Attitude of the yes campaign

rumour

ei.sdraob wrote: »

lets quote what he said word for word



lets lookup the definition of electorate



how many people in Ireland who have the right to vote voted in the last referendum?

53.13%

how many of these people voted NO?

53.20%


now please so the maths and please do tell us what % of the electorate voted NO

:rolleyes:


im sick of the NO side telling lies, not backing it up with references and ignoring basic facts

Fantastic,

The premise of your argument is that the 'no' vote by the Irish is not legitimate because 100% of the 'electorate' did not turn out. However you can freely advocate ratification of a treaty where only 1% of the EU 'electorate' are allowed vote?

Excuse me if I jump to what I consider a rational conclusion and think that you are not really that interested in Democracy. Hence I dislike your ideology, hence I will vote 'no'.

Does that make me a headbanger, a liar, a memeber of Sinn Fein, a member of Coir ( whoever they are?) or any of the other groups that the 'yes' campaign have identified/targeted as the cause for their previous failures to their european masters.

rumour

ixtlan wrote: »

Draft a new treaty...


Can you see the problem with drafting a new treaty that MUST exclude everything that was in Lisbon?

And as for how long it will take, Lisbon took almost 10...

And when this new treaty is agreed, how do we know the Irish will approve?

So, we are back to your statement "leave it as it is"... Suppose the others do not want to? Suppose some of the states refuse to accept new members under the current rules. Are you happy that Ireland will be refusing to discuss any changes at all? And blocking the accession of new countries?

Ix.

Rome wasn't built in a day

rumour

Scofflaw wrote: »

First, because it will allow the EU to act more decisively - and therefore coherently - on the current recession, partly through the new decision-making arrangements, but largely because it means that the EU can stop navel-gazing about reform and get back to work



Second, the new competences. Pan-European energy policy will help smooth out a lot of cyclical and external shocks in the European economy if it's done right, and the emphasis on renewables like wind and wave is probably an opportunity for Ireland. The new supporting competences in tourism and sport are beneficial as well, particularly the former




Third, the new commitment to full employment means EU action aimed at that. Since we're suffering a worse 'employment shock' than most of the other EU countries, we could expect to benefit from that particularly



Fourth, and peripherally, a Yes vote earns us continued goodwill, which will be important in the WTO and CFP negotiations coming up next year.



Fifth, and on goodwill again, the more goodwill, the more likely the other member states are to ensure that we don't fall into the hands of the IMF.



cordially,
Scofflaw

1. This is a a convincing good point.
2. It is an opportunity that we will always be on the periphery of. Lisbon will only confirm our peripheral standing.
3. We will benefit as long as our economy is structured similar to that of the major countries. I.e. do what we say or your getting nothing. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
4. This is a short term gain. The converse is that we will confirm ourselves as a weak indecisive nation with no moral backbone that can be bought. It does appear that this is how our country operates without Lisbon, so no real change there!
5. That is a hopeful expectation other alternatives are equally valid, once the stability of the EURO is secured and the Lisbon treaty organised, Ireland will be consigned to perhipery status forever. Do not be surprised if we are thrown to the IMF. We just owe so much money and are not dealing with the problem. The ECB are not going to tarnish themselves with this mess.

Good Post focusing on issues.

marco_polo

rumour wrote: »

Fantastic,

The premise of your argument is that the 'no' vote by the Irish is not legitimate because 100% of the 'electorate' did not turn out. However you can freely advocate ratification of a treaty where only 1% of the EU 'electorate' are allowed vote?

Excuse me if I jump to what I consider a rational conclusion and think that you are not really that interested in Democracy. Hence I dislike your ideology, hence I will vote 'no'.

Does that make me a headbanger, a liar, a memeber of Sinn Fein, a member of Coir ( whoever they are?) or any of the other groups that the 'yes' campaign have identified/targeted as the cause for their previous failures to their european masters.

Get off your high horse, nobody said anything about an invalid referendum. The distinction was made between 53% of the electorate and 53% of the turnout.

By the way if you want all voters to have a say in EU elections you will need to start 26 seperate campaigns for the other states to fix their broken, sham democracies. Because there is sweet FA the EU can do about it.

Stark

rumour wrote: »

Rome wasn't built in a day

More of the snappy one-liners. Which seems to sum up the entire criticism of the Yes campaign: "Their one-liners aren't as catchy as ours!".

