I would love to see some bus posters put up around Brussels naming the idiots most responsible for this. I'm tired of public servants (elected or otherwise) pushing bullshit and then getting to disown it later on.
I doubt the likes of Ursula, who come form extremely privilege backgrounds and have been groomed since childhood for high ranking leadership positions, see themselves as being any kind of "servants".
The term come from the days when public servants were elected from the general public, but those days are long gone and now we're bickering which members of the wealthy elite do we elect to screw us over for 4+ years without any accountability or repercussions.
And so they convince themselves that they are not in it for the money but merely for the public good, as wealthy people they are hard to bribe (somewhat true) and better this than loafing around doing nothing all day.
Whether it is the best for society is another matter, but this is a fair representation of some of the people in those circles that I know. They would rather see it as a sacrifice than as them holding power for power's sake because that's not what you're supposed to do.
It's loosely connected to Noblesse Oblige (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noblesse%20oblige ), as in that you should strive to do good deeds and to use your station in life wisely if you are wealthy or in a position of power (but then you first have to obtain a position of power...).
Here's where you blew it. Wealthy people aren't immune to greed. The wealthier you are, the more wealth you wan to amass because that's what everyone else around you is doing.
I doubt Donald Trump got into politics because he got bored of being rich and became soooo interested in helping the common man. Wealthy people go into politics because politics means more power, more connections and networking, and ultimately more wealth.
Also, people born in opulent wealth have no idea of the struggles of the common man you're claiming they want to help. I doubt Ursula knows how much is the price of groceries, gas, electricity, plus the average wage of the common folk.
No, you didn't get what I wrote, the sentence you quoted starts with 'And so they convince themselves'. Whether it is true or not has no bearing on it.
Not sure that she's the perfect example for what you're trying to say
In the U.S., the main issue is that the House has had 435 members since 1929. It's become so obscene that representation was better, on paper, for colonial Americans in the British Parliament than today.
I would argue that 435 Representatives is already too much. Humans can only keep track of around 100 people. With so many representatives there is barely enough time for each of them to speak and engage with each other. Increasing the number for "better representation" will just worsen the problem.
A more cynical take is that since they just vote along party lines anyway, the number does not matter too much.
Remember when we used to do things because they were hard instead of falling back on lazy cynicism and convenience of status quo?
The U.S. seems stuck with the two party system primarily due to the mathematics of the Electoral College and lack of ranked choice voting. These require changes at the state level, not federal.
16 states and DC have now opted out of the Electoral College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...). RCV is now in place for state-wide elections in Maine and Alaska, but recently banned (seemingly as a partisan protectionist measure) in Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho.
Gerrymandering and lack of a mixed electoral system also seem major factors for the political duopoly, with less clear solutions to me.
I'm not well versed on political subdivisions in Japan or South Korea, but there appear to be prefecture/province level officials that don't sound too far out of line with states. Looks like if the U.S. had the national representation (population per seat) of Japan we would have over 1000 reps, South Korea almost 2000.
There is a huge difference between unitary states and federations. American states have legislatures, constitutions, and nearly unlimited rights to raise taxes. Prefectures in Japan are much closer to counties in the U.S. US states are much close to independent countries than to administrative subdivisions in unitary countries.
> Looks like if the U.S. had the national representation (population per seat) of Japan we would have over 1000 reps, South Korea almost 2000.
On the other hand it's about on par with the EU parliament. What would the advantages of significantly increasing the number of representatives be? Most individual matters should be addressed to state officials anyway.
Better representation, obviously. This is like asking the advantage of increasing the number of pixels on a screen.
How many average constituents per member is right? We're not going back to <50k constituents per member like the U.S. in the 1790s or Nordic countries today, but unclear why we can't get under 300k per constituent like Mexico or Australia.
We're an extreme outlier in OECD countries:
https://www.amacad.org/ourcommonpurpose/enlarging-the-house/...
Looking at federations instead of unitary states, Mexico has ~250k per member, about 3x better than the U.S., while Australia has under 200k per member. Germany has only a little over 100k per member.
Potential effects of better U.S. representation here: https://thirty-thousand.org
> On the other hand it's about on par with the EU parliament.
The EU is a voluntary economic union (see Brexit), the U.S. is a federation of states which may not unilaterally secede (see Texas v. White).
Regardless some very important economic and other policy decisions are taken on the EU level so wouldn't the same arguments regarding representation apply?
It just seems that scaling legislatures beyond a certain point might have diminishing returns would increasing the house to 900+ members really be a significant improvement? The actual influence a single random representative might be able exert would also be significantly diminished. Let's be honest the federal house of representatives is very extremely dysfunctional and is hardly even capable of accomplishing anything useful would increasing it's size somehow improve that?
