Common sense out of Amsterdam. Hopefully this moves Blender away from the shadow of European patents.
Dutch Voters Reject EU Constitution
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050601/ap_on_re_eu/netherlands_eu_referendum_13
Oh, you forgot the french and that the majority of people in Europe is not
allowed to vote directly. As some high ranking government executive said:
“A referendum disturbs the independence of the parliament”.
Someone obviously understood something wrong.
No they understood right. I think a lot of people don’t understand what a democracy actually is… read plato (I think it was him) if you want to know more.
Basicly the idea is… the population doesn’t have the time to spend on governing their own nation… I mean people got to work. So once every couple of years we all go vote for the people we want to take those governmental decisions for us. So… we should let them. The referendum actually undermines democracy. Now all sorts of uneducated malinformed people are voting for reasons that aren’t valid really.
Democracy = We let the government make those decisions for us.
if i would be old enough i had voted yes, so you can’t blame me 
But an election is exactly the same - all sorts of undeducated misinformed people voting for reasons that aren’t valid. Just because a government gets voted in doesn’t mean that the opinions of the people they govern don’t matter any more.
I think the referendum will show the governments that they serve us, not the other way round. I can’t help but think though, that people may be voting just so they can do that instead of considering the issues involved.
The constitution as with most things has advantages and disadvantages and I’m not clear yet if it would be a good thing. Most of the things I’ve read about it is that it’s bad. One thing that annoys me the most is when criminals use the European convention on human rights to escape justice and if the convention makes that situation worse then I don’t want it.
What human rights in the constitution ? thanks to UK demands even the most basic rights has been removed from it.
It’s a pity that in one page it is stated that the EU goal is to defend human rights across the world, but the rights granted by constitution doesn’t even cover those in the universal declaration of human rights.
That’s one of the reason that this constitution didn’t passed in france.
Well The Netherlands as got some unique things in it’s law. Like young people get a certain ammount of money when they go working, so the won’t get underpayed. Also The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are the founders of the EU, which started with the Benelux project.
If The Netherlands had voted YES, we where in serious problems. Since Netherlands, belgium and luxembourg are the founders they would have less voting activity in the EU then all another countries. If Netherlands, belgium and luxembourgh had votes NO for something which has to be decided in the EU, France, Germany and Polen could overwrite those votings with ease, because the EU law says, the country with the highest amount of votes wins.
That’s not totally fair, so the founders of the EU would have been thrown away in a corner not being able to overwrite the votings inside the EU of the big countries, which I don’t actually see as Democracy, It isn’t fair. If all the small countries inside the EU would have say NO to war with America, and France, German and Polen would have said yes, the vote would be YES. So the small countries wouldn’t have a vote in the EU.
Also the marked in export would have been dominated by the big countries, which we Dutch people don’t like, especially we hate France and German, they let us pay millions more for the EU while they pay 10% what we pay and they are bigger.
SO that’s the reason why I voted NO, NO and NO. If small countries don’t have a vote or don’t count in the EU anymore, I’m not gonna vote YES for ages. :-?
osxrules: yes… of course that’s what happens when people vote… and yes… that is what is wrong with and dangerous about the democratic system. Not that there’s a real viable alternative though.
JD: I’ll tell you I voted Yes for two reasons… 1 out of principle I am for integration and merging of countries as much as possible and 2 This next millenium is no longer the era of the western world but will be of the eastern world… so right now with these rules the constitution may not be great, but in 50 to 100 years we’ll be in trouble cause people voted no now. A country like the Netherlands won’t be able to make it on it’s own then. It may not impact your life, you might actually be better off without a constitution but your grandkids will suffer.
Ooops, wanted to quote osxrules, i made a mistake while editing the bbcode… Sorry if i offended you… :-?
I think a lot of people don’t understand what a democracy actually is… read plato (I think it was him) if you want to know more.
Democracy means “rule by the people”. Whether or not those people are informed or not is irrelavent. They are free to make their own mistakes. That’s the great thing about it. Therefore any referendum cannot, be its very definition, be anti-democratic.
Democracy = We let the government make those decisions for us.
Hell no. I’d much prefer to go back to the ancient Greek method of letting the people vote on everything, ideally. Of course that’s not practical. But I’d rather live in a society where everyone’s voice counts, not just the government’s. It is impossible to elect a government who agrees with everything you agree with.
If you’re referring to Plato’s Republic, he didn’t like democracy. He wanted the rule of philosopher Kings, a highly educated elite whose duty was to rule the people. Plato’s proposed system was most emphatically NOT a democracy at all. Probably because he was rather miffed that Athenian democracy put his best friend Socrates to death.
I like in principle the idea of a united Europe, but I don’t think this consitution is the way to go. It’s going to take power even further away from the common people and create a huge mass of beaurocracy. This is backed up by the EU’s record of making crazy laws about the allowable curvature of bananas.
This next millenium is no longer the era of the western world but will be of the eastern world… so right now with these rules the constitution may not be great, but in 50 to 100 years we’ll be in trouble cause people voted no now.
History has shown repeatedly that attempts to predict the future don’t work.
What human rights in the constitution ? thanks to UK demands even the most basic rights has been removed from it.
