[pp.int.general] 3. Re: One good, one bad (Jerry Weyer)

[Jerry Weyer]

On 4 nov. 09, at 00:06, Ole Husgaard wrote:

> The people have to be able to understand the law. If the law cannot
easily be understood by the people, we have a problem. How can we
require that people respect something they do not understand?

You do not have to understand the law, you do have to recognize that  
what you do is against the law. That's part of the problem of  
filesharing in my opinion: people know its wrong (nowadays), but they  
still do it because the don't understand why it should be illegal (an  
rightly so). It's just impossible to understand each an every piece of  
legislation, you have to be a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer, a chemist  
etc all in one.

> The procedure has been directly anti-democratic: The constitution was
> voted down in two countries, and then referendums in other countries
> were cancelled. Then the constitution was amended to make it harder to
> require national referendums. Only Ireland still had to vote, and when
> they voted no, there was a minimal change, and another vote on
> essentially the same treaty was called.

Yes and I agree. But that how international treaties work for over 100  
years now! It was always the head of states discussing, signing and  
the parliaments ratifying. One could also argue that since the  
national parliaments of every member state ratified the treaty that  
there was a democratic procedure! You can't just ignore and say "the  
EU is an anti-democratic monster" when every single national  
parliament of the member states of the EU ratified the treaty! The EU  
never signed its own treaty, its national governments and national  
parliaments.

The EU needs more democracy and the treaty is a step in the right  
direction. It's nowhere near perfection, but perhaps that is because  
it can't be better than the national parliaments and the governments  
who sign every treaty and then blame the EU for every bad decision.

>
> Best Regards,
>
> Ole Husgaard.

Best regards,

Jerry Weyer