The principle of democracy and its limits.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DarkCloud


The absence of O'Connor from the Supreme Court indicates that if the case reached the court, it would be decided against gay marriage. However, OC may also have voted against permitting gay marriage in California- Although she is a proponent of Equal protection; she respects state's rights to make their decisions on what constitutes good laws.

In 1950s and 1960s I'm fairly certain that Southern state governments believed that segregation and prohibition against interracial marriages were good laws to have.

So then O'Connor would believe that it was wrong for the federal government to trample on states' rights in this regard?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by C0ckney


and the french and the irish 'no' votes too i presume. pro-europeans seem to have a very hard time accepting that the direction the EU is headed is deeply unpopular with much of the population.

I know exactly why the direction the EU is headed is deeply unpopular amongst some people, notably the British, the Poles and some other fearmongerers.

These people are afraid their country will lose influence when further integration of the EU takes place. Obviously they don't realize that the national level is becoming more and more irrelevant, save for defense, foreign policy and some other issues. The future, that is clear for everyone to see, will hold a Europe in which regions are important as well as the European (global) level. Old-fashioned Westphalian Nation-states have no future in Europe; certainly not if we wish to stay competitive in the 21st century.

Let's take up my example of the Netherlands: The most important reason for Dutch voters to vote against was because they believed the treaty was worse off than the existing situation at the time. (48% of the people who voted no had this reasoning). What most of them didn't realise was that the new constitution would make the EU more democratic, with lots of increased power for parliament, less unanimity voting in the council, redistribution of votes etc. Basically it would give smaller countries more power to forge alliances versus the bigger countries. If a few big countries like the UK, Germany or France oppose an issue now, it will never pass. But the general public doesn't know this, nor the real content of the treaty.

Secondly the general public doesn't know the benefits of the EU because they are either too abstract or because the media hardly pays any attention to Europe of the European elections (it's not sexy enough).

40% argued that they didn't want Turkey to join the EU. That was irrelevant to the referendum.
38% argued they didn't trust Dutch politicians
30% argued they disliked the Balkenende cabinet.
43% voted against because they didn't like the way pro-constitution people manifested themselves (wtf! is that a good reason to vote for or against?)
30% voted against because they didn't like the Euro.
25% voted against because they didn't 'feel' European. (which is odd. Despite the name constitutional treaty, the vote was not about creating a European nation at all, but people simply perceived it that way)

I could go on for a while, but my point is clear. A referendum is only partly decided by the issue. Too many other factors come into play, which makes it 'undemocratic'. Campaigns are good, but only to influence politicians; that is, people who know what it's all about and who are intelligent enough to see through false arguments. Referendums are nothing but mob rule.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by DarkCloud




Belgium's democracy works? Okaaay. Isn't Walloonistan breaking away?

Maybe not 100%, but at least we sort out our differences without killing eachother. That alone warrants our democracy

By the way you say no minority is supposed to infringe upon the individual rights of another. In theory yes, but in reality this is a utopian dream. Like MrFun brought up, proposition 8 took away rights from a minority, and this would never had happened if the religious right and African-Americans weren't so keen on taking them away. So minorities did infringe upon the rights of others.

Oh and for the record: we all know the American system is vastly superior than tha Taliban's, and that American democracy has more consideration for minorities' rights etc. I'm only saying it could change quickly enough. All we need is a serious longterm recession or a set of severe international tensions building up and people will conform to the 'one idea', 'one race' or 'one religion' again. Democracy only works when the economy is booming.

[Blaupanzer]

The American system was designed thru the Constitution and the first ten amendments (it was a package deal, take or reject it all) to protect certain specified rights of minorities. Majorities, the Founding Fathers (FF) believed needed no protections as they had the vote. Subsequent amendments defined some additional interpretations of selected rights and added women and former slaves to the list of those who could be or be part of the minority. To date, the US constitution does not address a whole bunch of social issues BECAUSE the 10th Amendment says in effect that "if we didn't list it here it's up to the states or the people to deal with it." Of course it says this in a positive way, all about conferring power and such. Thus, while many Congress members were horrified by miscegenation laws after they had been passed, the US government did not step in for a very long time. Similarly Congress has not addressed gay marraige, and the states have voted against it on a pretty steady basis. The Supreme Court finally forced the Feds to deal with Jim Crow in its many forms. I do not think that path is open, in a positive sense for gays.

