Why I Voted Yes

I've opened this thread so that anyone who voted Yes and wants to say why, for the record, can post here. There is another thread called "The Lisbon Debate Continues" for debate/discussion, and also a thread for people who want to record "Why I Voted No"

What - none of you want to explain yourselves ?

Excellent... 

cookiemonster wrote:

Excellent... 

cookiemonster in anticipation of victory tomorrow...

This thread was quite the non-starter, wasn't it? A metaphor for the Yes campaign, imo.

Ssshhhhh...

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

This thread was quite the non-starter, wasn't it? A metaphor for the Yes campaign, imo.

Echo. Evening Echo.

Boo !

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Boo !

hoo

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

SeathrúnCeitinn wrote:

This thread was quite the non-starter, wasn't it? A metaphor for the Yes campaign, imo.

Echo. Evening Echo.

Not the mayo one.

*Shivers*

There should always be a space for those who have exercised their democratic right to find themselves on the fringes, so to speak. Our next step is to find ways to reintegrate them....

Kate P wrote:

There should always be a space for those who have exercised their democratic right to find themselves on the fringes, so to speak. Our next step is to find ways to reintegrate them....

I don't understand that Kate

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Kate P wrote:

There should always be a space for those who have exercised their democratic right to find themselves on the fringes, so to speak. Our next step is to find ways to reintegrate them....

I don't understand that Kate

Does she mean it's not always a Yes or No but we should be able to allow for the grey areas in between too ?

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Kate P wrote:

There should always be a space for those who have exercised their democratic right to find themselves on the fringes, so to speak. Our next step is to find ways to reintegrate them....

I don't understand that Kate

Does she mean it's not always a Yes or No but we should be able to allow for the grey areas in between too ?

Don't know. Why would someone find themselves on the fringes having voted. ?

It was supposed to be a dig at those who said that if Ireland voted no we would find ourselves on the fringes and have to be re-integrated - much as is the case with this thread.

Lead balloon.

The thread was started before the count to provide some space for Yes voters to collect their thoughts and, fresh from voting, say what was on their minds.

As the moment has passed, perhaps we should give it a decent burial, or does it speak for itself?

Well just looking thru the threads here and the insanity and hysteria that has now descended on P.ie (ie "time to leave the EU" " time to revaluate EFTA" " Should Yes voters now be tried for treason" etc etc) and given the fact I really havent looked at anything to do with Lisbon since Saturday - there are now a few comments and observations I wish to make.


I voted Yes because:

A) I read the treaty - compared it with the 3 pillar treaties it was replacing - looked at the logic of the institutional reforms and found them rational and sound - didn't have a cow over the few extra competences that we would now share with the rest of the EU , again found them to be full of commonsense and thus had no problem voting for this treaty - then again I dont suffer from an unusally apocalytic imagination on such matters and dont suffer from any purist fantasies when it comes to ideologies.

B) it was a great deal for the smaller nations - much better than it is under the current arrangements and the Irish diplomatic corps fingerprints were all over this treaty - if you have to read and intrepret contracts for a living and are used to having to read highly specialised and nuanced legaleese - which I do to earn my daily bread as an importer,exporter, customs compliance officer and assistant purchasing manager -the Lisbon treaty was a beautifully callibrated and weighted piece of work - full of checks and balances , opt outs and protocols for the nations who would have an issue with this matter or that - deliberately left vague in certain areas - again allowing the individual nationstates interpret this as they wished on areas where a full and strict agreement was a fantasy - there was something for everybody in this treaty - except those are anti the whole EU project and ardent federalists for whom this treaty would be a total unacceptable road-block on the way to their ultimate dream - the destruction of the EU or a complete Federal EU ( your choice).

C) Given the few rigid beliefs that I would hold - one is my belief in the EU as a Union of Independent Sovereign Nationstates who pool their sovereignty and resources in aid of areas of mutal interest and gain - no more and no less - and I saw everything in this treaty would aid this and hamper those who wish for its destruction or dream of its evolution into a fully federal state. I am no torch bearer for a Fully Supersized Federal United States of Europe - It quite simply would not work - period. 27 different nationstates, probably at least 35 different nations within those states , many different cultures and languages and in some cases totally different mindsets as to how things should work - it would not work - end of the story - 95% of the population see themselves as anything but European in the vaguest sense - thats why I was very happy to see more power and influence being given back to the national parliaments , the Commission role being fully defined and reduced and starting the process of being farmed back to the national parliaments - The European Parliament - I couldnt give a toss to be honest - I dont like it and as long as it is restricted to dealing with EU matters only and its numbers capped - fair enough - the extra powers and the rise to co-decision I'm not cracked about - but its give and take and the treaty overall was a good enough compromise so I can live with this. The EU was formed for political reasons - all other ,economic,social etc etc were secondary and subservient to this - the primary objective being the prevention of war in Europe and in that it has been outrageously successful - so successful that it is taken for granted and as the memories of the those years fade (ie my granny telling me about the blackouts and the 2 German bombers that accidentally dropped bombs and crashed on Mount Leinster and the Blackstairs mountains - less than 2 miles from where I was born- you can still see the rusting skeletons of the Heinkels up there still) the ties that bind us - ie never again - are being to loosen and there is an upsurge of right across the continent in nationalist feeling, anti-semitism and xenophobia and simple "Im alright Jackism". like all alliances and unions - it will take a mutual threat to all of us to restart the "United Europe" dream and I dont see that happening anytime soon ,even taking into account the rising stormclouds and the fog of war outside our frontiers - so the Lisbon Treaty was a good treaty for our times - not radical, no big ideas - but sensible insitutional changes and reforms to allow us more effectively deal with the issues of our times , climate change and environmental degredation, foreign affairs and our own doorstep - the middleeast and Africa, Russia and the unavoidable rise of China and decline of the USA - issues that will not go away because we voted no - it was a good treaty for a union of independent sovereign nationstates - and Im very happy that in the places I canvassed and had a chance to explain, listen and answer to all of the above - it does take a while - the good citizens voted by 3:1 and 4:1 in favour of this treaty. If Brian Cowen and Enda had put half as much thought and intellectual effort into explaining and promoting this treaty as I did............

