YOU CAN'T call it democracy when a system of government is so unpopular the elite refuses to let the people vote on it. This is nothing new for Europe; and a primary reason my ancestors left for America. The Irish have demonstrated again that given a choice, people will choose freedom. This below piece is by the fairly recently turned-left wing AP, and even it can't obscure the truth. Alas, too big a story to ignore.
As an aside, the New York Times ran an story a couple of days ago extolling Europe and Canada's abridgment of free speech, calling the our right to unfettered speech outmoded and unfair to groups that might be made to feel uncomfortable. Again, they forget this form of repression is why we left Europe in the first place.
Finally, did you hear the one about how the Democrats want to ban the Pentagon from holding news conferences, claiming that it is putting forth propaganda? Ignore the fact that the now Obama-led party is calling our military leaders liars. I want to know how that vast majority of lazy reporters would file anything at all if they military didn't do the actual news gathering for them (which the reporters subsequently misrepresent).
Finally, redux. Just remembered I read a piece in the Seattle Times yesterday about how the Marine Corps "expelled" a member after he tossed a puppy off a cliff. The jerk concerned deserved to be punished for an amazingly stupid act of cruelty--I would have hammered him harder, but shouldn't a journalist be required to know that when the military kicks somebody out they are discharged, not expelled? Note to reporter. You're not in high school anymore. Anyway, here's a bit on the EU's latest flaming defeat.
DUBLIN, Ireland - It took years to negotiate, weighs in at 260 pages, is virtually unreadable — and now could be a dead letter.
Irish voters vetoed a painstakingly drafted treaty Friday that had been designed to streamline the European Union. Politicians from all of Ireland's major parties worked hard to sell the complex, deeply technical document to a confused and suspicious public.
Only Ireland put the treaty before the voters at all. The other 26 members are ratifying it through their parliaments, in part fearful of what happened to its predecessor, an even bigger, more ambitious constitution that French and Dutch voters torpedoed in 2005.
To become law, the treaty must be unanimously approved by all 27 EU nations. But Ireland's constitution requires EU treaties be put to a vote — a risky policy for the EU, whose powerful commissioners are not popularly elected and seem distant from the ordinary European.
The overwhelming majority of Ireland's politicians supported the Treaty of Lisbon, named after the city where the charter was signed by all member governments in December 2007. But they found it impossible to sell.
