The makeup of the people who vote the same as yourself is irrelevant to what position you should take
(sorry for the awkward-sounding post title)
Paul Wells had an interesting take on France's rejection of the European Union constitution...
In it he states:
Commentators tempted to throw a party in the wake of the French Non will have some 'splainin to do, or, more likely, to avoid: This was overwhelmingly a vote of the French left and extreme right. It was essentially a rejection of capitalism and of Turkey.
The French people didn't toss up their hands and say, "My God, Conrad Black and Mark Steyn were right, we can't have Eurocrats deciding how wide our toilet-paper rolls should be." More than 90% of Communist and Front National voters rejected the treaty. The most parlable of French opinion-leaders and electors — the ones who understand how profoundly France has been betrayed by its own protectionist, corporatist instincts, and who see an open and functional Europe as the best hope of pressuring France into woefully overdue reforms, as it has begun to do in Germany and as it did to Sweden a decade ago — voted Yes to this constitution.
The France that takes to the streets at the merest suggestion that public pensions should not bankrupt the state; the France that still believes its social model is a beacon to the world; the France that wants to stand up to America's armies but is terrified of Poland's plumbers voted No. Tonight's vote is yet another Pyrrhic victory for Old Europe, a bullseye shot in the nation's foot, and it seals France's isolation from a new New Europe whose entrepreneurial spirit is obvious in countries as diverse as Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Poland. A few commentators, notably the centre-right UDF president François Bayrou, said the results underscore "an extraordinarily grave French crisis" that actually has very little to do with European institutions at all. I'll be writing more about this in the week ahead.
At first, I found his argument to be relatively persuasive. It sort of makes sense to support those that actually have capitalist instincts inside France itself. They obviously have a more intimate understanding of what France needs in order to reform itself into a less socialistic and overregulated society.
However... is the cost of transferring sovereignty to a group of seemingly unaccountable and all-powerful politicians in Brussels (headquarters of the EU) really worth it for the reforms that would be forced upon French society? Why not try to fight for less regulation and less government and less of all of the other problems that plague France in France itself, through a truly democratic process instead of hoping for those reforms to be enacted undemocratically through a group of politicians that exist outside of France? Wouldn't the consequences of those forced reforms be even more disastorous than allowing French workers to have actual politicians to hold to account?
Moving onto my broader point (as stated in the title of the post), I think Wells is trying to guilt people (right-wing North Americans I think, to be specific) into his view by tarring them with the same brush as the people in France itself who voted no on the constitution... He cites the fact that most of the people in France who voted against the constitution are socialists and communists... fair enough, but how is that supposed to effect people who are principally opposed to the constitution because it is undemocratic and because it has the potential to be authoratarian in practice? Why should they be shamed by association into supporting or hoping for the passage of the constitution? That doesn't seem fair. That's like someone saying to me "don't support the Conservatives, not because they themselves are racist, but because they have a number of racist supporters... you don't want to vote WITH such people even if your rationales for voting for the Conservatives have to do with democratic and economic principles." Sadly, many people actually follow that way of thinking. They vote for and against political parties and political issues based on the type of people who are voting with or against them instead of evaluating the issue or party itself on the merits.
In France, people who were suspicious of devolving their nation's sovereignty for good and proper reasons might have been alarmed that the majority of the support for their cause came from people diametrically opposed to their basic principles, but in a democracy, that's the way it works. I'm sure those people still sighed a sense of relief at the constitution's failure to pass.
Paul Wells had an interesting take on France's rejection of the European Union constitution...
In it he states:
Commentators tempted to throw a party in the wake of the French Non will have some 'splainin to do, or, more likely, to avoid: This was overwhelmingly a vote of the French left and extreme right. It was essentially a rejection of capitalism and of Turkey.
The French people didn't toss up their hands and say, "My God, Conrad Black and Mark Steyn were right, we can't have Eurocrats deciding how wide our toilet-paper rolls should be." More than 90% of Communist and Front National voters rejected the treaty. The most parlable of French opinion-leaders and electors — the ones who understand how profoundly France has been betrayed by its own protectionist, corporatist instincts, and who see an open and functional Europe as the best hope of pressuring France into woefully overdue reforms, as it has begun to do in Germany and as it did to Sweden a decade ago — voted Yes to this constitution.
The France that takes to the streets at the merest suggestion that public pensions should not bankrupt the state; the France that still believes its social model is a beacon to the world; the France that wants to stand up to America's armies but is terrified of Poland's plumbers voted No. Tonight's vote is yet another Pyrrhic victory for Old Europe, a bullseye shot in the nation's foot, and it seals France's isolation from a new New Europe whose entrepreneurial spirit is obvious in countries as diverse as Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Poland. A few commentators, notably the centre-right UDF president François Bayrou, said the results underscore "an extraordinarily grave French crisis" that actually has very little to do with European institutions at all. I'll be writing more about this in the week ahead.
At first, I found his argument to be relatively persuasive. It sort of makes sense to support those that actually have capitalist instincts inside France itself. They obviously have a more intimate understanding of what France needs in order to reform itself into a less socialistic and overregulated society.
However... is the cost of transferring sovereignty to a group of seemingly unaccountable and all-powerful politicians in Brussels (headquarters of the EU) really worth it for the reforms that would be forced upon French society? Why not try to fight for less regulation and less government and less of all of the other problems that plague France in France itself, through a truly democratic process instead of hoping for those reforms to be enacted undemocratically through a group of politicians that exist outside of France? Wouldn't the consequences of those forced reforms be even more disastorous than allowing French workers to have actual politicians to hold to account?
Moving onto my broader point (as stated in the title of the post), I think Wells is trying to guilt people (right-wing North Americans I think, to be specific) into his view by tarring them with the same brush as the people in France itself who voted no on the constitution... He cites the fact that most of the people in France who voted against the constitution are socialists and communists... fair enough, but how is that supposed to effect people who are principally opposed to the constitution because it is undemocratic and because it has the potential to be authoratarian in practice? Why should they be shamed by association into supporting or hoping for the passage of the constitution? That doesn't seem fair. That's like someone saying to me "don't support the Conservatives, not because they themselves are racist, but because they have a number of racist supporters... you don't want to vote WITH such people even if your rationales for voting for the Conservatives have to do with democratic and economic principles." Sadly, many people actually follow that way of thinking. They vote for and against political parties and political issues based on the type of people who are voting with or against them instead of evaluating the issue or party itself on the merits.
In France, people who were suspicious of devolving their nation's sovereignty for good and proper reasons might have been alarmed that the majority of the support for their cause came from people diametrically opposed to their basic principles, but in a democracy, that's the way it works. I'm sure those people still sighed a sense of relief at the constitution's failure to pass.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
4:58 PM
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