It's so funny to see Americans tell us what to vote while they don't have jack shit to do with it. If we come on here babbling about the US election we get told it's not our business... the wonderful double standards of GFY :)

Anyway... I will simply vote NO because Europe hasn't done anything to inform the citizens WHY it is important to vote YES and what the consequenses will be. All we've been told is to vote YES or otherwise we'll start WWIII, now how's that for information supply. If they don't inform us correctly I don't see any reason why I should support them, all they do is spend lots of tax money on stupid advertising methods.

Several marketing companies have been interviewed to give their opinion on the way the government is handling this... they all shit themselves from laughing! Can you blame them?

That's a shame, and you're right that is part of the reason why we've gotten the Neanderthal-level responses in this thread from some of the Euros voting No.

The Euro countries are not used to what we have in the States, which are politicians from both sides appealing directly to the public through brainwashing, manipulative interviews, truth-twisting television commercials, and outright media bias, in order to get their "talking points" across on every major issue. Luckily though, Amercia also has an insane amount of critical pundits, political analysts, that you can turn to to help sift through the smoke and mirrors.

Chirac obviously failed in educating French citizens about the pros and cons of the Constitution and why it was ABSOLUTELY in their best interest to ratify it via vote. Sad.

There is enough information online to inform yourself about the EU constitution. I agree that the Dutch government's "Yes campaign" has been very weak though.

agreed :warning

Do keep in mind that Chirac's government is highly unpopular. There have been quite a few people voting "non" to punish the government.

The same will most likely happen in The Netherlands.

That's a big part of it, particularly because Chirac offered up PM Raffarin as a "prize" to the French people, whom they despise, if they voted the Constitution down, saying he'd remove him from office.

Real smart. In fact, knowing French politics, it wouldn't surprise me if Chirac manipulated this for his own reasons, letting Raffarin twist in the wind and buying himself two more years to mend fences before the election by "failing" to get the Constitustion passed. Fucker probably voted against it himself lol.

See how it works? What you guys are going through is the daily political grind in the States. :)

For some "things" I'm against a fully open market yes. I prefer to pay tax for a nice zoo in my area, and help for poor Dutch people, then some roadway across poland, or even Turkey in the feature.

Second, we don't feel European. We know that we should work together, and it goes well at it is now. Even economists do say that. It's not that we feel like we should "merge". Everyone feels Dutch, French etc. And we do live in Europe, but europe is not a country. We love working together. But we don't like thefact, that some political people in Belgium will "rule" our country. Especially since our country is pretty small, we won't have much influence.

Of course they say, everyone is equal, but we see already with the Euro, that France, and Germany don't keep themselves to the 3% rule. We complained, but that is all we could do...With this constitution it will be exactly the same.

And at last part, they say our country will not be flooded with cheap labour from Poland, and other countries, but they can not promise it. They say no it won't happen, while it's acording to econimist obvious they WILL come.

And of course, when I can get my windows cleaned for 5 euro in stead of 10 euro is nice. However, we should not forget, when our "workers" get unemployed because of this, we pay even more tax, for their welfares. And that will be more then my one time 5 euro profit.

Exactly, and that is what's gonna happen here too... people do not know what this is about and it's in the nature of mankind to fear what is unknown :2 cents:

true true, but people will not dig for this info... you need to hand it to them on a golden platter. Did you see the small booklets they gave us??? Fucking 4 pages full of small text... nobody will read that. They should have handed out flyers with a small list of 5-10 points of what the advantages of this treaty are and why we shouldn't dismiss it. Fairly simple and so much more effective.

The majority of Dutch people will vote No. Some for good reasons other for bogus reasons. Psychology is a big factor here. The Dutch government has made some fatal mistakes. They have explained to little to late. Our first minister has said on national tv that saying No to the european constitution would mean he personally would look like a fool in europe. The majority of the Dutch people thinks he is a fool though and him saying this made even more people say "no". Another strange influence comes (Hard as it may be to believe) from the Eurovision songcontest. The popular Dutch candidate was voted away before the finals because of some vague Eastern European politics.
More solid reasons to vote No would be to protect the values we have build up over centuries. Like legal protitution, allowment of softdrugs and abortion and rights for gay people for example.
On the long run (100 years?) a united european constituion would have economic advantages for all european countries involved. On the short run the Dutch economy will take a dip though. Investments will go through the east and unemployment in the west will grow.
A yes is hard to sell....

Well also the other reasons like:

We will have World war 3 again when you vote no
The power will be unplugged when you vote no
and other stupid reasons. However, what I want to hear, is valid reasons what would happen when i vote YES. They could not make that clear.

