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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

#351

Post by hef19898 »

throwaway50662 wrote: post #292
hef19898 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked, it is made up of the respective ministers / secretaries of the memebwr states (foreign affairs, interior,...). So, also democratic as, as those ministers are nominated by the national governments after elections. EDIT: There seven institutions of the EU: Parliament (elected directly), European Council (assembly of democratically elected head of state / government of memeber states), Council of the EU (s…

Heads of states and the ministers very often don't represent the populations of their states, only a very small part of it.

You mean like most GOP presidents in recent history not winning the majority vote? The US are not part of the EU so...

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

#352

Post by Incipient »

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…

You're arguing that the problem is that only wealthy people will be able to speak to their representatives. That's the exact situation now, but worse. Today it's not a matter of convincing your rep. The wealthy just buy them.

"here have 200k and swing that bill my way". That's just borderline bribery.

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

#353

Post by throwaway50662 »

hef19898 wrote: post #351
throwaway50662 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heads of states and the ministers very often don't represent the populations of their states, only a very small part of it.

You mean like most GOP presidents in recent history not winning the majority vote? The US are not part of the EU so...

The differences are much bigger than that. The head of state/leading party that formed the government has only 15% support in my country. That's possible because it's a political compromise of the parliament majority, and they're severely limited in whatever they can do here by the parliament. It's very different political system.

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

#354

Post by nvm0n2 »

jezzamon wrote: post #255
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…

Take a look at the recent Australian referendum (disclaimer: like most young people I voted yes, but the outcome was no): Although people were voting, there was a lot of political parties "advocating" fairly hard for different views, and the opinion of Australians flipped as a result of that. Seems like spreading FUD is effective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023...

No won because the yes campaign was manipulative and deceptive, doing things like hiding the full content of the statement from the heart where it discussed reparation payments then getting Facebook to censor anyone who asked if it was being hidden.

But it sounds like you don't actually understand anyone's views, at is often the case for young people. There's just your initial reaction (correct) and "fear" (incorrect). Emotional politics at its greatest.

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

#355

Post by concordDance »

try_the_bass wrote: post #275
concordDance wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't mean you are forbidden to say what you want. This confuses me. Saying someone is "free to do X" normally means that X is allowed by law. Or else what could it possibly mean?

I don't see "free to do X" being exclusively "it's allowed by law". One is always free to do whatever one wants. Criminal law exists to punish those who abuse that freedom in ways their society has deemed to be harmful. That is to say "free to do X (under the law)" is a subset of "free to do X".

What does "free to do X" mean then? That you are physically able to do so?

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

#356

Post by rocho »

jjav wrote: post #348
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.

They'd just bring it up shortly after under a different disguise.

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

#357

Post by hef19898 »

throwaway50662 wrote: post #353
hef19898 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like most GOP presidents in recent history not winning the majority vote? The US are not part of the EU so...

The differences are much bigger than that. The head of state/leading party that formed the government has only 15% support in my country. That's possible because it's a political compromise of the parliament majority, and they're severely limited in whatever they can do here by the parliament. It's very different political system.

Like in Germany, were absolutr majorities for one party basically do not exist. Hence coalition governments (we never tried a minority government like in Spain for some reason).

But claiming that 85% voted "against" the leading party getting 15% is quite a stretch. Usually coalition parties have enough common policy goals to work together, meaning interests of the electorate overlap enough as well.

Butvthisbis just like representative democracies are suppossed to work, there is nothing illegitimate or undemocratic about it. We talk about national governments and parliaments here, not the election of the student speaker for a class in elementary school.

And you said it yourself:

>> it's a political compromise of the parliament majority

And that majority was dully and democratically voted for. The the results are somewhat ambigious is to be expected, not beong able to cope with that isbone of the reasons wannabe-authocrats can gain so much traction by promising "strong leadership" (a promise that never materializes besides oppression and cleptocrats on behalf if the government party and its members).

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

#358

Post by fsflover »

Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote: post #302
dalbasal wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to have the right idea. Do you know much about them? Are they good/effective?

Let us have a look. That page features Corporate Memphis-like artwork picturing a black crippled man, a blonde woman, and a woman wearing a headscarf. It talks about decolonization. The about us page lists a few organizations I wouldn't trust anywhere near policy in general.

Which organization you wouldn't trust?

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

#359

Post by dalbasal »

Saline9515 wrote: post #321
lock-the-spock wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is certainly corruption in the use of EU funds within the programmes but do you have evidence of actual corruption in the institutions in recent years? The only cases I'm aware of were all in the parliament, which is unsurprising if national parties send good "party soldiers" chosen for loyalty rather than quality. Corruption at national level seems however much more common, see recent stories on Bavarian backr…

To be an EU public servant, you need a PhD. Many, many of them have “fake” PhDs, written by PhD candidates for money. How do I know? I used to date a girl that was writing one for an EU servant. And yes, there is plain corruption. Look at Mario Draghi that overlooked Greece's false debt accounting at Goldman Sachs (GS) and then became president of the ECB. Or Emmanuel Barroso, that went swiftly to work at GS after hi…

Yes it is.

The pertinent question (to me) is the relative corruption and/or other dysfunction to national and/or subnational governments. That's the competition.

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

#360

Post by malermeister »

rayiner wrote: post #334
malermeister wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want to be bullied by the bigger and more powerful, yes.

Was Sweden being bullied before the EU?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_German_troops_throu...

Yup.

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