> They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days.
And they will try again tomorrow. Until it passes.
> Also compared to whom?
Why compare? The fact that there are worse regimes than the EU doesn't make the EU even a single bit better. Lesser evil is still evil. Let us strive for good.
> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.
... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).
But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.
We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.
Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.
It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.
"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.
So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
There are advantages to "government by evolution", as opposed to "government by monoculture"
With the former approach, every country is allowed to try different things, some amazing, some dumb, and learn from the amazing and dumb things that others have done.
In the latter, there's only one governing body, and whatever that body said, goes. There's no science or statistics, just sides shouting their arguments at each other, calling people names.
Both the EU and the US used to heavily lean towards the former approach, but they're slowly but inexorably moving towards the latter.
> So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
There are many reasons to abolish the EU, but the topic here is chat control.
> You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
Would they? We don't know. Would the government of Denmark be ready to commit political suicide by insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
The whole premise of the EU is to allow various unelected interest groups to push unpopular regulation to the EU member states without any consequences.
What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.
The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as
> directly elect some kind of president
We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.
I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.
Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.
The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.
Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P
one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.
give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.
for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))
You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.
We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
> directly elect some kind of president.
Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).
Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.
> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).
i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.
imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529682 and marked it off topic.
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"What did the Romans ever do for US?" :P
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They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days. Also compared to whom?
> They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days.
And they will try again tomorrow. Until it passes.
> Also compared to whom?
Why compare? The fact that there are worse regimes than the EU doesn't make the EU even a single bit better. Lesser evil is still evil. Let us strive for good.
"They" being the member states. The EU is the institution preventing them from implementing it, not enabling them.
You're inverting roles here.
Just look at the UK and how crazy they've gone now that the EU can't shoot their ideas down anymore.
> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.
... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).
But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.
We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.
Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.
It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.
Obviously you can revoke Laws.
And not being able to deny the Holocaust doesn't mean you don't have free speech
"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.
So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
There are advantages to "government by evolution", as opposed to "government by monoculture"
With the former approach, every country is allowed to try different things, some amazing, some dumb, and learn from the amazing and dumb things that others have done.
In the latter, there's only one governing body, and whatever that body said, goes. There's no science or statistics, just sides shouting their arguments at each other, calling people names.
Both the EU and the US used to heavily lean towards the former approach, but they're slowly but inexorably moving towards the latter.
> So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
There are many reasons to abolish the EU, but the topic here is chat control.
> You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
Would they? We don't know. Would the government of Denmark be ready to commit political suicide by insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
The whole premise of the EU is to allow various unelected interest groups to push unpopular regulation to the EU member states without any consequences.
Isn't the UK a perfect control group? Didn't the EU push back on similar legislation, until Brexit?
> insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
Didn't the UK do exactly this?
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What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.
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The only people named Miroljub I've met were serbian, perhaps this person is too.
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The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as
> directly elect some kind of president
We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.
> People need to directly elect the MP
They do.
> directly elect some kind of president
I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.
Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.
People directly elects MEPs. And the Parliament literally right now just put a check on the Council.
Many EU nations are not presidential, and personally I prefer parliamentary republics than presidential ones.
The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.
Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P
one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.
give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.
for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))
You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.
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> People need to directly elect the MPs
...
We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
> directly elect some kind of president.
Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).
Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.
> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).
> We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
Probably it is not taught as part of the curriculum in Russia.
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i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.
imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
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> The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances
You're missing a [citation needed] on that.
Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
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