I'm currently totally fed up with how stuff goes in the EU in general. First of all, we are fed a constitution(Which the Dutch and the French people turned down). Then it gets changed on a few minor things(No anthem, no flag, some other nonsense) and then it's called "Completely different" and we don't get to vote for it. Next we have hypocrisies in the EU about Google's data retention: All European ISPs are forced to store all data traffic for at least 12 months and a max of 24 months. Google does the same, except with the search data it collects. However, now everyone falls over eachother because Google stores data! OMFG! DRAMA! Then we have the ridiculous veto rights countries have. France keeps blocking the amendment to do everything in Brussels and NOT blow away 20M a year to keep all the papers and stuff moving. Poland vetos the moratorium on Death Penalties and wants to see the same thing on abortion / euthanasia. The EU is becoming a behemoth of a bureaucratic machine that wastes more and more of it's money and time to nonsense. I've seen proposals come around to force ISPs to block Child Porn, sites with how to make bombs, terrorist sites, etc. WTF? That makes us no better than China... I wish the EU would stop being such a waste of cash... I don't see how anything good can come from it anymore. Toolmaker

Welcome to the world of politics. You're correct, its a large bureaucratic machine.

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I've seen proposals come around to force ISPs to block Child Porn, sites with how to make bombs, terrorist sites, etc. WTF? That makes us no better than China...

Everybody wants to see and end to those things. Its a proposal, not a new law and it will probably get turned down for various reasons.

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Next we have hypocrisies in the EU about Google's data retention: All European ISPs are forced to store all data traffic for at least 12 months and a max of 24 months. Google does the same, except with the search data it collects. However, now everyone falls over eachother because Google stores data! OMFG! DRAMA!

Big faceless corporation does something unpopular? Our politicians complain out loud to make sure those people who resent it think of us at election time. That's politicians in general.

The economic benefits, from my point of view, outweigh the cost (20m is not a lot in global politics.) here is the UK's official defence budget. If large multilateral Beaureaucratic machines didn't exist we would be spending twice as much to defend each other from each other. Politicians will find ways to waste our money regardless of what they do.

I think it comes down to politicians not being accountable for what they do. They may say one thing to get elected, then never do it / do the opposite. An election manifesto should be the same as a contract... that way if you breach the contract, you are out and people have a chance to vote again.

America tried to do this once -- a confederation of member states -- but it didn't turn out too well, for most of the same reasons the EU isn't turning out so hot. We federated 10 years later and then had a Civil War shortly thereafter. So looks like you got something to look forward to!

Quote:Original post by roel

Quote:... and then it's called "Completely different" and we don't get to vote for it.

Obviously you don't get to vote for it, you live in a country with a parliamentary democracy. About 99% of the people in The Netherlands (including me, and probably you) is not able to correctly judge problems like this, and therefore people with more knowledge do it for us. Remember the first constitution "poll", where people voted "no" because of totally unrelated retarded reasons and sentiments? I'm glad our parliament didn't make the same mistake again this time.

I completely disagree with you. Do you fully understand the constitution? No, you don't. And you know why? Because it is written in such a fashion to exclude any possible loopholes.

The same goes with the treaty now. However, I voted NO last time, because the only thing I was told that I had to vote "yes", and nothing more. The opposition did come up with good reasons to vote no. Our prime minister probably didn't even know the details of it, because when asked directly why to vote Yes, he couldn't answer the damn question.

You see, if they would have explained what pros the treaty would have had for me, my country or the entire EU, I might have voted yes.

If someone would come up to you and says "Do you want it? Just say yes", you obviously wonder why. The same thing happened during the voting for the EU. We were just told to vote yes. It doesn't work like that.

The problem with the EU is that it wants to be democratic, yet, it has a veto system which allows a single country to stop a treaty. It's like everyone voting to eat cake, and then me barging in and say I want pie and force everyone to eat pie. Very democratic!

Toolmaker