And again in a multilayer heavily decentralized system such as the US most decisions that directly affect you or that you as an individual could actually influence are taken on the local or state level anyway.
> This is like asking the advantage of increasing the number of pixels on a screen
I'm sorry but (just like most analogies people make in general) this make doesn't make much sense.
Also, the more constituents, the more difficult it is for third-party candidates to run and meaningfully affect the debate.
In the end, continent-sized superpower government is really hard. Even in the "good old days", you often ended up with people like Nixon.
In 1900 Congress had 357 representatives for a population of 76 million.
Today Congress has 435 representatives for a population of 331 million.
This term should be reserved for people who actually serve the public, not spy agencies and lobbyists.
Careful, you're touching on the core of Euroskepticism within the EU itself. These are not elected officials, nor are they public servants in the usual sense.
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
Complex situations like this can't just be reduced to a yes/no decision. What does a "no" vote even mean? Does it mean that nothing like that treaty can ever be passed? What about something which resembles the original but tries to address the concerns that were raised by the people who voted against it? What about just certain sections?
Simply "yes/no" is a very crude measurement to actually know what people think or what a good solution would look like. I was somewhat in favour of Brexit, but for very different reasons than Farage (basically: "fuck the fuck in or fuck the fuck off", but not this "we want all of the benefits but none of the costs"). This is why parliaments can amend bills and the like. Maybe we should choose people to represent each side so they can debate each other and reach a compromise. Oh, wait...
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I don't know about the French one, but the Dutch one was rife with misinformation and nonsense. You know, like that Brexit one, or the EU-Ukraine association treaty one there was a few years later. Except worse because there was bullshit and nonsense on both sides (the amount of "if you vote no" fear-mongering was pretty ridiculous).
Also, like Brexit when asked many people voted yes/no depending on how much they liked the government, or other factors which had little to do with the actual treaty being proposed.
One can say "a vote is a vote, and you shouldn't police motivations". There is something to be said for that. But on the other hand it's hard to ignore that the vote was made in the context of misinformation, and people didn't actually vote on the asked question.
In general I'm actually hugely in favour of more direct democracy, but every single referendum I've seen up close (in Netherlands and when I was living in the UK) has been nothing short of a clusterfuck, in addition to the more fundamental problems I mentioned. I didn't vote in any of them as I didn't think they were valid tools for good decision-making.
But then you only have indirect democratic legitimacy at best.
> Complex situations like this can't just be reduced to a yes/no decision.
Perhaps. Usually it should be retried. But you cannot just turn around and say you suddenly have legitimacy because the executive of a government once thought to ratify a constitution.
You also cannot just say voters were misinformed. Perhaps you are misinformed? This just displays a concerning understanding of democracy. To me that was the propaganda of that specific time in which they needed to ratify something without popular support, against democracy in that case.
If people are stating things that are factually incorrect then you can, I think. Like I said, I'm not hugely comfterable policing people's motivations for voting one way or the other, but at the same time I also think it's foolish to ignore, especially when you're considering how to better organize these kind of more direct democratic measures: you need to evaluate how well they went.
For example "the treaty will allow Turkey to join the EU" was factually just incorrect: it didn't say anything about Turkey, and changed nothing meaningful about the EU entry procedure (and entrance of Turkey was never close in the first place). This nonsense was repeated in the association treaty with Ukraine.
This is really my point: you can't really have a conversation like that via a referendum. Repeat referenda are not really an option as your results will be increasingly biased towards the people with the strongest feelings/motivations.
Furthermore, the EU more or less worked the same before the treaty, and this treaty didn't really change that. In that sense it was a rather poor way to voice the specific criticism that the democratic nature of the EU should be reformed. I actually agree with that! I just don't think the referenda's were meaningful. If anything, it was counter-productive as the amount of nonsense mixed in with the better arguments just makes the criticism easier to ignore, and people who "just say no all the time" are generally easy to ignore in the first place (voting "no" is not a constructive way to improve things).
As you surely also know, the debate around the Lisbon treaty is a matter of public record. You can pull a random sampling of articles op/eds and political speeches from the time and see that this point is made again, and again, and again.
>Furthermore, the EU more or less worked the same before the treaty, and this treaty didn't really change that.
Yes, and it seems most of the governed weren't too happy about it.
Also, what point are you trying to make here? Are you suggesting that referendums should be ignored if the people vote against the status quo?
I feel I have made my points plenty clear, at length, and you're simply replying with assertions that don't even recognize what I said, ending with a ridiculous and insulting accusation.
So good day to you.
