[Ridgerunner]

Anyone who doesn't think that the Constitution and it's ammendments mean what they actually say needs to go to a re-education camp.

I'll be in charge.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Here we go again. I haven't much time at hand at the moment, but I hope I can address everything brought up.

I may be wrong here, but wont the EU constitution actually put legistration in place that'll enable a nation to pull out of the EU?

Exactly. One of the reasons why I think even EU critics should ratify the EU constitution: ratify it and then get the hell out of it.


I started to answer your post Quarto but I haven't finished and have to go now. I don't want that you start dismantling my part-answer before I finish the whole thus I'll post everything when I'm finished. I think's that's goping to be tomorrow.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

(...)
That isn't the issue. I'm sure you're right, that nobody thought of the environment at the time - but the far more interesting question to me is whether they would have provided any rules for it had they thought of it. IMO, the answer is a great, big, resounding no. As Death said, the US constitution is a framework, which is intentionally kept down to a minimum, in order to avoid over-regulation and to provide everyone with clear, legible rules.

Certainly they wouldn’t have put it in because they had put everything in it they thought important at that time. There wasn’t much more to put into a constitution then. But if someone makes a constitution today – they’ll put it in.
And the Union certainly had a different goal than the EU now has. The former one was about a country where freedom and liberty is guaranteed; other things were secondary and sould be left to the member states. The EU/the European communities, since their member states were/are considered to be countries of freedom, sought and seek something different: harmonisation of national laws to create a zone of free trade, the internal market. There’s a lot more to regulate to achieve this.

This, needless to say, is good. It's a good thing when the citizens of the country, including the vast, huge, overwhelming majority that has not studied law, can understand the constitution and what it has to say about their basic rights and responsibilities. The EU constitution fails dismally on this count.
[snip]
Because, let's be completely clear about this. Laws are not written for lawyers. Laws are written for people. When people can't understand the law - that's not a small issue. That's a huge, show-stopping problem.

I put those two together because they aim at the same.

Of course it’d be good if every citizen could immediately understand what a law means and how he has to behave accordingly. But that's a romantic and unrealistic view since that’s evidently not the case how it is. Why else should be there the study of law, the formation of lawyers and judges? And that would also imply that a law would have to be changed every 50 or so years because the language has changed. Some of the German laws, dating back to the 19th century wouldn’t be understood by everyone, simply because of the words used.
And even the simplest of laws can be misunderstood, as the example with the first amendment shows. And even the most basic laws are violated.
Then you have to consider how a law is written and why it is written in such a way: it’s written highly abstract so that many cases can fall under its rule when they should do so. But abstract formulations are not easy to grasp - which, again, is why you need specially trained people to interpret a law correctly.
Not to forget that a law dealing with complex matters (finances, competences, competition etc…) will be less understood by the majority, simply because they don’t know the topic.
And while you keep saying that the EU constitution is totally incomprehensible for the non-lawyers, you bring no example. Honestly, the parts in the EU constitution dealing with the rights of EU citizens is quite simple – after all, the Charta is written quite traditionally. Can you cite an example of one of those totally incomprehensible rules in the EU constitution that deals with the basic rights and responsibilities?
And, again, even if you persist on your point, at least it’s undisputable that it is more comprehensible if everything is in a single work instead of being treated in multiple treaties. Heck, the whole organization is far better to comprehend, now that there’s only the European Union with its institutions and it has legal personality. Before you had different European Communities which shared each the same organs, but had each legal personality and then as some kind of roof above those communities was the European Union, which borrowed the institutions of the Communities but had itself no legal personality.
So in that point alone the constitution is a big step forward.

I saw an article on BBC news online today that most people in Spain (where the referendum is coming up) have no idea what the constitution is about. And that includes those who are for it. Even if this would be the only problem, IMO this would already be enough to qualify the EU constitution as a stinking pile of bullshit.

