[ILUG] Eek! McCreevy wants to legalise Software Patents via a US-EU patent treaty

[Michael Watterson]

Frank Peelo wrote:
> James McCarthy wrote:
>> Out of 500 Million people in the EU, less than 3 Million (that's us, 
>> on an impossibly good turnout) are the only ones who get to vote on 
>> whether to go ahead or not. And the French already turned it down the 
>> first time, so they're not allowed have another bash at it as a result.
>
> ...
>
>> The worst thing that can happen if we vote no is everything stays the 
>> same,
>
> No. If we vote no, we will be made to do it again until we get it right.
>
> We are kidding ourselves if we think we have the right to reject the 
> Lisbon treaty, in the face of an overwhelming majority in the Dáil. We 
> gave up our right to vote on issues such as this, when we failed to 
> uphold the verdict of the first referendum on the Nice treaty. Whether 
> that was the right verdict or not is irrelevant - we created a 
> precedent whereby the Dáil does not have to accept a referendum result 
> which it does not like.
>
> Frank
>
I've not seen any suggestions as to what the alternative to Lisbon  is 
and where I live the only people campaigning against it are SF.  Their 
last local community effort was supporting the killers of a Garda in Adare.

Obviously there may be really good reasons to vote against it (but I 
haven't heard them).  As a Nationalist living in the  Republic  for 25 
years and  from  the  North originally, I'm still very suspicious of 
SF's Democratic Credentials. I don't really understand why they are 
campaigning against Lisbon. It does not turn us into a State in an USA 
style federation (would that be bad as long as Blair is not President of 
Europe and Paisley is not Governor of the State Of Ireland?).

In terms of  the extremely narrow self interest of the list, EU seems 
reasonably anti-Monopolist (has anyone else fined MS as much?) and more 
sensible on IP rules than USA. My understanding is that Lisbon would 
dilute McCreevy type powers and give more accountability.

Democracy is a terrible system. The EU is terrible.  But alternatives to 
either appear to leave people deader or poorer, apart from any civil 
liberty Issues.  The more any powers by anyone are diluted the better. 
Dull mediocre leaders without much power are bad. But God save us from 
powerful smart charismatic ones.

Now I'll get my flack jacket and head to the bunker to patch my Linux 
based Defence System.







 



-- 
Mike