And the last part is a good one. The money we pay for Europe ,will go to the east, to help their countries. But we have enough todo here already.

Good to hear. The EU is turning into an unstoppable beast, good to see that might be changing somewhat.

Yes..also psychological reasons that makes the Dutch people say no.
Through the centuries we have disrespected governments.
The people call BS when we think it is BS.
Nobody is gonna vote yes without hearing solid reasons.
The only reason I can think of is economic advantages in the long run.
I will vote no for another reason. The Dutch costs of military will go up from 1.5% of the BNP to 2.0% of the BNP. Now there is something I dont agree with....0.5% of the BNP is a freakin lot of money. :mad:

Actually, as ridiculous & spurious as it sounds, the aforementioned "Eurovision" effect is probably a big fear for many of the citizens of the "established" European countries.

Thanks for explaining that, feel much better now :1orglaugh

in this situation i guess the euro will get lower.. and lower..

justsexxx Im not very well read on this subject so I will not offer any opion but please tell me my the english would give up the pound and its value?

This constitution has nothing to do with the euro, bad government, new countries that will join or loosing identity.

It all is about the rules of a game that is played already. New en better rules make life a lot easier. It will help understand each other and help to clear things out.

The game continues, and now we will stick to the old rules that do not work and we will discuss about the rules instead of playing the game right...

Believe me, everything is better than the old rules... Right now we have more chiefs than Indians and we spend more money on negotiating. Let?s spend it on education or a zoo ;-)

Europe is already there and so is the euro, the vote is about improving the way Europe works and not if we want to work together with other nations because we already do...

The rules are simple and even in the US there are states were I can't sell (or even own) a dildo ;-)

No they won't. They did not join us when we did the euro. This vote had nothing todo with euro as a currency.

I disagree on the old rules being bad and not working. Yes there is money to be saved in Brussels but we have a freedom I am not ready to give up. One valuta will turn out to be a good thing and I think in the long run a unified Europe will be there. Under what conditions do we want it though and how fast? Politicians have moved to fast for the people to follow. It is like they ran ahead of the group turned back their head just before the finishline at and then only stopped to ask if the people agree with the route that is being taken.

I expected more intelligence from you..

Don't expect any intelligence from me today. :2 cents:

Pradaboy I agree with your post.

And the fucking beauty of the whole story is while we live in a democracy, that fucking Harry Potter is pushing the Dutch people to vote in favor.

Nevertheless, mark my words that The Netherlands will vote no with a vast majority.

And I will vote a big fucking "NO" as well. :321GFY

There is only one way for the government to get the Dutch people to say "yes". Balkenende should take acting lessons and start a speed campaign on how he really wants the people to vote 'No" :error

i hope so, the dollar gotta be a lil better cuz right now its as much worth as toilet paper

I hope this will help USD to rise again

http://www.referendumwijzer.nl/index.htm :)

Europe is there from 1957, about time we even have the right road map ;-)
It?s all about the "conditions" you are referring to. When you do not take a direction at all, you will never reach the finish line?
Maybe my statement on the old rules "not working" was a bit over the edge, but they can be improved, as they are now. It's not the politicians that move fast... and the race continues anyway... Why wait till someone else has figured out the right road and beats us? If you want to win the lottery, at least buy a ticket.

In the increasingly interdependent world of the 21st century, it will be even more necessary for every European citizen to co-operate with people from other countries in a spirit of curiosity, tolerance and solidarity.

If I look at the goals of the EU, every member can only benefit.

Wow, two post on one day, it above my average!

It's the variety of opinions and other bs on GFY that make it funny - so don't knock it!! :1orglaugh

I scored 58% in favour ;-)

...anyone wanna talk bout rights for animals? Im amazed with all the cat and dogfans here noone brought up that topic.

We talk with the Vatican (700 ppl) for ages to get a Christian pov in any law, but with the new EU laws, as long as its from a religious pov things like ritual slaughters etc is more then fine. Im no animal rights guy but living in a country where its ok to get a 50 dollar fine if you kill someone elses dog or so, I thought with this new EU law that would improve. Guess Im wrong.

funny Im around the same. All these every country has to have a veto to get stuff arranged in Holland doesnt make me happy. Like just said, UK telling Dutch ppl what governmental support we get for culture etc doesnt wanna make me vote yes. Oh and the whole animal rights issue. Sucks.