The people answered and the government of France should have listened, instead they came back with this treaty, changed a few tidbits and called it a day.
It was a slap in the face of democracy that was denounced by the right as well as by the left.
To say that this is a complex topic, so surely people don't know how to make up their mind because they may confuse the issue at hand with something else is laughable.
In a presidential campaign, it is perfectly valid to vote for someone because they speak well, wear nice clothes, say the right thing, or promise anything under the sun.
But a referendum should only be valid if people voted only for the question at hand and nothing else? That's very disingenuous.
If a government triggers a referendum and people vote no either because they don't like the proposal or because they don't like the party/government that brings the proposal forward, then this vote is as valid as any.
I wonder where does it come from, treating EU as some sort of divine deity not capable of any wrong doing and such an effort to sweep its flaws under the rug while chanting "EU is great!".
It's probably the most corrupt and undemocratic organisation on this side of the planet.
But in general, compared to average US views, there is probably more of a recognition that a government is needed, and that it's better than the alternative. But to be honest it's kind of hard to really say too much meaningful without specifics.
This is positively unthinkable in other parts of the word. Puzzlingly (or perhaps not-so-puzzlingly), large swaths of Western Europe are comfortable with this, despite having recent experience with totalitarian states that were positively brutal.
Say what you will, I do see a connection between the two.
I don't know what "slaughter your cattle to reduce greenhouse gases" refers to specifically, but Greenhouse gases are bad and reducing them is good. As I see it the only way to meaningfully take action on it is by government control. I don't actually like this but it's just the reality of the matter: companies will keep doing what nets them a profit, and millions of consumers can't really do an in-depth study on everything they buy, and the only party that can take meaningful action is government. I think climate change denial has always been primarily about opposition to government action, and not so much about the science of it.
"You shall not leave your residence", presumably, refers to COVID lockdowns? Most of the world had these kind of restrictions, including the US, and some locations much more severe than Europe. Many people thought they were a good thing and followed them because of that, and didn't blindly follow government for the sake of obeying the government.
And in both cases there was/is plenty of opposition too (presumably anyway, because I don't exactly know what you're referring to).
People can protest. People can vote different. They can go on the internet and TV and say politicians are a bunch of wankers. Comparisons with "totalitarian states" is just silly.
I'm rather shocked that you're unaware of this.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_farmers%27_protests
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/03/ireland-...
- https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/green-deal/fit-f...
>Greenhouse gases are bad and reducing them is good
Agreed, but that's hardly the point. Reducing crime is also good, but I'm sure you'd agree that the methods employed matter very much.
Of course, which is why I ask for specifics; I am not unaware of these things, but I am unaware what exactly you have in mind with a vague general statement.
I know the most about the Dutch case, which is not about greenhouse gases but nitrogen and its effect on soil quality (but that's a relatively minor detail for the purpose of this conversation) and that has been a point since at least the 90s. For decades serious measures had been delayed under protests from the farmers, until things really came to a head a few years ago.
Anyway, there were huge protests, for measures that had been delayed for decades, and the measures were changed. The newly established "farmers party" is doing reasonably well in polls for the upcoming elections. I don't really see how this is an example of a 'high tolerance for the involvement of government authority in such things as "you shall slaughter your cattle to reduce greenhouse gases"' that you mentioned. These have been the largest protests in the country since the 80s, so that seems like an odd definition of "high tolerance", or "unshakable trust".
The Guardian report about Ireland simply says "if we want to meet our goals, then we must reduce greenhouse gases". No one is forcing anyone to slaughter anything. Actually, that wasn't the case in the Netherlands either: it was just about a long-term reduction in the number of farm animals.
This kind of "looking out for the greater good" thing that the government does is hardly unique to the EU, or "positively unthinkable in other parts of the world".
For years now, the people who tried to say that the EU in its current form is not working have been silenced by the media or labelled as conspiracy nuts.
Instead, it leaves the parties on the fringe as the only ones doing the criticizing.
Why should it be controversial to say that the EU is not perfect and that leaving it could work out better for certain countries?
Instead it's like no one can imagine a time where the EU did not exist and it's almost like we have forgotten that the EU is not the end all be all of everything.
In the best case when it doesn't work well it's a convenient target to blame (when it's their own fault).
In other cases they'd like the freedom to be *more* (much more) authoritarian than EU membership allows.
But currently let's be honest, most simply work for Putin or China and the aim is just to wreak havoc.
So in fact the institutions are entirely democratic, and arguable more democratic (and less dysfunctional!) than their counterparts in the US and China (the other two super blocks).
That's not how it works though, they represent people in their EU member states, posters should go up in every capital because those clowns were elected by people everywhere.