What do you admire?

Mrmoe

There has been a lot of animosity between the Yes and No campaigns of both Lisbon 1&2 with a lot of people fairly entrenched in their views and generally look upon the other side with disdain. What is the one aspect of the opposing side to your vote do you most admire/appreciate?

For me as a No voter (at the moment anyway), it is that the Yes campaign actually got of their behinds for this round and actually started campaigning as opposed the last time when they couldn't be bothered or at least it seemed that way.

WeeBushy

To be perfectly honest, very little.

K-9

I would have respect for Joe Higgins, but it's diminishing.

Scofflaw

I have respect for anyone who honestly states their position, has an honestly open mind, and doesn't resort to either lying or defending lies in defence of their position.

The debate has taken a very heavy toll of posters who I would have had respect for, because those committed to a result for perfectly good reasons of their own have not infrequently put the success of the campaign ahead of honesty, and have either winked at or openly defended lies by other campaigns. That's probably applied more, for me, to No proponents - most Yes proponents don't defend Fianna Fáil, but a lot of No proponents have defended UKIP's intervention or Libertas/COIR's lies at various points.

cordially,
Scofflaw

meglome

Scofflaw wrote: »

I have respect for anyone who honestly states their position, has an honestly open mind, and doesn't resort to either lying or defending lies in defence of their position.

The debate has taken a very heavy toll of posters who I would have had respect for, because those committed to a result for perfectly good reasons of their own have not infrequently put the success of the campaign ahead of honesty, and have either winked at or openly defended lies by other campaigns. That's probably applied more, for me, to No proponents - most Yes proponents don't defend Fianna Fáil, but a lot of No proponents have defended UKIP's intervention or Libertas/COIR's lies at various points.

cordially,
Scofflaw

As always Scofflaw puts it succinctly, I couldn't agree more.

O'Morris

The person on the yes side I admire most is Kevin Myers. He wrote a good article (here) in yesterday's Irish Independent arguing the case for a yes vote.

Kevin Myers wrote:

And the idea that Ireland alone can lead the internal dissidents of Europe against such a eurostate is rather like expecting the Isle of Man to be in the forefront of resistance to Hitler.

So it really doesn't matter whether the EU is heading in the wrong direction, as I firmly believe it is. The political reality is that we're merely a lifeboat on a davit on SS Europa: we must go wherever the ship, with its incomprehensible and possibly toxic constitution, is taking us. I just hope that when the EU founders on the rocks of history, as it will, I shall not be around to see it. And if you really want your children to grow up within a rock-sure European civilisation, then emigrate to the USA -- the first, last, and best hope of mankind.

Sam Vimes

O'Morris wrote: »

The person on the yes side I admire most is Kevin Myers. He wrote a good article (here) in yesterday's Irish Independent arguing the case for a yes vote.

I've read it and other similar articles and tbh it looks an awful lot to me like he's on the no side. Who the hell is going to be convinced by "What they're doing is totally wrong but we're too small to do anything about it so we should shut up and go along with it and if you don't like it, move to America". The only possible outcome of that is to push people even further over to the no side.


When he says he's on the yes side 'but..', all I can think of is the old adage 'I'm not racist, I have black friends!'

Jk_Eire

Not really a yes or no campaigners but I like the Just the Facts campaigns from the European Movement Ireland.
It's a good reference when looking at the arguments put forward by the yes and no campaigns.

Also, it gives a short answer, and a long detailed technical answer surrounding each myth spread.
It's easy reading too.

Sam Vimes

Jk_Eire wrote: »

Not really a yes or no campaigners but I like the Just the Facts campaigns from the European Movement Ireland.
It's a good reference when looking at the arguments put forward by the yes and no campaigns.

Also, it gives a short answer, and a long detailed technical answer surrounding each myth spread.
It's easy reading too.

We should sticky that link at the top of the forum and just close up shop because it covers most of the misconceptions. Definitely bookmarked anyway, ta

PopeBuckfastXVI

I respect anyone who's been willing to come out and say they are against the EU, and that is why they are voting 'No' to Lisbon, without resorting to pretending things are in the treaty that aren't, and pretending they're pro-EU, but just think this treaty is bad.

Sam Vimes

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

I respect anyone who's willing to come out and say they are against the EU, and that is why they are voting 'No' to Lisbon, without resorting to pretending things are in the treaty that aren't.

Agreed. It's a position I don't agree with and I think Ireland would be a very different place and a lot worse off if that was the prevailing view but at least it's honest and to the point

O'Morris

Sam Vimes wrote:

I've read it and other similar articles and tbh it looks an awful lot to me like he's on the no side.

He intends to vote yes and he's encouraging other people to vote yes. Just because he doesn't like the Lisbon treaty doesn't mean he doesn't have a reason to vote in favour of it.

Unless you think only people who are pro-Lisbon should vote yes?

