The Lisbon Referendum - an analogy

roosh

This is just an analogy that best describes how I see the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty:



Let's look at the relationship between a parent and a child. Now, your parents have made decisions on your behalf in the past and they all turned out alright, some you agreed with, some you didn't, but you're older and wiser, and you can make decisions for yourself now. You owe a lot to your parents, and you are indeed very greatful to them, afterall, they clothed you, they fed you, they supported you while you were working to get qualifications, they gave you money when you wanted it to go out, when you needed it for other things. They went guarantor for you on a loan to buy a new car.

Let’s just imagine for a second, that one of your parents asked you for power of attorney over your estate, giving them the right to make decisions on your behalf. Presumably you would ask why you should give them power of attorney, and of what benefit it would be to you, to give them this power over your estate. Now, let’s just say that the answer they give you is “so that I can be more efficient when I make decisions concerning your estate”. While greater efficiency in decision making is certainly a good thing, it doesn’t say anything about the quality of those decisions, or indeed the benefits to you. If you probed a little further, and were given more reasons, reasons that were of real concern to you at this particular time (and your parent knew that).

Let's just say you found that those reasons you had been given, were in actual fact not really true, in fact, they were designed particularly to play on that particular concern of your, that concern they knew was uppermost in your mind. If they said this to you solely for the purpose of getting you to hand over that power of attorney. This alone I’m sure, would leave you sceptical as to whether giving them this power is the right Idea.
Now, this would of course be despite the fact that you would be pretty sure that your parents have your best interests at heart, you know that they don’t always make the decisions that are best for you, or indeed that you actually want. Sometimes, even when our parents are positive, that they are making the correct decision on our behalf, they can be guilty of looking after their own interests first, unbeknownst to themselves.


The thing is, you know that you will eventually pay your parents back for all they have done for you, but giving them this power, is not the way to do it.


That is why I'm voting No on the Lisbon Treaty

ei.sdraob

mangaroosh wrote: »

This is just an analogy that best describes how I see the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty:



Let's look at the relationship between a parent and a child. Now, your parents have made decisions on your behalf in the past and they all turned out alright, some you agreed with, some you didn't, but you're older and wiser, and you can make decisions for yourself now. You owe a lot to your parents, and you are indeed very greatful to them, afterall, they clothed you, they fed you, they supported you while you were working to get qualifications, they gave you money when you wanted it to go out, when you needed it for other things. They went guarantor for you on a loan to buy a new car.

Let’s just imagine for a second, that one of your parents asked you for power of attorney over your estate, giving them the right to make decisions on your behalf. Presumably you would ask why you should give them power of attorney, and of what benefit it would be to you, to give them this power over your estate. Now, let’s just say that the answer they give you is “so that I can be more efficient when I make decisions concerning your estate”. While greater efficiency in decision making is certainly a good thing, it doesn’t say anything about the quality of those decisions, or indeed the benefits to you. If you probed a little further, and were given more reasons, reasons that were of real concern to you at this particular time (and your parent knew that).

Let's just say you found that those reasons you had been given, were in actual fact not really true, in fact, they were designed particularly to play on that particular concern of your, that concern they knew was uppermost in your mind. If they said this to you solely for the purpose of getting you to hand over that power of attorney. This alone I’m sure, would leave you sceptical as to whether giving them this power is the right Idea.
Now, this would of course be despite the fact that you would be pretty sure that your parents have your best interests at heart, you know that they don’t always make the decisions that are best for you, or indeed that you actually want. Sometimes, even when our parents are positive, that they are making the correct decision on our behalf, they can be guilty of looking after their own interests first, unbeknownst to themselves.



That is why I'm voting No on the Lisbon Treaty

If i were Freud I would say you were .....


/

PopeBuckfastXVI

This analogy only works if you're still part of your parents bodies, perhaps as some sort of semi-born fetus of conjoined twins, mutually dependent and sharing a triumvirate hive mind. And the three of you together were deciding how to take the decisions you take together.

Good analogy...

roosh

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

This analogy only works if you're still part of your parents bodies, perhaps as some sort of semi-born fetus of conjoined twins, mutually dependent and sharing a triumvirate hive mind. And the three of you together were deciding how to take the decisions you take together.

Good analogy...