I’d have to agree with OSX. The EU tends to go a bit wild with human rights. Giving illegal immigrants satellite TV whilst detaining them is a breach of human rights according to the EU, for example.[/i]
Ok efbie… thanks for the rectification: I removed my remarks as well. I appreciate your response.
rhysy: I was not referring to what policies plato wanted, but what his definition of democracy was (I could be wrong of course).
And I wonder if you have any idea how uninformed the masses are… I don’t want to offend anyone but there’s a lot more idiots out there than you probably suspect. Having everyone vote on everything is just a bad idea.
There’s a big difference between an ideal and reality…
And about the future… I’m normally quite close when I say something like that and I don’t often do. Quote me again in a hundred years… please
rhysy: I was not referring to what policies plato wanted, but what his definition of democracy was (I could be wrong of course).
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood you there. Not exactly sure what his definition was. Plato wasn’t the most direct of people. I’d guess it would have to be the rule-by-the-people that was practised in his city in his own lifetime though.
And I wonder if you have any idea how uninformed the masses are… I don’t want to offend anyone but there’s a lot more idiots out there than you probably suspect. Having everyone vote on everything is just a bad idea.
A good point. Though I also suspect many people aren’t as stupid as politicians would like to think. But, probably the only people who would actually vote on issues would be the interested ones and thus the ones who had at least some understanding of it.
(Of course it would be pretty stupid to let everyone vote on everything these days. I don’t know squat about economics. I still think a lot of major decisions could be taken by the general populace though)
And about the future… I’m normally quite close when I say something like that and I don’t often do. Quote me again in a hundred years… please
You have made multiple predicitions about life 100 years from now and been proved correct ? The course of history can change in an instant. Sweeping statements are best avoided.
I also don’t see how the consitution would have any long-term benefits. Seems more like it would just make things more inefficient and increase red tape no end to me. The EU is good at doing that.
I like the idea of a united Europe but I don’t think it’s been implemented correctly.
Believe me, I readed the simpelistic version of the EU law where I voted No for. Also my mom is inside the community control of oure village and some more.
She readed the whole EU law 2 weeks before we had to decide Yes or No.
The life of young people or villagers would become worser in some cases, especially schooling and young people getting work or salary.
Besides that, big companies would have even better support, more money, more bussiness garantee, and the governement would have better or worser things, like less voice inside the EU governement, but more vote for all us to make world wide decissions.
But there was more worse then things that become better. The big people with money would have a good result, but poor and young people’s life would became worser.
Also the governement in the Netherlands didn;t said that netherland would have less voice in the EU if we voted YES and the law became true. SO they hide things that were crusial to us. A few things made us voting No
- hidden things that the governement said it wasn’t so, while it was
- less voice to the villagers and there desiccion inside the EU
- money for use little villagers against the big companies and another countries.
Yes ofcourse big countries say yes, because they get more power, and even overwrite the power of the small countries, that’s why we as Dutch people voted NO. The reason why France voted now wasn’t because of the law, but they wanted to pay back there president. If they wheren’t mad abouthim, they had voted yes too like germany, polen, spain and such. Yeah ofcourse because they are big.
For hunderds of years Holland fought against the biggest power around us, and still we do. Things that say, voting No against the EU law would have war, instability export and such, well I didn’t noticed yet something from the No voting results then except the EU value lowering when France voted No.
I didn’t vote to say totally NO against that law, no I voted no for changes, things that could be changed. If they change some parts and have a big voting again and I like it, I’ll vote Yes, but in the state as it was now I didn’t agree, and so did a lot of us. :-?
Hm, yes, some french voted no because they don’t like the president, but even if they liked him, I don’t think they would have voted yes for such a constitution. Now medias are trying to make everyone believe that all the french people that voted no did that against our president… I must say I really didn’t care about the president when I voted no, I just cared about the constitution.
Now, the german people never voted yes for the constitution, it was their government that voted yes(same for Greece)… I’m not sure the german would have voted yes if there had been a referendum.
Spain voted yes… hm, yeah, something like only 30% of the spanish people went to vote… I bet they weren’t really informed about what they were voting for, according to the very low participation. About Poland I don’t know.
Now I don’t know what the dutch were told about the constitution, but in france it was something like : “If you vote no the EU will dissapear! If you vote no France would be laught at! If you vote no it means you are against europe! If you vote no it means you are racist!” And so on, and so on… I’m happy most of the people didn’t payed attention to those kind of stupid arguments 
Oh, and also, a little definition of democracy I like:
A dictatorship says “Shut up!”, Democracy says “Yeah, whatever you say.”
(La dictature c’est “ferme ta gueule!”, la démocratie: “cause toujours!” ) (merci coluche )
We were told exactly the same kind of things.
Some quotes:
There will be war when you vote no
“The light goes out”
A rightwing liberal made a info-mercial with pictures from Auswitsch, Sebrenica and said this would happen when the Dutch voted no, which caused such an uproar that he had to withdraw it an hour later.
Prime minister: I will look a fool in Brussels when the people vote no, I don’t know how to explain that to the EU
The no-camp are communists and fascists (yeah, sure, all 62% of us!)
Many politicians suggested that the dutch people were stupid. Not a very diplomatic thing to say if you want somebodies vote!
Patronizing the very indepedant Dutch people is not a good idea and all this scare campaign did was to make more people vote no. Of course, we also felt very much strengthened by the French NON.