Sam Vimes wrote:

Who the hell is going to be convinced by "What they're doing is totally wrong but we're too small to do anything about it so we should shut up and go along with it and if you don't like it, move to America". The only possible outcome of that is to push people even further over to the no side.

It's his honesty that I admire. I've no doubt that most yes people would agree with what he has said but they would never dare say it publically.

As I've said many times before, if Kevin Myers didn't exist it would be necessary to create him.

turgon

O'Morris wrote: »

Unless you think only people who are pro-Lisbon should vote yes?

The alternative being to vote yes for ... say ... jobs? Is this what your suggesting?

O'Morris

turgon wrote:

The alternative being to vote yes for ... say ... jobs?

The alternative being to vote yes because of a fear of the consequences of voting no.

turgon wrote:

Is this what your suggesting?

I'm suggesting that many of the people voting yes to the Lisbon treaty will be voting based on what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils.

Sam Vimes

O'Morris wrote: »

He intends to vote yes and he's encouraging other people to vote yes. Just because he doesn't like the Lisbon treaty doesn't mean he doesn't have a reason to vote in favour of it.

Unless you think only people who are pro-Lisbon should vote yes?

Ummmmmm, yes

If someone has a genuine issue with the treaty of course they should vote no, so that issue can be renegotiated. Democracy is not built on people conceding defeat and going along with a system they fundamentally object to and Kevin Myers knows that just as well as anyone else. All I'm seeing here is another attempt by Myers to rile people up

hatrickpatrick

There's absolutely nothing I respect about the yes campaign.
BUT: There's also absolutely nothing I respect about the no campaign.

BOTH of these movements have failed utterly to actually discuss the text or the direct effects of the Lisbon treaty. with the no side it's abortion and a 1.84 minimum wage, with the yes side it's economic meltdown and expulsion from the EU. I'm absolutely fed up and disgusted with both of them to be honest.

O'Morris

Sam Vimes wrote:

Ummmmmm, yes

If someone has a genuine issue with the treaty of course they should vote no

Really, so even if someone is anti-Lisbon but they have been persuaded by the scaremongers on the yes side that Ireland's economy will suffer if we don't vote yes, you still think they should vote no even though they have come to the conclusion that a yes would be the lesser of two evils?

PHB

There's a couple of Yes groups who are actually discussing the treaties, not everyone is FF or FG.

Beyond that, I respect any group who are out canvassing and organising canvassing. If people are just in this for the media, they aren't really that interested in affected the result imo.

Hydrosylator

I respect people on the Yes side who are able to state their case and argue well without using the pathetic "You're on the same side as..." arguments. The argument can be made both ways and it's insulting to the intelligence of everyone involved in either case.

As for the actual campaigns, I don't respect much about them. I think the posters put up by FF, FG, IBEC, etc are an insult to the intelligence of anybody with a brain, regardless of what way they lean on this particular issue.

Sam Vimes

O'Morris wrote: »

Really, so even if someone is anti-Lisbon but they have been persuaded by the scaremongers on the yes side that Ireland's economy will suffer if we don't vote yes, you still think they should vote no even though they have come to the conclusion that a yes would be the lesser of two evils?

Simply the act of voting no is not what's going to damage Ireland's standing in the world. What going to damage it is voting no for the plethora of ridiculous, xenophobic, irrelevant and just plain false reasons that we are voting no for. If there were valid objections to this treaty we could vote no and go back to Europe with our heads held high and get concessions. That would be democrary in action. But we've already been humiliated once by having to get guarantees that none of the crap we thought was in the treaty actually was and it looks like it might just happen again

I'm talking about a hypothetical situation where there are obvious faults with the treaty and there are valid reasons to vote no but that's not the reality. If there were serious problems with this treaty the no side would be shouting them from the rooftops. The fact that they're telling lie after lie speaks volumes about both their motives and the benign nature of this treaty

Het-Field

The Libertarian movements around Ireland, who are ideologically opposed to the Treaty on the basis that it promotes large government, and potential interference.

I can understand these guy's objection, and they flow from an ideology, as opposed to a misrepresentation

K-9

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Simply the act of voting no is not what's going to damage Ireland's standing in the world. What going to damage it is voting no for the plethora of ridiculous, xenophobic, irrelevant and just plain false reasons that we are voting no for. If there were valid objections to this treaty we could vote on and go back to Europe with our heads held high and get concessions. That would be democrary in action. But we've already been humiliated once by having to get guarantees that none of the crap we thought was in the treaty actually was and it looks like it might just happen again

I'm talking about a hypothetical situation where there are obvious faults with the treaty and there are valid reasons to vote no but that's not the reality. If there were serious problems with this treaty the no side would be shouting them from the rooftops. The fact that they're telling lie after lie speaks volumes about both their motives and the benign nature of this treaty

That is the annoying thing. Very few are actually opposed to Lisbon.

Vincent Browne pointed this out when asking Mary Lou are there any positives or good things in the Treaty. She begrudgingly, after prompts from him, agreed the increased powers for the EP is good.