Enshrining prejudice in a national or state constitution horrifies me. Enshrining religious prejudice in a state constitution violates the First Amendment. So, if the case is made properly, a church-based definition of marraige cannot be used to deny the legal rights associated with marraige to a certain part of the citizenry. Convincing THIS Supreme Court of the merits of that case, and where we would go from there remain up in the air.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Traianvs
Maybe not 100%, but at least we sort out our differences without killing eachother. That alone warrants our democracy
Oh and for the record: we all know the American system is vastly superior than the Taliban's, and that American democracy has more consideration for minorities' rights etc. I'm only saying it could change quickly enough. All we need is a serious longterm recession or a set of severe international tensions building up and people will conform to the 'one idea', 'one race' or 'one religion' again. Democracy only works when the economy is booming.

Wrong three times.

1) You have a Republic. The farther you move from direct referendums, the farther you move from actual Democracy. Mostly, the US is a Republic also.
2) The American system has been quite adaptable thank you, including bailing your father's or grandfather's butt out of WW II after weathering the Great Depression without the emergence of significant Fascist or Communist parties.
3) Your pessimism is based in the end on the wimpy past European experience not on robust American responses to the same challenges. Yes it looks messy, but that is because our politics are in the open so we all can play. Let's see you work out your troubles between rich North and poor South as well as we have in the same amount of time. Our difficulties are now a shadow of what they were 100 years ago. Yours seem to be getting worse.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Traianvs
I know exactly why the direction the EU is headed is deeply unpopular amongst some people, notably the British, the Poles and some other fearmongerers.

you forget the french, the dutch and the irish. in fact it seems that whenever people are allowed to have their say, they vote against europe's present direction.

These people are afraid their country will lose influence when further integration of the EU takes place. Obviously they don't realize that the national level is becoming more and more irrelevant, save for defense, foreign policy and some other issues. The future, that is clear for everyone to see, will hold a Europe in which regions are important as well as the European (global) level. Old-fashioned Westphalian Nation-states have no future in Europe; certainly not if we wish to stay competitive in the 21st century.

i find your analysis lacking here on several levels. to claim that nation states in europe do not matter is naive and counter-productive. five of the ten largest economies in the world are in europe. there are still two nations who can project force in a real way around the globe (britiain and france). the smaller nations may be irrelevant, but they always been, in global terms.

the whole regional thing is a red herring, people identify themselves in terms of their nationality, not in terms of 'regions', or as europeans. as a belgian, i thought you would understand that.

my view is that the direction that the EU is taking is entirely the wrong one. i want to see the EU focus on the things which it is good at, such as the single market, trade, aid to the poorer members and the developing world. it can also be a forum for members to discuss a common approach to things, such as climate and the financial crisis. it should be about co-operation and finding common ground on issues, not a centralised power telling 27 countries how to run their affairs.

Let's take up my example of the Netherlands: The most important reason for Dutch voters to vote against was because they believed the treaty was worse off than the existing situation at the time. (48% of the people who voted no had this reasoning). What most of them didn't realise was that the new constitution would make the EU more democratic, with lots of increased power for parliament, less unanimity voting in the council, redistribution of votes etc. Basically it would give smaller countries more power to forge alliances versus the bigger countries. If a few big countries like the UK, Germany or France oppose an issue now, it will never pass. But the general public doesn't know this, nor the real content of the treaty.

Secondly the general public doesn't know the benefits of the EU because they are either too abstract or because the media hardly pays any attention to Europe of the European elections (it's not sexy enough).

40% argued that they didn't want Turkey to join the EU. That was irrelevant to the referendum.
38% argued they didn't trust Dutch politicians
30% argued they disliked the Balkenende cabinet.
43% voted against because they didn't like the way pro-constitution people manifested themselves (wtf! is that a good reason to vote for or against?)
30% voted against because they didn't like the Euro.
25% voted against because they didn't 'feel' European. (which is odd. Despite the name constitutional treaty, the vote was not about creating a European nation at all, but people simply perceived it that way)

I could go on for a while, but my point is clear. A referendum is only partly decided by the issue. Too many other factors come into play, which makes it 'undemocratic'. Campaigns are good, but only to influence politicians; that is, people who know what it's all about and who are intelligent enough to see through false arguments. Referendums are nothing but mob rule.

to summarise:

"the electorate are stupid, they don't understand the issues, they don't realise it's for their own good" blah blah blah.

i find this sort of whining by pro-europeans to be extremely tiresome and not a little arrogant. the fact is that a referendum is the perfect opportunity for pro-europeans, who in every referendum so far, have had the backing of 'mainstream' parties and the whole apparatus of the state behind them, to explain to the people what a fantastic idea the constitution/treaty is and how much it will benefit them and all the rest of it. yet they have failed completely to make their case to the public and convince people to vote for it. to then claim that the results are somehow invalid because other factors come into play is pathetic, quite frankly.

