ireland being at the European table, where the UK is as often a reliable ally as a reliable opponent - but English eurosceptics are the kind of people who tell Paddy Irishman jokes. I know them well.

the-island-man wrote: »

Personally i don't mind where the T-shirts come from as long as they get my opinion across to whoever i should happen to walk past!

It will do that and more...

cordially,
Scofflaw

the-island-man · 09-04-2009 2:26am

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm in favour of Ireland being at the European table, where the UK is as often a reliable ally as a reliable opponent - but English eurosceptics are the kind of people who tell Paddy Irishman jokes. I know them well.

I'd rather be allied with the British euroskeptic party UKIP anyday than listen to the likes of the PES group of MEPS whose leader Martin schulz hails from a German political party which was founded by ex-Nazi soldiers. To add to this Martin Schulz also showed his disregard for the irish people when he said a NO vote would lead to Fascism!
Should he not be campaigning for a NO then the Nazi pr***?!

I wouldn't want to listen to Danny cohn bendit either(co-president of the Greens group). Declan Ganley challenged him about a book he wrote a few years ago at a recent debate about how the politician fantasised about being with children and he didn't even deny it saying something along the lines of those were different times, a lot of crap was written by a lot of people including me.

It seems the Yes side in the E.U parliment is filled with honest men!

BlitzKrieg · 09-04-2009 2:40am

the-island-man wrote: »

I'd rather be allied with the British euroskeptic party UKIP anyday than listen to the likes of the PES group of MEPS whose leader Martin schulz hails from a German political party which was founded by ex-Nazi soldiers. To add to this Martin Schulz also showed his disregard for the irish people when he said a NO vote would lead to Fascism!
Should he not be campaigning for a NO then the Nazi pr***?!

Wait I'm confused, Schulz is part of the social democratic party that was founded back in the 1860's how the hell could it have been founded by ex nazi's?

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 3:04am

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Wait I'm confused, Schulz is part of the social democratic party that was founded back in the 1860's how the hell could it have been founded by ex nazi's?

Time-travelling ex-nazis?

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg · 09-04-2009 3:12am

no its commies who time travel (according to my education from westwood studios) Nazi's ride dinosaurs.

sink · 09-04-2009 3:21am

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

no its commies who time travel (according to my education from westwood studios) Nazi's ride dinosaurs.

RA FTW!

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 3:21am

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

no its commies who time travel (according to my education from westwood studios) Nazi's ride dinosaurs.

Should I ask how the Nazis get the dinosaurs without time-travel (before ruling myself off-topic and giving myself a yellow card)?

perplexed,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg · 09-04-2009 3:23am

Should I ask how the Nazis get the dinosaurs without time-travel

gay marriage

sink · 09-04-2009 3:25am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Should I ask how the Nazis get the dinosaurs without time-travel (before ruling myself off-topic and giving myself a yellow card)?

perplexed,
Scofflaw

Never watched Jurassic Park?

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 3:28am

sink wrote: »

Never watched Jurassic Park?

Sure, but that's unrealistic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Jamfan · 09-04-2009 3:39am

I'm voting no.

I am extremely pro-EU, but anti Fianna Fail. Out of vicious spite against them I will vote no. In doing so I will bite my own nose off.

I FOOKIN HATE FIANNA FAIL.

Those lecherous, slimy scummy cnuts should be rounded up in Kilmainham and suitably dispatched.

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 4:05am

Jamfan wrote: »

I'm voting no.

I am extremely pro-EU, but anti Fianna Fail. Out of vicious spite against them I will vote no. In doing so I will bite my own nose off.

I FOOKIN HATE FIANNA FAIL.

Those lecherous, slimy scummy cnuts should be rounded up in Kilmainham and suitably dispatched.

Well, I should be impressed to see anyone biting their own nose off in anything other than a metaphorical sense - the latter being something one can watch regularly around here.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Carlow52 · 09-04-2009 10:23am

Hitman Actual wrote: »

....
..... the measures taken will help (hopefully!)....

Are the most salient words in your rant:)

The reductions in personal after tax incomes which I referred to are a minimum, with possibly more to follow if your <will help (hopefully!) > does not work.

The PS pension levy is now projected to collect 150m or so less:D

Hopefully the IMF will arrive before the Lisbon vote

Scofflaw · 09-04-2009 10:47am

Carlow52 wrote: »

Are the most salient words in your rant:)

The reductions in personal after tax incomes which I referred to are a minimum, with possibly more to follow if your <will help (hopefully!) > does not work.

The PS pension levy is now projected to collect 150m or so less:D

Hopefully the IMF will arrive before the Lisbon vote

Why would that be a good thing?

puzzled,
Scofflaw

No to Lisbon

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