VOTE FOR THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION AND SAVE THE PLANET!
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 09:29AM Rarely have I read such drivel as this nonsense produced by Green Party Minister Eamon Ryan that should the Irish people defy the politicans and vote NO to the European Constitution Treaty in next month's referendum then EU plans to defeat global warming could be undermined.
It strikes me that Ryan AVOIDS all the tough issues on what is being really being proposed by the EU in this Constitution in all but name and instead resorts to empty headed sound-bites which reduce to little more than "Save the planet and vote EU" I trust those in the NO campaign will have the wit to expose just how vacuous and self-serving the EU's mighty plans on "global warming" actually are. The programmes that are planned over the next twenty years will ensure Europe's economy is de-railed, and even Ireland will not be immune to that. The Global Warming chimera is the last resort of the discredited Greens.
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Reader Comments (18)
They are getting desperate on the YES side. I suspect what they are hearing on the doorsteps does not tally with the opinion polls.
Henry,
Some of the "no" posters are ridiculous as well.
Joe Higgins is implying a vote for Lisbon is a vote to privatise health and education. WTF?
Both sets of posters are equally crap. All are misleading and all miss the point anyway.
What purpose do these stupid posters serve in this day and age. The treaty is far too complex an entity to try and get across, on a poster, the reasons for voting either way on it
They should be banned as a public nuisance. If the greens are so green conscious then why are they not looking for a ban on the use of such wasteful posters.
Unfortunately ill be out of the country for the vote, otherwise im pretty sure id have given it a no
Joe Higgins is a fool
ahh you just have to love when people suggest posters should be banned as a public nuisance
So much for free speech.
It'll pass and you'll all be good little comrads.
privatise health and education Almighty Government Forbid
Posters should not be banned, but they are mostly ridiculous attempts at distilling the most extreme interpretations of what will happen if we vote either 'Yes' or 'No'. I'm vaguely 'No' at the moment, but if the 'Yes' campaign made a half way decent effort I'm sure I could be persuaded.
The most encouraging tidbit I've come across was that this might be the last change for quite a while. Saw that in the IHT. Thus far and no further suits me well enough.
So much for free speech.
Its nothing to do with free speech and more to do with the fact that they are a bloody hazard. There are plenty of other mediums through which they can communicate with the voters. Im not sure if you have ever seen an Irish or British street during election time. Maybe its the same in the US
But in the UK and Ireland, they are littered 4 or 5 to a pole with posters. They cover traffic signs and mask lights. They are put at levels that hinder blind people and children. The plastic ties used to keep them in place are often cut off when the posters are taken down and just left on the street.
"It'll pass and you'll all be good little comrads."
We'll see.
I'll probably be voting yes now although I'm not a definite yet.
Kloot,
I like election posters. They brighten things up .
Kloot,
I like election posters. They brighten things up .
Noel, im particularly annoyed with the posters this time out as i live near a foot bridge where the parties plaster posters up either side with the plastic ties facing into the walk area. The ties are at the children height and its like an indiana jones movie walking through them. I can imagine a child easily getting poked in the eye with one.
Have you made your mind up on this one Noel ? Yes or a No ?
Kloot
Are you able to vote via an absentee ballot?
Eagle -
Thus far and no further suits me well enough.
Thus far is far enough for the EU. A yes vote is the end of Ireland as a sovereign nation. The consitution explicitly states that your Law will be subordinate to EU Law.
What is left out of the constitution is irrelevent, since it's a self-amending document. It's a political blank cheque.
It also explicitly states that liberties may be suspended for the good of the EU.
"A yes vote is the end of Ireland as a sovereign nation."
No it isn't.
"The consitution explicitly states that your Law will be subordinate to EU Law."
That has been the case for Member States since the Costa ECJ decision in 1964.
The competencies of the EU cannot be increased without Member State approval - i.e. in the Rep. of Ireland by a referendum.
"It also explicitly states that liberties may be suspended for the good of the EU."
I must have missed that one. Where exactly does it say that so that I can check it out?
If EU law is supreme, how can member states be seen as sovereign?
Reg -
Article 52. It allows for the "limitation" of all liberties in the "general interest" of the Union.
There's an argument that the ECJ decision has never had lawful authority in member states. It's this which has allowed, for example, Italy to override EU immigration law. The constitution will make it Law.
Phantom -
If EU law is supreme, how can member states be seen as sovereign?
Exactly! As I've been saying around here for some time now, our Queen effectively abdicated in 1972 when she gave Royal Assent to the European Communities Act. We now know she was advised that Royal Assent would render Crown Law subordinate to European Law (which is unconstitutional). If Crown Law is no longer sovereign, she cannot be sovereign. If she is not sovereign, she has, de facto, abdicated.
This is the actual consequence of our being subordinate to the EU, yet no-one in or around politics ever raises it. Not even the supposed 'Euro-sceptic' parties talk of these things, which is just one reason to believe that they aren't actually Euro-sceptic at all.
Yep. To these naive eyes, it looks as though EU states are largely self-governing, but that sovereignty as that term is defined rests with that entity whose law is supreme--the EU.
Phantom -
To these naive eyes, it looks as though EU states are largely self-governing ...
And so it looks to many on this side of the pond.This is because the EU has been very cute in how it has gone about its slow motion coup d'etat, and a slow motion coup d'etat is exactly what we have suffered.
The EU doesn't march in and rebrand in the manner of Wehrmacht troops parading along the Champs Elysees under swastikas. It works via existing institutions, taking them over, leaving the facade intact, yet making those institutions obey the EU. In this way, even now, many still believe that Parliament is sovereign and we elect our law makers. Even now many Britons are unaware that some 80% of our laws are faxed from brussels and rubberstamped by Parliament, because it has no choice.
Parliament looks and smells the same. The Queen even opens and dissolves Parliament in accordance with her Oath of Coronation and the British Constitution. But it's all a sham, it means nothing because our real government is now foreign, in a foreign land and we have been taken over.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2007:306:SOM:EN:HTML
Pete,
See the link above. Firstly, there is no Article 52 of the Lisbon Treaty. If you are referring to the section that amends the EC Treaty (Article 2), amendment 52 states:
"In Article 44(2), the words 'European Parliament' shall be inserted at the beginning of the paragraph"
What on earth are you talking about? Don't tell me you actually believed what that imbecile wrote in the Daily Telegraph?!! Dear me.
"If EU law is supreme, how can member states be seen as sovereign?"
Phantom,
Where there is a conflict, Community law has precedence. The Member States have ceded certain competencies to the EU through the Treaties. The EU can only legislate within these competencies.
Pete,
I take it from your silence that you retract the statement that the Lisbon Treaty "...explicitly states that liberties may be suspended for the good of the EU."?