Captain Furball

Does it not just boil down to money at the end of the day?

Keewee6

ixtlan wrote: »

Draft a new treaty...


Can you see the problem with drafting a new treaty that MUST exclude everything that was in Lisbon?

And as for how long it will take, Lisbon took almost 10...

And when this new treaty is agreed, how do we know the Irish will approve?

So, we are back to your statement "leave it as it is"... Suppose the others do not want to? Suppose some of the states refuse to accept new members under the current rules. Are you happy that Ireland will be refusing to discuss any changes at all? And blocking the accession of new countries?

Ix.

if it takes fifteen yrs so be it - better to get it right - as long as the current treaty stands i will not read it & vote no

Stark

Then there's little reason to believe you'll read a second treaty now is there?

marco_polo

Keewee6 wrote: »

if it takes fifteen yrs so be it - better to get it right - as long as the current treaty stands i will not read it & vote no

What reason is there to think you will read the next one? And how will you know if it is different enough for your tastes if you have no idea what was in the previous one?

Keewee6

marco_polo wrote: »

What reason is there to think you will read the next one? And how will you know if it is different enough for your tastes if you have no idea what was in the previous one?

well i can read the new one and compare it to this one couldn't i

Scofflaw

Keewee6 wrote: »

well i can read the new one and compare it to this one couldn't i

Equally, you could read this one and compare it to Nice.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Keewee6

Scofflaw wrote: »

Equally, you could read this one and compare it to Nice.

cordially,
Scofflaw

but this is about lisbon so i would only compare lisbon with lisbon - not nice

marco_polo

Keewee6 wrote: »

but this is about lisbon so i would only compare lisbon with lisbon - not nice

Eh but since it amends Nice then you would be in a position to see what is changing now?

Stark

Keewee6 wrote: »

but this is about lisbon so i would only compare lisbon with lisbon - not nice

Just as the next treaty will be about that treaty and not about Lisbon. Getting with the programme yet?

Following the train of logic, I think it's safe to conclude that you're simply lazy and ignorant and have no plans to read any treaty that's put out by the EU even after they've gone back to the drawing board for you, so the best approach is simply to dismiss your opinions.

Keewee6

marco_polo wrote: »

Eh but since it amends Nice then you would be in a position to see what is changing now?

no because lisbon was already rejected so i will vote no on that basis i would want to see a new negotiated lisbon to compare the old lisbon

marco_polo

Keewee6 wrote: »

no because lisbon was already rejected so i will vote no on that basis i would want to see a new negotiated lisbon to compare the old lisbon

“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”

- Winston Churchill

Scofflaw

Keewee6 wrote: »

but this is about lisbon so i would only compare lisbon with lisbon - not nice

Lisbon amends the existing treaties, which were last amended by Nice. If you compare the post-Lisbon 'consolidated' version with the post-Nice 'consolidated' version, you'll see what's changed - the latter is what's in force at the moment.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Keewee6

Scofflaw wrote: »

Lisbon amends the existing treaties, which were last amended by Nice. If you compare the post-Lisbon 'consolidated' version with the post-Nice 'consolidated' version, you'll see what's changed - the latter is what's in force at the moment.

cordially,
Scofflaw

lisbon will amend nice - nice is in force - so theres no point in comparing it with nice as we are voting on lisbon - the lisbon treaty hasnt changed so i will

A) not read it
vote no

Scofflaw

Keewee6 wrote: »

no because lisbon was already rejected so i will vote no on that basis i would want to see a new negotiated lisbon to compare the old lisbon

But - correct me if I'm wrong - you didn't read Lisbon first time round, so you don't even know whether you think people were right or wrong to vote No. Did you not vote yourself, or did you vote No without having any idea what was in the Treaty?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Keewee6

Scofflaw wrote: »

But - correct me if I'm wrong - you didn't read Lisbon first time round, so you don't even know whether you think people were right or wrong to vote No. Did you not vote yourself, or did you vote No without having any idea what was in the Treaty?

cordially,
Scofflaw

i read lisbon first time - they were right

Wheely

Scofflaw wrote: »

But - correct me if I'm wrong - you didn't read Lisbon first time round, so you don't even know whether you think people were right or wrong to vote No. Did you not vote yourself, or did you vote No without having any idea what was in the Treaty?

cordially,
Scofflaw

I wouldn't bother. Seems to be trolling on this point.

