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About LinkBacksAnyone who votes no on this treaty because they're unhappy with FF or Ahern should have their vote taken away.
They are too F*****g stupid to live in a democracy.
Vote on the issue at hand. You had your chance to get Bertie out last may.
Anyone who votes no on this treaty because they're unhappy with FF or Ahern should have their vote taken away.
They are too F*****g stupid to live in a democracy.
Vote on the issue at hand. You had your chance to get Bertie out last may.
"Who will bailout the IMF after FF is finished with them?"
Yeah, no need to take my head off! I just think 'might' or 'would' are more appropriate. I said it wasn't intentional.Originally Posted by kerrynorth
Are you expecting everyone WILL vote Yes? If so your comment is ridiculous. I said in the OP that I did not know whether the No vote would be a majority or not!There's method to his madness...
I dislike the thread title, it impiles that people WILL vote no.
I was going to remark that a discussion along this lines was needed. Glad I didn't now, seeing as you hurt my feelings.
bert was just on deferring the water charges for schools for 2yrs so it looks like it'll be the council elecitons that'll get the heat from that now. apparently when asked what to do with the bills they got bert said "hang on to em "
Congratulations, you are hereby appointed chief spokesperson for the yes campaign.
Here are the reason why some people will vote No:
1) They don't understand it so won't go along with it.
2) They actually do understand and really won't go along with the changes eg qmv, council v parliament etc.
3) They don't believe Bertie Ahern and his Minister for Europe, Dick Roche.
4) Its doesn't help that Enda Kenny is also saying to vote yes.
5) The people take out their media driven anger of the government on the in the referendum.
6) What has Europe done for us lately? (don't we subsidise them now?)
What people won't admit to is their real reason:
7) Too many immigrants.
So a combination of nut-jobs, the ignorant, the anti-everything brigade (they havn't gone away you know) racists, and leftie intellectuals.
And the fact that most political party people could not be arsed canvessing for it.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.
My view (as a no voter and campaigner) is that voting no will not have a negative effect - since enlargement, the passage of legislation through the institutions of the EU has increased 25%.
However, some of the reasons I am voting no, and leading a campaign against the treaty:
1. Article 48 allows for the treaty to be self amending - in that any change to the treaty can be done by a simple unanimous agreement of the council of ministers. Smiffy et al will point to this article saying that the change is subject to each memberstates constitutional responsibilities to ratification - but that does not mean further referenda. The Crotty Judgement (1987) stated that a referendum must always be held if the treaties of Rome were to be amended. However as this treaty has specific provision for amendments, it makes Crotty irrelevant. It changes key decision making and power away from the people, and invests it in the parliament. Considering Sarkozy, Brown, Merkel, all the other 26 leaders are denying their people the right to a say on this treaty, I believe a yes vote on Lisbon will be the final say we have on Europe. Bertie himself said (re; Constitution in 2005) that this would be the last time we had a say on Europe for a generation.
2. Change of voting methods from unanimity to QMV - A change to qualified majority voting by the council of ministers (meaning 55% of the countries representing 65% of the population of Europe) will be able to push through changes to the EU. Bertie stood up in the Dail last week and blamed the EU for the water directives with regards to schools. He'll be doing MUCH more of that under this treaty.
3. Under the Lisbon Treaty, more than 60 areas of legislation transfer from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting which uses population as its principle criterion. This means the voice of smaller states like Ireland is weakened in areas such as social security, immigration, energy, culture and even sport. Worse still, the percentage threshold for blocking legislation with which Ireland does not agree is raised from 27% to 35%.
4. More competency for foreign policy invested in the new foreign minister - a new foreign minister (called the High Representative) will have competency with regards to representing the European Union as a whole. A new consular unit from the EU will over-ride national consular units globally.
5. The Lisbon Treaty would make Members of the European Parliament, who at present are "representatives of the peoples of the Member States", into "representatives of the Union's citizens" (Art.9a, amended TEU). This illustrates the constitutional shift the Treaty would make from the present European Union of national States and peoples to the new Federal Union of European citizens and their national states - the latter henceforth reduced constitutionally and politically to provincial or regional status. Remember how our local TDs are national legislators, and not supposed to act in local interests? - that's precisely how our MEPs will be expected to behave.
6. Weaker national parliaments - The Treaty underlines the subordinate role of National Parliaments in the constitutional structure of the new Union by stating that "National Parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union" by various means set out in Article 8c, amended TEU. The imperative "shall" implies an obligation on National Parliaments to further the interests of the new Union.
7. A European President that we can't vote for - A EU President for up to 5 years (2.5 renewable only once) makes the EU more federalist in nature. This person will be elected by the council of ministers, not you or I - the most powerful position in Europe. And we don't get a vote. Is that democracy?
8. The Council of Ministers becomes the Government of the EU - The Treaty would turn the European Council, the quarterly "summit" meetings of Member State Heads of State or Government, into an institution of the new Union, so that its acts and failures to act would, like all other Union institutions, be subject to legal review by the EU Court of Justice. Legally speaking these summit meetings of the European Council would no longer be "intergovernmental" gatherings of Prime Ministers and Presidents outside supranational European structures. As part of the new EU´s institutional framework, they would instead be constitutionally required to "promote the Union's values, advance its objectives, serve its interests" and "ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions." (Art. 9 amended TEU). They would also "define the general political direction and priorities thereof"(Art.9b).
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I'll be voting NO because it is the only mechanism open to me to express my dissent from the crazy Fianna Fail/IBEC policies of inviting huge numbers of foreigners to settle in Ireland.
I'll vote NO in honour of Dave's 7000th post. Dave, will I ever get to be as big and strong as you?
Oh, and because I'm too uninterested to read the actual content of said post. It seems like he put a lot of thought into it, though.
Oddly 905- out of my 7000 posts - that is by far my best.
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Thus spake the perfectionist. I may even read it one day.
Thats a damn stupid reason to vote no.
If the treaty is rejected it won't make a blind bit of difference to those issues.
"Who will bailout the IMF after FF is finished with them?"