No, it will only work like that if we vote Yes to the Lisbon referendum, where we will become "part of our parents bodies", in a move that will see us become a "sort of semi-born fetus of conjoined twins, mutually dependent and sharing a triumvirate hive mind".

PopeBuckfastXVI

mangaroosh wrote: »

No, it will only work like that if we vote Yes to the Lisbon referendum, where we will become "part of our parents bodies", in a move that will see us become a "sort of semi-born fetus of conjoined twins, mutually dependent and sharing a triumvirate hive mind".

Are we not part of the EU at the moment then?

I'm confused. Who's the 'parents' and who's 'me'? I assumed the 'parents' were the other member states, and Ireland is 'me'? Have I got that wrong?


Hmmm, bad analogy is bad...

humanji

Instead of using an analogy, why not use the treaty itself? One of the main complaints about the treaty was that it was confusing, so adding an ambiguous analogy to the mix isn't exactly going to help matters, is it?

P. Breathnach

mangaroosh wrote: »

This is just an analogy ...

That is why I'm voting No on the Lisbon Treaty

That's a bit like the attitude of the rebellious adolescent who goes against his parents just because he can.

roosh

For those of you who clearly do not understand that analogy, as basic and as simplistic as it is, let me spell it out for you.

Even if my parents, whom I trust and to whom I owe so much, were to ask me for greater power to make decisions on my behalf, and I found out they were lying about why I should give them that power, then I would be very very sceptical about giving it to them. So much so, that I would not give it to them.

Now, if I wouldn't give this kind of power to my parents, why should I give that power to any politicians, after I have realised that they have been trying to play on my fears in order to get me to give it to them?

And yes, this does transfer more power from the people of Europe, to those people that have lied about why we should give it to them.

roosh

Daftendirekt wrote: »

Your analogy breaks down when you mention a parent requesting power of attorney over their adult offspring.

Since there isn't anything in the Lisbon Treaty equivalent to this, it doesn't make much sense.

see above, it isn't an analogy based on the entities involved, it is based on the request for increased power and the behaviour in trying to secure that power.

I better clarify that further, with people's propensity to misconstrue, basic english. I am not making a comparison between the parent child relationship and the EU and Ireland.

I am saying, if my parents lied to me about giving them more power to make decisions on my behalf, and I found out they had lied, I wouldn't give them that power. Therefore, when I find out all the politicians of the major political parties are lying about why I should give them more power to make decisions about the country and Europe, I am not going to give it to them.

The inability to understand this analogy brings into serious question a persons ability to understand the wider ramifications of the Lisbon Referendum.

squod

Interesting post, completely wasted on some people. Interesting nonetheless.

Daftendirekt

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Are we not part of the EU at the moment then?

I'm confused. Who's the 'parents' and who's 'me'? I assumed the 'parents' were the other member states, and Ireland is 'me'? Have I got that wrong?


Hmmm, bad analogy is bad...

I thought that at first, but I think I was mistaken.

I think the parent are supposed to represent the government, and you are the citizens.

Which is a flaw in the analogy immediately, since the relationship between government and citizens is more like that of employer and assistant. The ultimate power to hire and fire resides in the employer, but the assistant is authorised to make certain decisions on his behalf.

In certain cases, the assistant has to refer back to the employer before signing a document in his name or whatever, but more often than not, the assistant is acting on his own initiative while following some general instructions.

Incidentally, if the assistant asks for permission to sign a document on his employer's behalf and is refused, but the assistant has a better grasp of the content of said document (particularly if the assistant helped write it), then there's nothing wrong with him asking a second time, just to be sure.


And by the way, I'd hope most people realise that the mentality of state and citizenry being analogous to parent and child is a worrying one, and I'd hope it isn't shared by many.

Daftendirekt

mangaroosh wrote: »

see above, it isn't an analogy based on the entities involved, it is based on the request for increased power and the behaviour in trying to secure that power.

I better clarify that further, with people's propensity to misconstrue, basic english. I am not making a comparison between the parent child relationship and the EU and Ireland.

I am saying, if my parents lied to me about giving them more power to make decisions on my behalf, and I found out they had lied, I wouldn't give them that power. Therefore, when I find out all the politicians of the major political parties are lying about why I should give them more power to make decisions about the country and Europe, I am not going to give it to them.

The inability to understand this analogy brings into serious question a persons ability to understand the wider ramifications of the Lisbon Referendum.