[DarkCloud]

In 1950s and 1960s I'm fairly certain that Southern state governments believed that segregation and prohibition against interracial marriages were good laws to have.

So then O'Connor would believe that it was wrong for the federal government to trample on states' rights in this regard?

Hm. Possibly she might, but OC was willing to intercede against the states in cases such as Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982) which established that, under equal protection grounds, a male could attend an all-womens' state university for nursing.

It seems she saw gender rights and racial rights as sometimes being more important than states rights when there was a risk that the genders/races would be negatively stereotyped.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

Hm. Possibly she might, but OC was willing to intercede against the states in cases such as Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982) which established that, under equal protection grounds, a male could attend an all-womens' state university for nursing.

It seems she saw gender rights and racial rights as sometimes being more important than states rights when there was a risk that the genders/races would be negatively stereotyped.

She might have? So she might have thought civil rights for blacks was not compelling enough to call for federal government intervention? Wow.

I do not support the extreme principle of states' rights that would accept depriving a group of people their civil rights. Unreasonable extreme clinging to such principles as democratic processes and states' rights without considering the dangerous shades of gray just does not make sense.

[Blaupanzer]

O'Conner never had to rule on rights for blacks, AFAIK. Those issues mostly had been settled by the time she acceded the court. Yhe poster's point was that with her on the court, gays might have been able to get a favorable ruling because she was at least willing to listen. Her relacement? Not so much.

[Kirnwaffen]

Fareed Zakaria has an interesting book on that focuses on Democracy vs. Constitutional Liberalism and how the two don't always go hand in hand. "The Future of Freedom". It's an interesting book.

[DarkCloud]

She might have? So she might have thought civil rights for blacks was not compelling enough to call for federal government intervention? Wow.

? You misread me. I said :

OC was willing to intercede against the states in cases such as Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982) which established that, under equal protection grounds, a male could attend an all-womens' state university for nursing.

It seems she saw gender rights and racial rights as sometimes being more important than states rights when there was a risk that the genders/races would be negatively stereotyped.

As far as I know, Blaupanser is right in saying that "O'Conner never had to rule on rights for blacks, AFAIK. Those issues mostly had been settled by the time she acceded the court. " I tried to find a case directly relating to civil rights for blacks under the 14th/15 Amendment and couldn't find any during her period on the court. There were some issues on public housing, but they didn't seem to apply. Additionally, she did rule interestingly on affirmative action reqs. but that's not proximately related to the issue at hand.

[Traianvs]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by C0ckney

you forget the french, the dutch and the irish. in fact it seems that whenever people are allowed to have their say, they vote against europe's present direction.

Sometimes. The Netherlands and France rejected it, while Spain, Luxemburg and Romania accepted it in a referendum.

i find your analysis lacking here on several levels. to claim that nation states in europe do not matter is naive and counter-productive. five of the ten largest economies in the world are in europe. there are still two nations who can project force in a real way around the globe (britiain and france). the smaller nations may be irrelevant, but they always been, in global terms.

The whole point is that Europe will only be able to make a stand vis-à-vis future world powers such as the BRIC-countries and the USA if it streamlines its policies so as not to compete with eachother. Also, to have a unified voice when negotiating with non-EU countries. A unified voice is impossible in the current situation if we carry on with unanimity voting, because there will always be one or more member states that oppose a certain EU stance. On top of that the EU lacks quick decision power. Evidently our trading partners know this. The USA for example has often used our weaknesses to their own advantage in bilateral trade agreements.

the whole regional thing is a red herring, people identify themselves in terms of their nationality, not in terms of 'regions', or as europeans. as a belgian, i thought you would understand that.