No, the real problem, as Conrad and Mad Dog already pointed out, is: people are uninformed and they don't care. They want to watch TV and have a pleasant life, they don't care who has legislative competence in this or that distinct matter. That applies to the general attitude towards the EU as well: people have no idea about how it works and they don't look for informations but listen to rumours. Like that woman in Germany who thought she couldn't pay with French Euros in Germany. And according to a friend who has studied for a year in Warsaw, it's not different in Poland. When the elections for the European parliament came, they didn't know what it was all about. This phenomenon is observable everywhere and then we get a low voting participation even though the EU parliament has more powers than ever (still not as much as most national parliaments but it's getting there)!
You yourself, even though your obviously more interested in that matter than most, mixed up the courts of Straßburg and Luxemburg, thought it was the EU which decided to boycott Austria and that it wouldn’t be possible to make special rules for new members.

Because of what you just said - times change, issues change. The more you put into the constitution, the bigger the chance of having to change it later.

Because of those changes new issues have been brought into the constitution. And that’s also put into consideration because you have the Court which can interpret the law/constitution and fill up the big words with details. You don’t need to change a law everytime a detail or a concept changes. And frankly, I can’t see a concept in the constitution that’ll obviously need to be changed in the near future with the possible exceptions of the rules about the way decisions are made, to take into consideration new developments in population, members or for giving more rights to the parliament.

No, it shouldn't. It should be an unchangeable holy cow.
We respect the law because it's beyond our control. We respect it because it comes from above, and because violating it carries tangible (and preferably painful) consequences. Once we can change the law, we lose our respect for it. This is why parliaments today constantly come up with dozens of new laws that either make no sense or contradict existing laws. This is why we keep having scandals about politicians abusing their power. I don't blame the politicians for being corrupt. When you have the ability to change the law, surely you are above the law, and you don't need to stick by its rules. If you break the law, you can always change it... and yeah, such changes aren't supposed to apply retrospectively, but you can change that, too.

I’ll take it that laws are respected because it’s violation is sanctioned (and even then it’s often enough not respected).
But the law isn’t above you or beyond one’s control. That’s the concept of Absolutism or dictatorship, not in a modern democracy. Laws are made by the people you elect, who can be quite ordinary people. Thus, in Germany everyone can attack a law if he feels it violates his rights and if the Constitutional Court agrees with him then the law is declared anti-constitutional and void. That same possibility is given in the EU constitution (I know that possibility exists to a smaller extent in France). In a modern democracy you respect a law because you agree with its content and that’s the way it should be. It’s certainly a bad idea to respect a bad, discriminating law because they above me made it and won’t change it.

Compare this to the US, where people - both ordinary people and the politicians - have this enormous respect for their constitution. Sometimes when I talk to Americans, I'm amazed by just how much they respect the constitution and the people who wrote it. Why is that? Simple. Because their consititution is nearly impossible to change. And so, everyone knows that it's neutral. Everyone knows that the US constitution can never be changed to allow an incumbent president to remain in power for another two decades, the way it happens in so many third-world countries with their brand new, super-fancy constitutions. And so, no matter what happens in politics, the constitution is a rallying point - both the Republicans and the Democrats respect it, because they know it wasn't written to favour one side or the other, and they know that nobody will ever agree to change it to serve the interests of one side of the other.

I am no American but from the impression I got while talking with Americans, I agree with Mad Dog: the Constitution and its authors are mythicized. There’s a cult about it which explains the patriotism common in the US. That’s certainly not a bad thing since the US constitution is one which has proven its value and one can be proud of. But that doesn’t mean that the understanding of it is more common than anywhere else.

Plus, I guess the EU constitution is far more difficult to change than the US constitution since every government has to agree. So, where’s your respect for the EU constitution?

This will not be the case with the EU constititution. The EU constitution will get changed over and over, to serve the interests of those in power.

No it won’t. See above.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Limit reached, here's part two:

The EU constitution, in fact, already represents such change - after Iraq, France and Germany weren't happy with Poland's pro-US policies, and so you had that whole debacle with Poland getting less votes in the constitution than it did in the Nice treaty (which was a crime, really, and had the Polish government been the least bit interested in serving their country, they would have held a second EU accession referendum at that point - because the results of the previous referendum applied to a situation that no longer existed). This is the way things will go in the future, and this is why the EU constitution will never be respected in the way the US constitution is respected. Once a bloated piece of crap, always a bloated piece of crap...