Apologies, I misread your post and deleted my reply, since it was irrelevant. See above for my actual response.

Edit: And just to address your point about the parent lying:

To take my analogy further, the assistant in this case, is an incompetent one, and while he does have a solid grasp of the implications of the document to be signed, he is unable to explain it in plain English. Instead, he is only able to give vague generalisations, and indications that putting his signature to the document will be beneficial. In this case, rather than simply deny his assistant permission to sign, he should have a look at the document itself, and make up his own mind about it to the best of his ability, rather than relying on his assistant's explanation.

roosh

The analogy isn't meant to describe the relationship of the EU to Ireland, instead it uses a relationship which is actually much, much closer in reality, and involves much higher levels of trust. It is an analogy based on the reasons being given for a Yes vote and why they are simply not good enough:

The basic premise:
We are being told we owe the EU so much, therefore we should vote Yes.

We owe our parents infinitely more, but if we found out that they were lying and playing on our fears, then we wouldn't give them that power.

Therefore, we shouldn't give these people who have lied to us, and tried to play on our fears, more power over the running of the contintent.



Further, our parents we would think, could be trusted to make good decisions on our behalf, and in our best interests, but they are clearly fallible in this area, maybe through no fault of their own. Therefore, if we were given the opportunity to give them more power over making decisions for us, then the chances are we would decide not to, especially if they lied to us about why - regardless of what kind of decisions they were looking for extra power to make.

By the same token, the politicians of Europe may think that they have our best interests at heart, and may make decisions that they think are in our best interests. They are of course fallible in this, so now that we have the opportunity to give them more power, the fact that they are seeking to play on our fears, and have attempted to sneak this treaty through the back door, to get us to give them that power, we should vote No - regardless of the decisons they are looking to make.

roosh

Daftendirekt wrote: »

Apologies, I misread your post and deleted my reply, since it was irrelevant. See above for my actual response.

Edit: And just to address your point about the parent lying:

To take my analogy further, the assistant in this case, is an incompetent one, and while he does have a solid grasp of the implications of the document to be signed, he is unable to explain it in plain English. Instead, he is only able to give vague generalisations, and indications that putting his signature to the document will be beneficial. In this case, rather than simply deny his assistant permission to sign, he should have a look at the document itself, and make up his own mind about it to the best of his ability, rather than relying on his assistant's explanation.

Just one problem with your analogy, it fails to highlights that it is the assistant that is actually looking to gain an increase in decision making power, however your own analogy is a useful one, to explain the wider context of the rest of Europe.

What would the employer do, if he discovered that the assistants of all the other employers he worked with, had conspired to try and gain greater control over the collective workings of all the employers, without consulting the employers.

Or more to the point, if those assistants had put a proposal to their respective employers, looking for greater control over a wide range of issues, and those employers had siad no. - because their employers requested that they be consulted on any such proposals containing the word constitution.

Then, were those assistants to change that proposal and remove the word constitution, and make a few other changes, so that the content of the proposal was effectively the same, just that certain wording had been changed, thereby bypassing the need to consult their employer.

Unfortunately their attempt to do this was foiled by one employers request to see all proposals that would hand over such power to the assistants. If this employer then rejected the proposal, but those assistants guaranteed him that his concerns would be looked after, but that they wouldn't actually change the proposal to reflect that, but they promised they would at a later date.

If this employer discovered this attempt by the assistants to, legally, go behind their employers backs, would this employer not be sufficiently suspicious, and consider it his duty to inform the other employers and at least give them the chance to say whether the changed made by the assistants were sufficient to warrant giving them this extra power.

Upon discovering this attempt by the assistants to pull this manoeuvre, would the one employer not be sufficiently concerned to question the intentions of the assistants. Perhaps, they thought they were acting in the best interests of their respective employers, thinking that their employers had enough to worry about, that it was only slight increase in their decision making power, but an increase that meant they didn't have to consult their employers as much in future - thereby giving themselves more power - one of the things the proposal says that they won't actually do in future, possibly because this proposal gives them all the decision making power in the future.

From the point of view ot the assistants, it really is an ingenious proposal, because after this one last go at secrecy and power grabbing, it promises that they won't do it again, possibly because they won't have to.

However from the point of view of the employer, it makes them almost subserviant to thier assistants.

Or the change form bottom up, to top down, as you will discover, if you go into it more.