Keewee6

ok lets leave it at this
- i wont read the treaty
- i will vote no

see ya

rumour

Stark wrote: »

More of the snappy one-liners. Which seems to sum up the entire criticism of the Yes campaign: "Their one-liners aren't as catchy as ours!".

I thought it somewhat more diplomatic to make a short statement however you seem to need an explanation. Please read some of my other posts on this subject, I think you'll find I do not.
The constitution was rejected in France and the Netherlands, so work was done to come up with the treaty of Lisbon. If I believe it is not good enough, it is not good enough and you have no right to dictate to me otherwise.
Secondly the people of europe are being paid to come up with this document, they are paid by peoples taxes and are public servants. The should 'serve' and not the other way around by deciding that we've done enough and its just to difficult to do any better. I don't care how difficult it is for them, just do a better job.
If they do this for France and the Netherlands why will they not accept the Irish vote? Is it because we have less rights than the French?? Is this what we are entering?

I presume you support the treaty obviously, I expect you believe the one liner about being 'at the heart of europe'?:pac:

PopeBuckfastXVI

rumour wrote: »

The should 'serve' and not the other way around by deciding that we've done enough and its just to difficult to do any better. I don't care how difficult it is for them, just do a better job.

What does that better job look like, in your opinion?

Stark

rumour wrote: »

I presume you support the treaty obviously, I expect you believe the one liner about being 'at the heart of europe'?:pac:

I don't believe any one liners, whether they come from the Yes side or the No side. At least by elaborating your points, we can discuss them instead of "Rome wasn't built in a day: discuss".

rumour wrote:

If they do this for France and the Netherlands why will they not accept the Irish vote? Is it because we have less rights than the French?? Is this what we are entering?

A survey to the Irish people asking what they would like changed following the failure of Lisbon I. The Irish people came back and with the exception of the commissioner thing, asked to change things that weren't in the treaty in the first place. The EU responded by saying we could keep our full time commissioner and by giving guarantees saying that the things we didn't want were not in the document and there would be no attempt to put them in there.

Given that we have everything we asked for in our response survey, if we vote No again, then it's hard to see where the EU is supposed to go from there. Hence, my putting the question to people: "well where would you like them to go?". Unfortunately the best answer so far is "How should I know, I never read the thing in the first place".

Do you think they would have responded kindly the government of France and the Netherlands if their response to the constitution was "sorry, we have no intention of doing you the courtesy of reading this. Please go back and do us up a document from scratch".

rumour

marco_polo wrote: »

Get off your high horse, nobody said anything about an invalid referendum. The distinction was made between 53% of the electorate and 53% of the turnout.

By the way if you want all voters to have a say in EU elections you will need to start 26 seperate campaigns for the other states to fix their broken, sham democracies. Because there is sweet FA the EU can do about it.

Is that not the challenge
This project is being approached via the back door. Most of Europe I believe would agree to an open clear constitution, similar to that of the states. That is the starting point, build on democratic legitimacy. What we have instead is a document that is so built up in legalise it has alienated the vast majority of the popluation of Europe.

Secondly about my high horse, I have had to put up with on another thread the argument that peeople didn't infact vote 'no' to the treaty of Lisbon, what they actually did was imagine ten or twelve different questions in their head and decided to answer those questions on the day of the referendum. These obviously stupid people did so on the ballot sheet. Now Imagine that!!!! This was found out in opinion polls conducted after the referendum and we hence went back to Europe and reported on the stupidity of the irish voting public.

Scofflaw

rumour wrote: »

Is that not the challenge
This project is being approached via the back door. Most of Europe I believe would agree to an open clear constitution, similar to that of the states. That is the starting point, build on democratic legitimacy. What we have instead is a document that is so built up in legalise it has alienated the vast majority of the popluation of Europe.

Just like every other international treaty...in fact, the point about the Constitution was that it was a Constitution, whereas Lisbon isn't. Lisbon is an amending treaty, and they're naturally going to be harder to read. We don't want a nice short 'readable' constitution for Europe, unless we're founding a European state - and I don't want one, thanks.