Ah, I see what bugs you. But you’re wrong:
First: The debate about Poland’s (and Spain’s) number of votes had nothing to do with the Pro-America attitude but the question was raised immediately after (and even during) the Nice treaty simply because Poland and Spain were overly represented in the votes compared to the other so-called big countries (France, UK, Italy and Germany). Whereas those countries all agreed in stepping down on some matters to keep the Union running more efficiently and have a fairer representation of the member states (giving up seats in the European parliament to take into account Germany’s larger population and giving up the second Commsissioner), Spain and Poland didn’t want to give up their advantage. That was the real crime.
And keep in mind that polish (and of course spanish) representatives had been present during the elaboration of the constitution.

Second: Poland actually still has as many votes in the European Council and the Council of Ministers as in the treaty of Nice: 27 (as does Spain). Compared to Germany’s 29 that’s far too much, considering population and economic power. The thing that is envisaged to be changed is that now (ie: from 2009 on), to take a decision, you have to get the majority of the members, representing the majority of Union’s population. Which is a really reasonable thing if you want to keep a minimum of democratic standards.

 

[Quarto]

And the Union certainly had a different goal than the EU now has. The former one was about a country where freedom and liberty is guaranteed;

I'm sorry. I know I'm quoting you out of context, given what you said next, but it just so happens that this first part expresses perfectly what in my opinion is the difference between the Union and the EU - the former is indeed a country where freedom and liberty are guaranteed. The latter is not.

Of course it’d be good if every citizen could immediately understand what a law means and how he has to behave accordingly. But that's a romantic and unrealistic view since that’s evidently not the case how it is. Why else should be there the study of law, the formation of lawyers and judges?

Hehe, I hope you're aware how that sounds, coming from a law student .

In any case, yes, in modern society, an ordinary person is not likely to have a complete understanding of the law. I mean, why should I know anything about air traffic regulations or the law of the sea? But everyone should be able to understand the law that applies to them. If this isn't the case, then this is a huge problem - you cannot expect people to obey laws when they don't understand them. In fact, such laws go against the very idea of personal responsibility. One of the most standard defences in criminal court is insanity - when, through illness or mental condition you are either not in control of your actions or have no understanding of your actions. The idea is, if someone commits murder without understanding what he did, he is not guilty. You can send him off to a mental institution, but you cannot send him off to jail or execute him.

A society where people do not understand the law is a sociaty of people not guilty by insanity. It is a pathetic parody of a just society, despicably at odds with itself - either because it claims to be ruled by laws even though they do not apply, or because it punishes people for crimes they do not understand even though its own laws claim this is not a just thing to do.

The EU is such a society.

And while you keep saying that the EU constitution is totally incomprehensible for the non-lawyers, you bring no example.

The EU constitution is the example . I can barely force myself past the preamble, let alone read all two hundred pages of it. And I'm not alone in this. The vast majority of the EU population is with me. What more proof do you want?

Ah, I see what bugs you. First: The debate about Poland’s (and Spain’s) number of votes had nothing to do with the Pro-America attitude [...] Spain and Poland didn’t want to give up their advantage. That was the real crime.

Actually, it seems you have no idea what bugs me. I don't give a shit about how many votes Poland gets. In fact, it seems reasonable to me that the representation of each country should be sized to match that country's power (in the same way as it would be reasonable to have individual people's votes weighed according to their wealth in a democracy - no, I'm not being sarcastic), so the reduction of Poland's voting power makes perfect sense.

But you're missing the point. The Nice Treaty was concluded before Poland's EU referendum. When the Polish people voted on the accession, that treaty defined the conditions on which Poland would enter, and therefore was a major factor in people's decision on how they would vote.

Poland voted in favour, and next thing you know, the treaty gets flushed down the toilet and replaced with the constitution, which puts Poland in a far worse position. It so happens that all this occurs exactly at the time of a major disagreement between Poland and the EU's great powers, France and Germany. Poland strenuously objects, but is told to shut up - which, to the eternal shame of Poland's government, is exactly what it does, even though the nation itself was outraged by the changes. Now, how does that look to you? Because to me, it looks like one of two possibilities, and neither of them bodes too well for Poland's future:
1. France and Germany got scared when they saw Poland was aligned against them. At a time when Spain and the UK were both against them, the prospect of Poland and the other new members siding with the UK wasn't a fun one. And so, they took steps to regain control of their empire and to show the new members where they stand.
2. The Nice Treaty was written specifically to draw in the ten new members, while the old members (again, for some reason, France and Germany come to mind) always intended the final outcome to be somewhat different. Once the referendums came through, the camouflage was dropped.