It really is a fantastic piece of legislation from the Eurocrats, you have to hand it to them, this is the final piece in the jigsaw in terms of having to consult the people of Europe when it comes to decisions. If it gets passed, they will be studying this in history class in 50-100yrs time, saying what a cunning political manoeuvre it was.

P. Breathnach

Argument by analogy is of limited usefulness. I think this thread demonstrates that.

roosh

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Argument by analogy is of limited usefulness. I think this thread demonstrates that.

why, did you not understand it?
Or was it just that it goes against your point of view?

Stark

Your parents want to repaint the family home but they need your sign-off on the chosen colour which is blue. You tell them you don't want them painting the place because you don't like the colour red. They ask "are you sure? because we're actually painting it blue. We'll even give you a signed guarantee that we won't paint it red". You say "No means no!".

P. Breathnach

mangaroosh wrote: »

why, did you not understand it?
Or was it just that it goes against your point of view?

The parallels between the analogy and that which I think it purports to represent are poor.

Daftendirekt

mangaroosh wrote: »

Just one problem with your analogy, it fails to highlights that it is the assistant that is actually looking to gain an increase in decision making power, however your own analogy is a useful one, to explain the wider context of the rest of Europe.

What would the employer do, if he discovered that the assistants of all the other employers he worked with, had conspired to try and gain greater control over the collective workings of all the employers, without consulting the employers.

Or more to the point, if those assistants had put a proposal to their respective employers, looking for greater control over a wide range of issues, and those employers had siad no. - because their employers requested that they be consulted on any such proposals containing the word constitution.

Then, were those assistants to change that proposal and remove the word constitution, and make a few other changes, so that the content of the proposal was effectively the same, just that certain wording had been changed, thereby bypassing the need to consult their employer.

Unfortunately their attempt to do this was foiled by one employers request to see all proposals that would hand over such power to the assistants. If this employer then rejected the proposal, but those assistants guaranteed him that his concerns would be looked after, but that they wouldn't actually change the proposal to reflect that, but they promised they would at a later date.

If this employer discovered this attempt by the assistants to, legally, go behind their employers backs, would this employer not be sufficiently suspicious, and consider it his duty to inform the other employers and at least give them the chance to say whether the changed made by the assistants were sufficient to warrant giving them this extra power.

Upon discovering this attempt by the assistants to pull this manoeuvre, would the one employer not be sufficiently concerned to question the intentions of the assistants. Perhaps, they thought they were acting in the best interests of their respective employers, thinking that their employers had enough to worry about, that it was only slight increase in their decision making power, but an increase that meant they didn't have to consult their employers as much in future - thereby giving themselves more power - one of the things the proposal says that they won't actually do in future, possibly because this proposal gives them all the decision making power in the future.

From the point of view ot the assistants, it really is an ingenious proposal, because after this one last go at secrecy and power grabbing, it promises that they won't do it again, possibly because they won't have to.

However from the point of view of the employer, it makes them almost subserviant to thier assistants.

Or the change form bottom up, to top down, as you will discover, if you go into it more.

It really is a fantastic piece of legislation from the Eurocrats, you have to hand it to them, this is the final piece in the jigsaw in terms of having to consult the people of Europe when it comes to decisions. If it gets passed, they will be studying this in history class in 50-100yrs time, saying what a cunning political manoeuvre it was.

Right, I'm going to drop the analogy here, if you don't mind, since it's been stretched to breaking point already.

I really don't know where to start. First of all, the implication that the government gain more power through Lisbon. How could this happen? (And please don't mention article 48, it's been done.)

Even worse is the suggestion that the other member states' governments are using Lisbon as a power grab to gain greater control over their electorates. I've argued before that the restructuring will actually reduce the centralisation of power in Brussels, and give the electorates a greater say in the decision making of the EU, so I won't go into it again here. I know I said I'd drop the analogy, but one quick point: it's more like the assistants are 'conspiring' to come up with a better system that's easier to keep their employers in the loop, and gives them more input into the workings of this business network or whatever.

And the reason the guts of the Constitution were repackaged was not to avoid a referendum, but to address the concerns of the people who voted it down. Binding referenda are illegal in the Netherlands, and not necessary in France.

I'm also still waiting to see what drastic new powers Lisbon hands over to the EU. I've asked this before, but haven't got an answer yet. Maybe you can oblige.