Adam Curry's Daily Source Code DSC-770-2008-06-18

Of the reasons given by pip for Ireland having voted No to the Lisbon Treaty, I only recognise two.

1. Many people were concerned at the loss of a full-time commissioner, not realising that a commissioner is merely appointed by a member state and does not represent that state.

2. Common taxation was a major concern, but the treaty left that area requiring unanimous agreement; i.e. Ireland would retain a veto over giving up its relatively low corporation tax rate. Regardless of the referendum result being Yes or No, Ireland would come under pressure to agree to common taxation, so it was an irrelevant argument.

The most common reason I heard people offering for voting No was simply that they didn't understand the treaty. Instead of choosing to abstain, they preferred to vote No. ("Better the devil you know.")

Also, many of the arguments on the No side were simple scaremongering, which were so conditional and hypothetical that they could not convincingly be disproved. A French journalist pointed out that the No side in Ireland was arguing that the treaty would force Ireland to introduce abortion, while in France the No side argued that the constitution would force France to restrict abortion!

The third major reason can be blamed on the Irish government itself! Whenever anything positive arises from membership of the EU, the government takes the credit, but anything negative (e.g. water rates suddenly imposed on schools requiring local fundraising) gets blamed on the faceless EU, promoting anti-EU sentiment. In coastal fishing areas, the No vote exceeded 90% for example, because of opposition to the EU fishery policy which has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty.

Won't get laid in a Prius?
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/539/ecogeeks-get-all-the-girls.html

Adam, I don't agree that Ireland should be excluded from EU, and that Lisbon Treaty should be pushed ahead - even though I am pro-EU.

You are wrong about numbers: it was 800,000 against not 500,000 but against 500,000,000 (500 million).

I noticed "iPod is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc" on footer of mevio, WTF?


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