In either case, the EU doesn't seem to be the most trust-worthy of partners. Imagine - you buy a house. You see the price. So you buy it. Can't pay all at once, mind you, so the deal is, you pay half now, and the rest later. A few months later, it's time to pay the other half. Only, now you're told that the deal had changed; the other half will be twice as much as the first half - and if you want to abort the whole deal, you're welcome to, but you're not getting the first half back.

Sounds like a fun deal, doesn't it?

I know it's not the most realistic of examples, but as far as the Polish public is concerned, this is exactly what happened. Everyone knew joining the EU would mean losing sovereignty. But the Nice Treaty assured everyone that Poland wouldn't be overpowered by Germany (whom, for some, incomprehensible reason, we can't bring ourselves to trust ), so it was all right. And so, the nation voted in favour... only to find out that the deal had changed, and Germany would be calling the shots after all.

Anyway, I don't want to waste too much more time on this - if I respond to everything you say, you'll have to respond to everything I say, and so on, and I just don't have the time for that . Allow me to end this with a wonderfully fun little conglomerate of quotes - three things you said, all in one post. This set of quotes is arguably the most important thing in this entire thread, and certainly the most informative. Among other things, it says clearly that democracy is the worst possible form of government, where the government is elected by people who couldn't begin to understand what they're doing, where there is no longer any respect or even understanding of what the law is supposed to be.

Of course it’d be good if every citizen could immediately understand what a law means and how he has to behave accordingly. But that's a romantic and unrealistic view since that’s evidently not the case how it is.

No, the real problem, is: people are uninformed and they don't care. They want to watch TV and have a pleasant life, they don't care who has legislative competence in this or that distinct matter.

But the law isn’t above you or beyond one’s control. Laws are made by the people you elect, who can be quite ordinary people. In a modern democracy you respect a law because you agree with its content and that’s the way it should be.

Ah, democracy, where people have the power to change the laws they don't understand - "and that's the way it should be" .

 

[Maj.Striker]

Meh, my opinion counts probably little in this matter but in regards to the US constitution...it has been changed from what the founders of this country originally designed it. The supreme courts have ruled what the Founders truly meant for this country and "interpreted" the law as they've seen fit. Sometimes they've been right, sometimes they've been wrong...but regardless the results of their decision has redefined that ways the constitution was applied to situations. No country will probably ever have a document that can't be modified by some fashion.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

OK - let's put an more or less official end to our debate (though I'm willing to discuss further any questions coming up), since I don't think we'll get any further and I don't want to waste time either. Also because I think that we have some sort of conclusion. Thus, your time will indeed be better invested in Standoff from which I'll profit one day.
If you don't trust democracy then the EU constitution and everything about it, including how it was made, isn't going to appeal to you, that's clear.
So I'll only make some final sentences and I'm hope they're not going to be too long.

I'm sorry. I know I'm quoting you out of context, given what you said next, but it just so happens that this first part expresses perfectly what in my opinion is the difference between the Union and the EU - the former is indeed a country where freedom and liberty are guaranteed. The latter is not.

Seeing how the EU is much about dismantling restrictions and interference by the state, the EU territory at least knows now more freedom than before.

But everyone should be able to understand the law that applies to them. If this isn't the case, then this is a huge problem - you cannot expect people to obey laws when they don't understand them. In fact, such laws go against the very idea of personal responsibility. One of the most standard defences in criminal court is insanity - when, through illness or mental condition you are either not in control of your actions or have no understanding of your actions. The idea is, if someone commits murder without understanding what he did, he is not guilty. You can send him off to a mental institution, but you cannot send him off to jail or execute him.

A society where people do not understand the law is a sociaty of people not guilty by insanity. It is a pathetic parody of a just society, despicably at odds with itself - either because it claims to be ruled by laws even though they do not apply, or because it punishes people for crimes they do not understand even though its own laws claim this is not a just thing to do.

The EU is such a society.