You may not know Belgium enough for this, but very few Belgians identify themselves as Belgians. This is one of the reasons why emotionally Belgians are traditionally rather 'pro-Europe'. Maybe you haven't noticed the latest trends in Europe, but all over Europe regions are asserting themselves more and more. Catalans, Basques, Flemish, Corsicans, Sicilians, Bayern, Scottish and countless others are vying with national governments for more autonomy.

my view is that the direction that the EU is taking is entirely the wrong one. i want to see the EU focus on the things which it is good at, such as the single market, trade, aid to the poorer members and the developing world. it can also be a forum for members to discuss a common approach to things, such as climate and the financial crisis. it should be about co-operation and finding common ground on issues, not a centralised power telling 27 countries how to run their affairs.

It will never be a centralised power, well not in the near future anyway. If you want a single market, simplified and streamlined trade, efficient aid to poorer members you need common laws, common decision instruments so it entails integration by definition. One reason why bureaucracy is rampant in the EU is because far too many member states cling to their sovereignty (whether it be trade, agriculture, energy or any other policy domain). Many comissions, workgroups and meetings are necessary therefore to come to an agreement (if an agreement is reached at all). To a certain extent this is not a bad thing per se, but in my opinion the EU is seriously hampered.

If you want a forum to discuss climate that's fine. But there are plenty of those already. Bold and important decisions can only be made if member states are obliged to execute them. Simple really. Politicians will only act if they feel strongly pressured either by their own constituency or a large majority (or specific interest groups ). A mere forum is futile.

to summarise:

"the electorate are stupid, they don't understand the issues, they don't realise it's for their own good" blah blah blah.

i find this sort of whining by pro-europeans to be extremely tiresome and not a little arrogant. the fact is that a referendum is the perfect opportunity for pro-europeans, who in every referendum so far, have had the backing of 'mainstream' parties and the whole apparatus of the state behind them, to explain to the people what a fantastic idea the constitution/treaty is and how much it will benefit them and all the rest of it. yet they have failed completely to make their case to the public and convince people to vote for it. to then claim that the results are somehow invalid because other factors come into play is pathetic, quite frankly.

It's not pathetic, it's true. I would give you the source of the study performed on the Dutch rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, but it's in Dutch I'm afraid.

And like I told you, many people really can't fathom how the EU functions and what it means to them. I notice this even when I talk to my fellow students at uni. They have no inkling what it's about because it gets virtually no media coverage. So yes if the 'mainstream' parties and the state apparatus say authoritarian-style: "thou shalt vote yes because it's good for you", and when that state apparatus has little support at that time the vote is likely to fail.

Tell me, how would you explain in a few catchphrases why the treaty would make the EU more democratic?
I know I wouldn't be able to do it...

[Traianvs]

dp

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


Wrong three times.

1) You have a Republic. The farther you move from direct referendums, the farther you move from actual Democracy. Mostly, the US is a Republic also.
2) The American system has been quite adaptable thank you, including bailing your father's or grandfather's butt out of WW II after weathering the Great Depression without the emergence of significant Fascist or Communist parties.
3) Your pessimism is based in the end on the wimpy past European experience not on robust American responses to the same challenges. Yes it looks messy, but that is because our politics are in the open so we all can play. Let's see you work out your troubles between rich North and poor South as well as we have in the same amount of time. Our difficulties are now a shadow of what they were 100 years ago. Yours seem to be getting worse.

FYI, Belgium is a constitutional monarchy. And I don't agree referendums entail 'more democracy' but if you think it does then that's fine.

I never attacked the USA, I was making some idle comments on a few of DarkCloud's ideas, with no specific objective in mind but to hear him out a bit

And hey we don't have any problems, we even have a 1.4% growth in 2008, despite this whole mess lately. Many countries in the EU watch us with envy now

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

? You misread me. I said :

As far as I know, Blaupanser is right in saying that "O'Conner never had to rule on rights for blacks, AFAIK. Those issues mostly had been settled by the time she acceded the court. " I tried to find a case directly relating to civil rights for blacks under the 14th/15 Amendment and couldn't find any during her period on the court. There were some issues on public housing, but they didn't seem to apply. Additionally, she did rule interestingly on affirmative action reqs. but that's not proximately related to the issue at hand.

I never assumed OC did rule on civil rights regarding blacks. I just brought up the example of blacks' civil rights struggle and then at one point you brought up OC as an example of how a judge deals with tension between states' rights and civil rights.