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> 1. Each commissioner has their own dedicated area and portfolio, so if the problematic law is in some other commissioner's area then your vote is worth nothin

> 1. Each commissioner has their own dedicated area and portfolio, so if the problematic law is in some other commissioner's area then your vote is worth nothing. Of course your vote is worth something. It changes another commissioner with another portfolio. Just because every subset of the demos votes for a different official doesn't make it any less democratic. Similarly, in the US, a senator can be on a committee with a dedicated area and portfolio and you might not be able to influence their election if you live in the wrong state. > In practice the President reserves the right to veto any commissioner they don't like, and give or take their responsibilities them at will. This is common in presidential systems. I know for a fact it works that way in the US, but I'm pretty certain it does so in other systems as well. > This ability doesn't exist in the treaties. That's not the scandal you make it out to be. Plenty of democratic systems function more by convention than by written down law. Prime example is the UK, where a lot of constitutional law is nothing more than unwritten convention. The very existence of the office of the UK Prime Minister itself is not written down in law anywhere! [0] > 3. Commissioners are required to take an oath of loyalty to the EU and explicitly promise to ignore any instructions from their governments of citizenship [2] Of course they are, they're EU commissioners after all. US government officials take an oath to the US, too, and not the state they're from. > so being able to appoint them - even if it actually worked - would grant national governments no real power. Who said anything about granting national governments any power? That's not a prerequisite for a democratic system at the level above. > It is not a democracy. It has never been and never will be. Any mechanism or system that looks superficially democratic will turn out to be subtly broken or unusable on close inspection. None of your points are indicative of a lack of democracy. It might not be your preferred mode of democracy, but none of your complaints are unique to the EU, they're all features of other democratic systems as well. Reading between the lines, it seems like your main gripe is the weakening of the nation state in favor of a larger block. I understand that might make you unhappy, but it is not per se undemocratic as long as the larger block is democratic. I also happen to believe it's the right thing to do, Europe has been held back by petty national squabbles for way too long, it's time we finally unify to the superpower we're meant to be. [0] https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-constitution https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/britains-unwritten-co...

nvm0n2 3y ago
Original claim: > You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe Your claim: you can vote for someone who will vote for someone who will suggest someone who can be rejected and who will then swear to ignore the wishes of the original voters anyway, and this is fine. No it isn't. The EU is a dictatorship that like all dictatorships plays pretend and has meaningless votes for people who don't matter. Your attempts to obfuscate this core truth are impressively high effort, but mixing and matching different aspects of different democracies from around the world whilst ignoring all the ways the EU is different doesn't actually yield a winning argument. > it is not per se undemocratic as long as the larger block is democratic In fact placing a same-sized parliament under the control of a much larger number of people would be less democratic, as each individual has less influence over the results. But the EU isn't democratic anyway, so this point is moot. > it's time we finally unify to the superpower we're meant to be. And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different!
- malermeister 3y ago
  > No it isn't. The EU is a dictatorship that like all dictatorships plays pretend and has meaningless votes for people who don't matter. Your attempts to obfuscate this core truth are impressively high effort, but mixing and matching different aspects of different democracies from around the world whilst ignoring all the ways the EU is different doesn't actually yield a winning argument. Note how you haven't addressed any of my arguments. > And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different! What exactly is authoritarian? You can't just use bad words against arguments you don't like, you have to actually back up your points. All you have done is make wild claims, which I've refuted, as a result of which you've then called me an authoritarian and the EU a dictatorship without any substance to back it up.

nvm0n2 3y ago

Original claim: > You literally cannot change EU law via elections in any way in Europe Your claim: you can vote for someone who will vote for someone who will suggest someone who can be rejected and who will then swear to ignore the wishes of the original voters anyway, and this is fine. No it isn't. The EU is a dictatorship that like all dictatorships plays pretend and has meaningless votes for people who don't matter. Your attempts to obfuscate this core truth are impressively high effort, but mixing and matching different aspects of different democracies from around the world whilst ignoring all the ways the EU is different doesn't actually yield a winning argument. > it is not per se undemocratic as long as the larger block is democratic In fact placing a same-sized parliament under the control of a much larger number of people would be less democratic, as each individual has less influence over the results. But the EU isn't democratic anyway, so this point is moot. > it's time we finally unify to the superpower we're meant to be. And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different!

malermeister 3y ago
> No it isn't. The EU is a dictatorship that like all dictatorships plays pretend and has meaningless votes for people who don't matter. Your attempts to obfuscate this core truth are impressively high effort, but mixing and matching different aspects of different democracies from around the world whilst ignoring all the ways the EU is different doesn't actually yield a winning argument. Note how you haven't addressed any of my arguments. > And there it is, revealed in the final sentence. We didn't have to scratch deep to find it this time: the power hungry authoritarianism that motivates EU ideology. And you're in Austria no less. Every other attempt to unify Europe under a single government has led to dystopian disaster, but this time it'll be totally different! What exactly is authoritarian? You can't just use bad words against arguments you don't like, you have to actually back up your points. All you have done is make wild claims, which I've refuted, as a result of which you've then called me an authoritarian and the EU a dictatorship without any substance to back it up.