Article

2004-08-03 Europe

"Sometimes the electorate has to be protected from making the wrong decisions"

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Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-03 12:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Berlin 2004, Berlin 1938, the arguement is still the same.

Posted by Don 2004-08-03 8:11:13 AM|| 2004-08-03 8:11:13 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 That's cold, Don.

Accurate, but cold. :-p

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2004-08-03 8:51:11 AM|| 2004-08-03 8:51:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 " argued recently that Germany faced the prospect of being the "only country in Europe" not to hold a referendum."

European leaders remind me of my High School student council.

Prime motivator: 'They might laugh at me!

Come to think of it, the same goes for M. Kerry.

Posted by markwark 2004-08-03 9:52:34 AM|| 2004-08-03 9:52:34 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 not holdoing a referendum is the equivalanet of Nazism??

Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-08-03 10:27:42 AM|| 2004-08-03 10:27:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 "Sometimes the electorate has to be protected from making the wrong decisions." When I first read that I thought it was part of the Dems talking points.
"Germans had been denied the chance to elect directly members of the European convention." Back in 1776, we called that "Taxation without representation." You know the rest of the story!

Posted by Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-08-03 10:35:51 AM|| 2004-08-03 10:35:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I hate to be in the position of agreeing with an EUnuch, but he has a point: there are limits to democracy.

We have no method of initiative, recall, or referendum at the federal level. Nobody asked the people to vote whether to join the UN, or any of the various international treaties we've signed. Heck, we don't even let the House vote on it. The Constitution also says that even if we wanted to, you can't "democratically" vote to impose slavery, shut down the Catholic church, and so on.

The ratification of the Constitution was by representative assemblies (albeit elected specifically for that purpose), not by a popular vote.

Eeeeeuuu. I am going to take a shower now. You lie with socialists, you rise with fleas.

Posted by Jackal 2004-08-03 1:14:09 PM|| [http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2004-08-03 1:14:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 lie down with social democrats, rise with a program to combat flees,financed by a tax on dog owners. Conservatives will denounce its incompetence and bureucracy - libertarians will call for owners to be responsible for their dogs flees, and if a flee jumps from their dog to you, sue em - conservatives will get mad when dog owners are sued and will call for limits on damages. Meanwhile harder core socialists will call for greater expenditures, and will blame the programs problems on the insecticide industry, which should be nationalized. Third wayers will attempt to reduce the programs costs by allowing the govt to contract to private exterminators, in place of civil servants, and by eliminating services to wealthy dog owners. Communists will call for the deaths of dogs, other than those historically associated with the working class. Paleocons will blame the entire problem on flee bitten foreign dogs, and their immigrant owners. Neocons will develop a plan to transform the global attitude towards pets, but will forget to provide adequate resources.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-08-03 1:54:18 PM|| 2004-08-03 1:54:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 "But whatâs a little lie among friends, eh, Gerhardt?"

Let's not have Rantburgers distort facts either. If you'd actually read the sentences you were commenting on you'd understand that he spoke the complete and absolute truth when he said that such referendums are illegal under the current constitution. Those other people didn't disagree with him, they simply said that they should *make* them legal by *changing* the German constitution.

It's interesting to see one paragraph from the beginning thta you chose to cut away -- the one that said: "Mr SchrÃ¶der insists that Germany cannot do so because the country's post-war constitution expressly forbids extra-parliamentary plebiscites, to make it harder for an extremist party to seize power."

Ofcourse *that* paragraph wouldn't help your nice parallels with Nazi Germany.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2004-08-03 5:40:33 PM|| 2004-08-03 5:40:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 LH, True about the communists, but about on the neocons. The Russians exterminated an entire breed (the Russian wolf-hound or borzoi) because they were associated with royalty. Fortunately, the royals had given these beautiful and regal dogs as gifts to royals in other countries. So thanks to the ex-patriot dogs, the breed survived. http://www.akc.org/breeds/recbreeds/borzoi.cfm

As for the neo-cons â theyâd be more ruggedly individualist on the issue. Theyâd make three points:

1. dogs and cats belonging to responsible pet no longer have fleas (improved technology thanks to research profit-incentives in the free market);

2. if you donât like fleas âstay away from dogs and the beach (sand fleas). Liberals, invoking logic so nuanced that âonly a thinking manâ can understandâ, would start a movement to protect the sand fleas, demanding a $6,000,000,000 environmental impact report to determine the dangers that beachgoers pose to the sand fly breeding cycle.

3. personal injury awards over flea bites is how John Edwards made his millions

Posted by B 2004-08-03 7:44:18 PM|| 2004-08-03 7:44:18 PM|| Front Page Top

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