Anyway thats all history now and so its time to move onto the histrionics , a contagion that has totally engulfed P.ie and is starting to show dangerous signs of gaining a foothold here - oh well. I guess I didnt find the treaty hard to read or unpalatable because I m used to reading that kind of documentation - and used to having to do hard negotiation - when the sales boys in our company make a sale and do a deal (distant memory now!) - the thingys we sell retail at 10 million a shot and nobody buys less than 5 and with the constant need for spare parts, field support and upgrading it is a big deal - they and the top boys at our customer head off to the champagne bar to celebrate and the "deal" is thrown to us worker bees to try and make head or tail of it and settle down to up to 6 months hard negotiation over the "small details" over who pays for what and when etc etc. I know how our diplomats feel when after tortorus negotiation sticking as closely to your brief as possible - you are up in front of the shareholders - some who have shown scant interest in the running of the company other than greedily argue over the size of the dividend - who suddenly seize upon one or two aspects of the "Deal" you have just negotiated and start giving out like fuck that we are "giving away" too much - totally unable to see the deal in its totality in that there is give and take and what we lose here we get back over there and if this didn't happen then there would be no deal at all. Most of all -you feel like saying "after all the deals we have negotiated in the past - have we ever let you down- have we ever done anything except make loads of money for you and have your best interests at heart and now for the first time in your life - you decided to skim over a deal in 45 minutes and pick holes in it and not read it entirely " - Willfully igorant Ungrateful bastards and thats how part of me feels about this whole referendum - tho the CEO and the board of Ireland made a total pigs ear of selling the deal to the shareholders.

Will be interesting times ahead - Lisbon is dead - whatever is agreed to replace it will not make anybody here or in the rest of No Camp happy - because it will another big dirty compromise keeping the EU on its path as not a Federal State ,nor an intergovernmental talking shop - but something different as it carefully and slowly treads a path between these two camps. I would be as happy as a pig in shit if this is the result of this - I vote for the government of Ireland to negotiate and pool sovereignty on my behalf and if everything is done at the Council of ministers thats fine with me as I've already had my democratic say - I vote in the EP elections for the crack and hope never to see a fully funtioning European Parliament. That compromise of course will please none of whiter than white purists , philosophers and ardent one track ideologues and "nationalists" on the No side and they will vote No again regardless becuase they wont have got 110% of what they wanted. Im a bargainer,pragmatist and realist and a lowdown scheming bastard when required to be - there aint nothing perfect in life you take what you can get with due regard for others - I liked Lisbon for exactly that reason - what will emerge now - wont be known for sometime - dont mind all the bluster coming out of Berlin,Paris and Brussels - its just that - a bit of jockeying for position and laying down a few markers for negotiations - what the rest of the EU decides to do at the years end is up to them - we do not live in a fully federal state and what they do will be up to them - we wont be running any referenda for at least a year if not out longer as we take our self-imposed position on the fringes for the time being until the economy improves and then we might be in a more concilatory,less self absorbed mode.

There are road works going on in this site it appears so I'll only quickly say thanks Edo for your long and as always very interesting post.

I agree that a lot of what is being said by governments is bluster and the expression of frustration, but it has had the end result I think of deepening people's wariness in relation to further integration in the EU.

I think Ireland was a pressure valve and there are a lot of people displeased with an agenda that has been introduced piecemeal over various Treaties and agreements and that was never put to them in an honest way to vote on. That has come home to roost.

The danger of the present situation is that the extreme right can make hay with it, and the more the Yes side dig in and insult No voters by making them out to be extremists, right wingers, anti-immigrationists, fantasists or whatever, the more people will become alienated. I think it is time that people who were in favour of the Lisbon Treaty make an effort to understand the valid reasons why many people are not.

I enjoyed that.

As somebody who also negotiates tortuous documents and deals long after the principals have shook hands and slapped each other on the back I have great sympathy for your feelings. However, one must always accept that the client is the client and the shareholders are the shareholders - it's their money, their assets and their risk. If you do not properly communicate what is going on in negotiations while negotiation are ongoing then you always run the risk of the deal unravelling when the principals have to put pen to paper.

I was in favour of the Treaty too, and I would not be too upset if we were asked to vote again (I think it would be defeated) as we cannot just give the rest of the countries the two fingers. Also, if we cause a major bockage this time I think future treaties may be drafted so as to leave those who have to deal with referenda to take it or leave it. Histrionics about the Governments reaction are deeply unfair imhp.

cactus flower wrote:

Did you mean to post something else Auditor #9?

I think Edo's eloquent and erudite verbiage over-powered the quote function. It just can't handle that much insight.

cactus flower wrote:

yep. I Edo, even when he's drunk!

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Did you mean to post something else Auditor #9?

I don't know about the rest of you but Edo's post is long and skinny so I'm trying to fix it.

Can't seem to though.

Oh, does Edo's post look like an ee cummings poem?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

yep. I Edo, even when he's drunk!

no drinkies - just in a slighty narky mood after having the mother of runs ins with a cerebrally challenged but power crazy American Customs person

Fecking eejit!!!