If you would have said that the countries the EU is made of, are such societies then I'd disagree less. But that phenomenon isn't the fault of the EU but is the result of having one block of people who have grown complacent and lazy by the luxury the democracy has granted them over the years and the other block being not familiar with democratic rights and responsabilities. The EU is trying to give new impulses to the democratic spirit.
Everyone who's willing to learn and understand his rights granted by the EU (and its constitution) can do this quite simply. It really is a minimal effort.

The EU constitution is the example . I can barely force myself past the preamble, let alone read all two hundred pages of it. And I'm not alone in this. The vast majority of the EU population is with me. What more proof do you want?

At first I'd like proof that the vast majority of the EU population is with you.
And I do not mean that you should prove that the majority of the EU population is too lazy to look into the constitution (that I do believe) but that the majority has really tried and then gave up. I mean, the preamble is not even a page long - that's not what I call really trying.

(...) The Nice treaty thing

But the Nice Treaty isn't flushed anywhere - it is in vigour. There's a change proposed to it by the constitution, a very sensible change, but that one is still not in vigour. Too bad that the majority thinks it is a sensible change.

And the Polish seem to overestimate the power of France and Germany in the EU since those two states alone can't decide anything in the EU. In fact, with the new voting mechanism neither the big states could overrule the smaller ones nor could the smaller ones overrule the big ones - which is the situation you want to have.
And thus all those fears and conspiracy theories that bug the Polish you mentioned are just completely unjustified - which, once again, isn't the EU's fault.
And if it's any comfort: we didn't get the impression that the polish government backed dow and shut up immediately. Quite the contrary - it seemed to be awfully stubborn.

(...) Angsty teenagers moaning about how life sucks because George Bush is like, you know, sooo totally evil, are the very last people you should ever talk to about politics.

Likewise with angsty Polish moaning about how the EU sucks because the Franco-German hegemony is controlling the evil EU.

(...) Among other things, it says clearly that democracy is the worst possible form of government, where the government is elected by people who couldn't begin to understand what they're doing, where there is no longer any respect or even understanding of what the law is supposed to be.

Ah, democracy, where people have the power to change the laws they don't understand - "and that's the way it should be" :-D.

Ignorance, complacency and laziness are the democracies greates enemies, that's been a major criticism for the system for a very long time. But it's in the people hands to change it. Because in a democracy, you are able to understand, participate and make a difference. In an absolute monarchy it's pointless to try to understand laws and so on because you can't change anyway. So just get used to them. Not so in a democracy. The people do has the power and it's its task to use it wisely.

OKok, I'll stop the pathos.

 

[Quarto]

Ok. One final comment - it's all well and good to laugh about conspiracy theories, but sometimes it's worthwhile to make the effort to understand them. Look at it from our point of view - from what people were told, the Nice Treaty was what set out the rules, and it really was one of the factors in the voting. So, if the EU goes and changes these rules (and certainly not in our favour) so soon after we've voted in favour... is it really so difficult to understand that people might see some ill will in that? It doesn't even matter whether the Nice Treaty will be in effect until tomorrow or until 2009 - the point is, the decision to change the rules was made soon (well, relatively soon - about a year afterwards, IIRC) after the referendum in Poland, and just a few months after Poland had been on the frontlines of the disagreement between "Old Europe" and "New Europe". It's a bit hard to see that as a coincidence - and it's even harder to understand how western Europeans like you can not only tell us that nothing wrong happened, but that it was wrong of us to be stubborn about accepting the proposed changes.

You could just as well suggest that anyone who was wronged and makes an effort to get retribution through the court of law is being excessively stubborn. To the wronged party, that notion is not merely ridiculous, it's downright offensive. It would be another story if you at least tried to prove that no indeed, the Nice Treaty was not a factor in the Polish referendum, and no indeed, the terms set out in the Nice Treaty were not changed under the circumstances I described above. If you could prove that, then you could prove that Polish conspiracy theories about France and Germany (who are, undisputedly, the leaders of the EU) were trying to punish Poland for its pro-US stance were just a product of our vivid imagination. But you cannot prove that, because to do so would require a total rejection of reality.