Nor is this the "back door" - the treaty is being ratified in exactl

rumour wrote: »

Secondly about my high horse, I have had to put up with on another thread the argument that peeople didn't infact vote 'no' to the treaty of Lisbon, what they actually did was imagine ten or twelve different questions in their head and decided to answer those questions on the day of the referendum. These obviously stupid people did so on the ballot sheet. Now Imagine that!!!! This was found out in opinion polls conducted after the referendum and we hence went back to Europe and reported on the stupidity of the irish voting public.

And yet here - on these very forums - we have people saying "I'm voting No to get FF out", "I'm voting No because of NAMA", "I'm voting No because Brian Cowen's dog bit me", "I'm voting No because Yes people annoy me", "I'm voting No because I believe that other people would have voted No", "I'm voting No because the EU stole our fish". And that's without going for a dip in politics.ie, where people are voting No because of the light-bulb ban, or the Habitats Directive, or because aliens told them to.

I think you have to face the facts that people are voting No for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the Treaty. If you're not, I congratulate you, but you're not everyone who votes No - you're just you.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Keewee6

i think votin no because FF are **** or NAMA is wrong should be about the treaty

rumour

Stark wrote: »

I don't believe any one liners, whether they come from the Yes side or the No side. At least by elaborating your points, we can discuss them instead of "Rome wasn't built in a day: discuss".



A survey to the Irish people asking what they would like changed following the failure of Lisbon I. The Irish people came back and with the exception of the commissioner thing, asked to change things that weren't in the treaty in the first place. The EU responded by saying we could keep our full time commissioner and by giving guarantees saying that the things we didn't want were not in the document and there would be no attempt to put them in there.

Given that we have everything we asked for in our response survey, if we vote No again, then it's hard to see where the EU is supposed to go from there. Hence, my putting the question to people: "well where would you like them to go?". Unfortunately the best answer so far is "How should I know, I never read the thing in the first place".

Do you think they would have responded kindly the government of France and the Netherlands if their response to the constitution was "sorry, we have no intention of doing you the courtesy of reading this. Please go back and do us up a document from scratch".

What we have is a legal guarantee that is not in the treaty. Secondly I do not think the survey was conclusive. It harped on about the usual things such as abortion, neutrality etc etc. Basically all the backward aspects that our political class can present as plausible in Europe.

Where was the open admission that we, following this treaty will be relegated to a periphery nation with miniscule representation and the fear of reduced control over our economics? At the time when Ireland was in full scale arrogance we thought those socialist Europeans were not going to touch our ability to be rich. Now conversely there is an opinion growing that we need europe to survive. I think the opposite of popular opinion both this time and the last. We will be punished for being the embarassment economically of europe and money for at least a generation or two will be controlled via a tap in Brussels.

I know we have been given a guarantee of a commisioner, it shall be interesting to see what that commission is? Bog monitoring I suspect.

The fact that our leading advocates didn't read the treaty is a national shame. Surely on that fact alone (if they had any integrity) should resign and secondly were the people of Ireland not right to say no to something our leaders negotiated and then admit to not having read!!!. Obviously the horrifying stupidity of that scenario couldn't be reported to their masters in Europe.

Finally I do not think we should get so concerned about kindness etc, the world is a pragmatic place and economics dictate. This emotional short term element ought really to be taken out of the decision making.

marco_polo

rumour wrote: »

Is that not the challenge
This project is being approached via the back door. Most of Europe I believe would agree to an open clear constitution, similar to that of the states. That is the starting point, build on democratic legitimacy. What we have instead is a document that is so built up in legalise it has alienated the vast majority of the popluation of Europe.
.

Just because it is a constitution does not mean that it would require a referendum, as 16 countries ratified the previous consititution without recourse to one. So until you get every one of those countries to fix their democracies to meet your standards you will never be able to have a EU that is legitimate in your eyes.

Secondly about my high horse, I have had to put up with on another thread the argument that peeople didn't infact vote 'no' to the treaty of Lisbon, what they actually did was imagine ten or twelve different questions in their head and decided to answer those questions on the day of the referendum. These obviously stupid people did so on the ballot sheet. Now Imagine that!!!! This was found out in opinion polls conducted after the referendum and we hence went back to Europe and reported on the stupidity of the irish voting public.

Referendums are by their very nature a blunt instrument. It was shown however that for each one of tax, neutrality, conscription and abortion a third of voters thought that the Lisbon affected our position. About the same amount as knew that the charter of fundamental rights was in the Treaty.