Back then Europe was a cooperation of countries that were relatively close on many points. The Benelux, Germany, France and some other countries. It felt save. There was still an eastern europe we knew as "an enemy" back then. It took a long time to stop looking at the Germans as enemies (some people are not even done with this) People tend to think the price of this lottery ticket might be to high now...

We seem to agree on it being the best in the long run though. I say sending it back a couple of times may not be a bad thing. Discussions are only just starting now. Again though: I totally see your point for the long term advantage. :)

Your two posts make a difference. I clicked your sig and sent the link to Mike at webair. He was looking for info. :winkwink:

I am getting sick and tired of the dumb sheep saying that if you're against the constitution, you must be uninformed or stupid.

A random fact: according to math, the voting power of Dutch citizens will be the lowest in the entire European Union with the voting procedure they want to implement.

http://www.cft.edu.pl/edu/karol/006.pdf

well this is the only good thing on short term for us european webmasters ;)

42%
so now my no vote is even bigger :winkwink:

ffok!the voted no for the EU consitution?dickheads!

It was pretty hard for me to get that score... Back to 1935? Or even beter, back to the time when New York was called New Amsterdam! :banana

When I answer the questions with common sense and think about the ideal world (and not my personal interest) I even score a 76%... :angel

do you have any clue what its all about?

I vote YES in Spain.. Is Good!

Yeah of course you do. When I was in spain, next to every nice road I saw it said:

Made possible with money from the European Union.

Personally, I think that the French remember what it was like, having "others" tell them "how life would be." They didn't like it then, and the seemingly don't like it now. For that, I must applaud them.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF1.WORLD.JPG


Not really....

You must live here...http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/co...xas.austin.jpg

Regards
H

would you read the 320 pages of why you should vote yes or no? I'll send you the draft.

I'm not saying that people who vote NO are stupid, it's just that I didn't hear any valid argument in this thread to vote NO.

I know there are some good arguments to vote NO, but they are related to not wanting THIS constitution, but another one which can give us (dutchies) more what we want. If that is your argument to vote NO, then I will respect that.

Dutchies crying about the euro and how they pay taxes for Europe don't have a clue about what this constitution stands for. Of all countries I think The Netherlands needs this constitution the most. We need an open economy, we need it as open as it can be. People failing to see that don't deserve it to be Dutch. Trading with other countries is what we do. 60% of or national product is for export. Voting NO will put us on hold in doing this and will eventually cause the prices to go up, the economy to go bad and so on. Not to mention that we put ourselves in a very difficult position in the EU.

Well this is what I think. Since I'm Dutch myself I think I have the full right to speak in this thread. To all the Dutch NO voters here I would like to say, please, please think about it again and read up on it. Most of your arguments in this thread really do not make any sence. I agree with all of you that things got more expensive after the EURO, but with voting NO you will only punish yourself.

VOTE YES ON WEDNESDAY!!!

Haha goeie grap bassie. Wat onzin.Jij(en wij) verdienen wat meer, en wij hebben geen huursubsidie nodig. Maar als mensen dus wel gesteund worden door NL woningcoorperaties, lopen het risico dat straks een projectontwikkelaar uit Duitsland zegt, hey maar dat mag niet...Dat is oneerlijke concurrentie. Nou mogen wij lekker zelf weten waar wij subsidie aan geven?

I was pleased with the French NO vote and I do live here. It showed yet again, the French are complete douche bags who do not know the concepts of a free market. They are a fallen empire, that dreams of the days, when they had some pull in the world. They had hoped that the EU would make them, a force in the world arena, and the Francophiles would unite Zut Alore.

Here are some actual quotes after the 'NO' vote:

"This is a great victory," said Fabrice Savel, 38, from the working-class suburb of Aubervilliers, distributing posters that read: "No to a free-market Europe."

"They feared the treaty would open the EU to unfettered free-market capitalism, trampling on workers rights."

If the French socialist pit of welfare can not compete, then it should fail! Propping up failed systems with protectionism is no way to run a country.

FUCK FRANCE.

I live in the EU, and I see on a daily basis, why it continues to fall deeper into unemployment, no growth, and lack of direction. These are deep rooted issues that will not change unless they scrap their entire way of 'cradle to grave' thinking.

-dd

First you are pleased and then you are not?

> Weet je dat Nederland (lees Den Haag) ca 480(!!) euro per
>inwoner afdraagt aan de EU als "contributie"?
> Weet je ook dat Frankrijk en Duitsland slechts ca 27 Euro
>betalen??
> En dat Belgie en Ierland ca 48 euro KRIJGEN??!!