 

[Porthos]

Imagine that you've bought a house. The real estate agent said that this house will be kept furnished and in repair by your neighbours, who will be your equals. Sounds great, don't it? After buying the house, you get locked in, handed the key, and informed that there's a torrential downpour outside. You will be taken care of, you just won't have as much say in the matter as your neighbours do. Oh, and you can leave any time you want.

As a typical conservative American, I'd rather unlock the door, walk outside, and stand in the rain than be a well-fed man who isn't truly free.

I don't know what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. A certain silver-smith said that in the 18th century, in response to American Torries who played the message, "Yeah, we aren't truly free, but at least we have a roof over our heads." Fortunately, the hotter heads prevailed, and we eventually managed to beat the British, only to have them invade in the 1960s.

I'm with Quarto. He's seen what communism will do to a country, so I'd expect him to hate it's little brother, socialism.

It is not workable to have a union of sovereign nations when some are not as equal as others, to coin a phrase. Inevitably, the more powerful nations will act in their own best interest, as is expected of them. The smaller nations will be the first to be stepped on. I'm not impugning the French or the Germans, although I do disagree with them on most subjects, I'm just saying that they will take advantages when they can get them; at other's expense, if need be.

Yeah, I'm oversimplifying things, but life is short and so is my lunch break, which is now over.

No offense intended, and all IMHO.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Ok. One final comment (...)

Ok, I'm sorry to answer again directly. I, of course, fully understand if you meant what you said by "final comment" and don't answer.
It's just to soften the tone of my previous post: I do understand the Polish's fears from a human point of view [bad expression I guess, but I can't think of another]: people understandibly are touchy if it's about their sovereignity and the perspective of being bullied around by other states is an understandable fear.
Nevertehless, they're unjustified if you look at the facts.
What I want to show is: anyone who has such fears can easily inform himself and see that no state will be unjustly overruled and that it's also not a conspiracy led by France and Germany:

- The discussion about the vote balance had already begun during the negotiation of Nice. Heck, the overrepresentation of the smaller states had been an issue since the Rome treaties. Also consider: Polish had been associated to the elaboration of the constitution from the beginning, so the changed voting system didn't come out from nowhere. And Spain and Poland were the only members to object to this change - so even those who shared their views on the Iraq debate (Italy and the UK especially) support it. It's no punishment by France&Germany.
- The proposed system (which in contrast to the Nice treaty isn't in vigour and it's not obvious that it will be in vigour so soon. Though I do hope so) does not give any of the big states the possibility to overrule the smaller states, even not if all big states would act together. But the smaller states now can't overrule the larger ones as before which is only fair and reasonable.
- Comprimises have been made to come towards the Spain/Polish government: now you need 55% of the Councils vote, representing 60% of the EU population, as opposed to 50% and 55% before - again giving less importance to the members with high populations.

So, while I understand why the Polish could suspect the ill will, I can say: look at the facts (all the facts) and see that your fears are unjustified.

@Parthos: You see: if anyone is being stepped on it's more likely to be the bigger states than the smaller ones.

 

[Chicken]

I prefer to keep my short and simple, after reading all this material, my opinion holds that are differences within the European mind, but also these differences are the next greatest challenges to the concept of unified Europe. Somethings I have a bone to pick:

I'm an enemy of social systems that coddle the people. My favorite punching bag (as usual) is France. Unfortunately France is a reason why I'm against social programs. You may have heard recently, but the government is now faced with a skyrocketing debt caused by their extensive and expensive medical program and this will deeply affect the French in the near future. Another problem is the rate of unemployment amongst the youth, at lest 10% from what I've gathered. You need social programs to help feed the hungry, help those who've lost their jobs, or other important needs. But people shouldn't be coddled to the extent where they see the government as their sole source of resources.

Unfortunately when the people have grow so used to having the government do everything for them, what happens when the government no longer has the resources to support such programs?

The French will have to be dealing with this soon enough if the welfare system continues to grow at a pace the economy can't support.

 

[Mad Cow]

I'm an enemy of social systems that coddle the people. My favorite punching bag (as usual) is France.

I know! I mean, what is up with socialized health care? Why aren't they just normal and have a health care system ran by pharmaceutical and insurance companies so that when 40% of their population doesn't have health insurance, they'll not only recieve substandard health care, but they will be a burden on all taxpayers as well! Damn safety nets...