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Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

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Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#341

Post by csomar »

kypro wrote: post #109
sofixa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most important one should be: Every citizen is free to express his opinion. And if their opinion is that, all Jews are subhuman and have to be exterminated? (real life example) Most EU countries have "hate speech" laws explicitly banning hate speech such as Nazis and Anti-Semites. Nobody sheds any tears over their opinions being restricted, and nobody should. Debating with pidgeons doesn't work.

I'll add that a guy got sentenced to prison in Switzerland last week for calling someone a fat lesbian in a video that he posted two years ago. What is considered hate speech is very broad these days – Nazism would actually be on the more extreme side of what is considered an arrestable hate crime.

That’s a bit extreme (and disturbing). Got a link for that?

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#342

Post by mdekkers »

tpmoney wrote: post #329
Incipient wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning any form of paid lobbying, sponsorship, etc. All the politicians should be interested in are votes (eg the preference of the people). It won't fix it, but it'll help.

> Banning any form of paid lobbying, sponsorship, etc. The problem with this is then the only people that are able to meet with / influence your representatives are the people that are independently wealthy enough to travel to them and take the time off from work to do so. If you can't pay someone to speak on your behalf, and you can't afford to take the time to speak for yourself, how do you get heard? Are you perso…

So, banning lobbying is bad because it stops lobbying?

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#343

Post by throwaway50662 »

Agingcoder wrote: post #309
throwaway50662 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National government is a very different thing from national parliament. In my state the national government came out of a political compromise. The leading party has 15% support. They are limited by the national parliament in whatever they try to do here - but not in EC. Giving them control over the whole population through the EC is a spit in the face of 85% of the population. And it's very visible right on this iss…

No, the EC can’t do anything unless it’s approved by European Parliament. It’s another unexpected aspects of European institutions : most people don’t understand how they work. Local, national political parties abuse this by essentially blaming the EC for just about anything. If things go well it’s thanks to them, if not it’s because of the EC. Local politicians have no interest in making sure regular people understa…

Indeed - they can do whatever the EP approves, which is usually very different from what the few EP seats and the entire national parliament of our state vote for.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#344

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #305
throwaway50662 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not the whole. There are entire states in the EU that are against that. Unfortunately these are the smaller ones so they can't do anything about it and it's being forced upon their populations, regardless of what anyone says about how sovereign they are.

All states have a right of veto.

[deleted]

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#345

Post by Gud »

njharman wrote: post #272
dsign wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen if there were not politicians, if the parliament of Europe were the sum of all its citizens voting for laws in some sort of mega-stack-overflow consensus system. A part of me wants to believe this madness would end. Another part fears that we would try, at least for a few months, total surveillance and bisections as a form of capital punishment. But on the bright side, we would be able to c…

Instead of money spent to influence politicians, money will be spent to influence the masses. The net effect will be same, money "wins".

There is a direct democratic country, Switzerland. Look into how it works, it's a beautiful system.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#346

Post by Gud »

layer8 wrote: post #60
irusensei wrote: post #23

Its just me that thinks there is something really wrong with the way politicians try to pass such controversial laws? Politicians bring up something controversial. Most of the time influenced by some lobby with very little interest in public benefit. To combat this lots of people need to do activism. Those people need to devote your time and energy to prevent such thing. So far it sounds good but after the dust settl…

What alternative do you propose? The politicians are elected representatives of and by the people.

Swiss style direct and decentralized democracy.

https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-ge...

"Switzerland is governed under a federal system at three levels: the Confederation, the cantons and the communes. Thanks to direct democracy, citizens can have their say directly on decisions at all political levels. This wide range of opportunities for democratic participation plays a vital role in a country as geographically, culturally and linguistically varied as Switzerland."

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#347

Post by Gud »

montagg wrote: post #303
irusensei wrote: post #23

Its just me that thinks there is something really wrong with the way politicians try to pass such controversial laws? Politicians bring up something controversial. Most of the time influenced by some lobby with very little interest in public benefit. To combat this lots of people need to do activism. Those people need to devote your time and energy to prevent such thing. So far it sounds good but after the dust settl…

You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t. This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

This is not true. Switzerland has a much more evolved democracy than the rest of the (so called) democracies.

https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik-ge...

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#348

Post by jjav »

irusensei wrote: post #23

Its just me that thinks there is something really wrong with the way politicians try to pass such controversial laws? Politicians bring up something controversial. Most of the time influenced by some lobby with very little interest in public benefit. To combat this lots of people need to do activism. Those people need to devote your time and energy to prevent such thing. So far it sounds good but after the dust settl…

> bring the thing again this time with another name

There should ideally be a rule that if an idea doesn't pass it can't be brought up again for 4 years. If defeated again, not in 8 years. And so on, each defeat doubles the number of years it's not allowed to be discussed again. Still not perfect but at least slow them down.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#349

Post by antonvs »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #204
usea wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot easier to do something than it is to stop people from doing something. Usually to prevent actions you need total control or strong incentives. This is the same dynamic as browser feature development. Adding things is easy. Preventing additions is hard. We end up saying yes to things that disadvantage most people.

> It's a lot easier to do something than it is to stop people from doing something. Usually to prevent actions you need total control or strong incentives. True. And because of this, you need to increase the incentives for your side: create a website that lists all politicians that are in favour of the dubious law by their individual names. Use a wording for these politicians that is not punishable by libel, but near…

That’s more of a revenge fantasy than a viable political strategy.

Of course, you’re not the first person to think of it - in fact, many people have tried this strategy, it’s one of the most common ones in politics. “Attack ads” are an example of it. And they’re effective, to an extent.

But they also have a major negative aspect, which is that they reduce the importance of reputation - it becomes an unreliable indicator, because almost every politician’s reputation ends up “destroyed” as you put it.

The problem is that people who disagree with you are just as capable of slandering the politicians you agree with as you are for the ones you disagree with. So you end up with a race to the bottom, with accusations becoming more and more hysterical, completely drowning any real signal, and teaching people to ignore it all as noise.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#350

Post by hannofcart »

growse wrote: post #217
hannofcart wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that you're taking about liberal democracies, ambassadors and generals don't pass laws that the rest of us have to abide by. The government cabinet has some more democratic legitimacy in so far as that they generally comprise of elected representatives. So your statement is a non-sequitur.

In the UK, there's no requirement that the cabinet is formed of elected representatives. Government ministers are often Lords. Besides, even if the defense secretary is an MP, he wasn't elected on a platform of national security by the population. So if there's a non sequitur anywhere, it's in application of any democratic legitimacy to the job of holding a significant cabinet post by winning the votes of a few ten t…

Sure, but the UK cabinet draws its power from the fact that it explicitly has support of a majority of the directly elected members of Parliament.

When it's established that they don't, they end up getting ousted (as happens with no confidence motions).

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