[pp.int.general] PPI platform for EU Election 2009

[Carlos Ayala Vargas]

Reinier Bakels wrote:
> the European Constitution/Lisbon treaty is too complex for the average 
> citizen. No politician will ever admit this, but I as a lawyer am 
> ready to admit that it is an utterlijk complicated thing
The Lisboa Treaty is too complex for anyone. Too long, too many 
articles, too poorly -maybe on purpose- written ... as you say, utterly 
complicated; as I add, maybe deliberated complication.
>> more usable, different contents in some issues, etc ... and of 
>> course, having people ratifying it, like we in Spain 1978's 
>> Constitution was ratified by *60 % of eligible voters* (not of cast 
>> votes, but of eligible voters; and also with the /YES/ winning in all 
>> districts); there are majorities and majorities, depending on their 
>> legitimacy, and 60 % of eligible voters is indeed a legitimate 
>> majority-.
> Referenda about the EU Constitution/Lisbon treaty are not obvious. 
> There are imho several reasons to be opposed against referenda:
> * Referenda only work for relatively simple issues - that can be 
> answered by YES or NO. The Swiss who have a long tradition of 
> referenda demonstrate a proper use of this mechanism.
Disagree. Again, Spanish Constitution was passed by referenda, and it 
has been pretty stable during decades -it may need some reforms, though 
the legitimacy of 60 % of eligible voters I think is undisputed (even by 
its oppositors, which have to search for arguments different than 
legitimacy-.
> * Professional polticians are bypassed by referenda, but they do have 
> a role. Firsly, politicans have the task to make *consistent* policy, 
> while referenda naturally are single issue only. To give a simple 
> example: everybody would like the taxes to be lowered while government 
> spending is increased.
If that happens, it would mainly in my opinion be due to politicians; 
because it's the politicians duty -or, in liquid democracy, the proxies 
duty (actually, as representatives, politicians act like defective 
proxies; i.e. not quite representative)- to explain people what happens 
if expenditures raise while incomes lower. If they aren't unable to 
explain it, it's their failure, though it's also the people's 
responsibility to understand the circumstances -freedom of information 
helps a lot to make people able to understand- and the consequences of 
concrete decisions.

Because we talk about democracy, and democracy consists in us, the 
citizens -by the way, the holders of sovereignty-, deciding what we 
want; and as we are free to decide, that freedom also implies our 
responsibility to assume our success and our failure, our right and 
wrong decisions. If you want people to never be mistaken, maybe you 
prefer different political regimes; we are all fallible, so I think you 
should get used to that human bug/feature and assume it as part of the 
democracy environment ...
> * Another role of politicians is to debate. Admittedly the EU 
> Parliament does not have a strong tradition in this field. But 
> politicians can articulate arguments and reasons.
There are politicians in California too, and in Switzerland too, and in 
other places which have referendum as an usual political tool.
>> We in PIRATA also believe in liquid democracy -an issue dealt with in 
>> the Berlin Conference-, so such issue -consulting people to know what 
>> the society wants, thus, having the State branches doing it- is not 
>> only related to left-winged or right-winged parties.
> Frankly I believe that "liquid democracy" is pretty utopical. And 
> state reform is a very complicated issue by itself.
We in PIRATA do not pretend today to introduce that reform, but be 
ourselves an experiment to show that it can work. It's not utopical, as 
you already brought (Switzerland) examples of places where people 
propose laws, even constitutional reforms, as a normal part of 
democratic life.
> I am not sure whether PP should divert its attention to this realm.
That's up to PPI member parties to decide it; at the end, if there is no 
agree on it and we decide to not bring that issue for the international 
scope -it would be a pity-, we still would be aiming for it at the 
Spanish national scope.
> In NL, the progressive liberals D66 were founded with the explicit 
> purpose to further such reforms, but the political support is 
> disappointing. Now the issue has been embraced by populists, who argue 
> that the government *TOTALLY* ignores "ordinary" people. They are 
> prepared to distort the truth in order to prove their point, e.g. by 
> frightening people about the alleged threat of "islamisation" (in my 
> perception, all interference between religion and politics is 
> dangerous - Christian Democrats obscure the real political issues in 
> many countries).
Referendum is not the populist tool. Of course it can be misused by 
populists, however any attempt of dismiss referendum because of that 
misuse I would interprete it as an attempt to discredit the people's 
sovereignty. I should make a question in this point: do you think people 
is mature enough for democracy? I'm interested in your answer -actually, 
in the answers from everyone in this list-.

My answer is: yes, people is mature enough for democracy, though there 
is a lack of freedom of information to truly allow people to be free to 
decide -that's one of the reasons (though not the only one) for us to 
create the pirate movement-.
> I believe that political decision making is inherently slow - and 
> disappointing to some people - because the essence of politics is to 
> resolve controversies. And perhaps it even slows down (in NL at least) 
> because there are lots of floating voters
What you call /floating voters/ is called in Spain /non-captive voters/ 
-in opposition to /captive voters/, which are roughly 20 out of 25 
million people who usually cast their votes in general elections in 
Spain, and who would never change their vote in spite of how badly the 
party voted by them performs (as they will always think that /the other 
one/ is worse)-; and I think that /floating voters/ are a blessing, as 
they don't give easily their votes and try to objectively decide for 
each election which is the best option.

They are not a problem, they're good news; and if there were true 
freedom of information, I believe that most voters would be /floating 
voters/ and the percentage of /captive voters/ would be marginal. Why? 
Because voters would punish poor, deceptive performances and would 
reward honest, effective performances; those punishments and rewards 
would make the parliaments composition variate from term to term.
> and the support even of established major political parties varies 
> enormously over time (according to opinion polls) - so politicians are 
> desparately looking for ways to stabilise
Stabilise, i.e., getting captive voters trying to make them don't think, 
but just follow the leader.

That's the opposite path of that wanted by PIRATA ... we want voters 
become free and freely decide for each issue -specially as most issues 
lay outside PPI core issues-. People with certain ideology die, people 
with different ideology reach legal age to vote, others change their 
minds ... changeability of the society as a whole, I think, is the 
natural state of things and I like it; static societies, where there are 
two unchanged factions or -even worse- only one ... I don't like such 
societies.
> I agree, the fight over "Lisbon" is disgusting. But if the question is 
> asked what should be improved, there is no unanimous answer.
If what has to be changed is not unanimous, though that the change is 
needed is unanimous, then let's gonna help people start that debate, the 
debate of what should be changed. I think that the debate is such an 
underused and powerful tool ...
> In my opinion, a major problem is the communication. The EU is hardly 
> visible at all.
It may be hardly visible, though it makes itself pretty felt, as EU 
directives have to be forcibly adapted to the national legal frameworks.
> Few news programs on television spend attention to Brussels and 
> Strasbourg: it is still mostly national politics. European elections 
> effectively are national elections. For NL for instance, EU elections 
> may show that our socialist (national!) minister of finance has gained 
> a lot of popularity because he reacted very well to the present 
> financial crisis.
It is due to major parties feeling comfortable with current state of 
things; the most important issues are decided in the EU, so as less 
information flows about those decisions, more comfortable they feel to 
do what they want. We should work to revert that scenario.
> So, if anything, the PP should inform inform inform inform inform 
> inform inform inform inform inform inform inform people!
Not our only duty, though I also think it should be one of them.


                                                                                                    
Carlos Ayala
                                                                                                    
( Aiarakoa )

                                                                            
Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman