Day One of New EU Patent War

Day One of New EU Patent War

Posted Jul 22, 2006 17:57 UTC (Sat) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
In reply to: Day One of New EU Patent War by kleptog
Parent article: Day One of New EU Patent War

I respectfully disagree (and I think last vote showed most of France disagreed too). Democracy, not arcane indirect power contructs, is what protects citizens.

Power without accountability corrupts. What the Europeans mandarins built during the last 50 years is a system where governments can do back-room agreements, then push hypocritical horrified cries when the european directives they had written are transposed in national law a few years later (ie a no-accountability bureaucrat and lobbyist dream). And I won't dispute the fact most of them are honest or delude themselves in thinking this is all for the greater good.

I'm perfectly aware a European Parliament won't always vote in my country or my own interest. This is all part of the normal democratic process. I accept and do not fear it. My directly-elected representatives at least will know if they don't push for my interests I'll vote for someone else next time.

There are many parts of the TCE I disagree with but I'd have accepted them as long as there was a possibility to change them later through normal democratic process.

What I fear is institutions so complex politicians can reasonably expect normal citizens won't be able to trace their actions, so they needn't take voters into account.

Last year vote showed the French governement parties were so used to doing european policy behind voters back they couldn't defend it before them the one day they had to account for it. What's worse they spent months no realising this time they'd have to account for every single word of their proposal, and wouldn't be given « carte blanche » as usual.

I'm sorry if you can't understand the difference between democracy and enlightened dictatorship. Enlightened dictatorship always works better on paper - wise rulers protected from the whims of voters or direcly elected assemblies. However enlightened dictatorship posits enlightened rulers in the first place, and they tend to get rather scarse once you remove the accountability part.

(Not to mention most of the people who dared pose as enlightened elites last year had lost the voters trust a long time before)

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