Legitimacy and Federalism

First, I'd like to apologise in advance for my spelling and grammar. But I am home, sick with the Chicken pox(!), and have a numb head. Complain in the comments section if you'd like.

Now to the issue. Today I will rant about legitimacy and federalism.

The problem with a lot of politicians, is that they do not understand. They do not understand that the legitimacy problems with the Union really are constitutional problems. The problems is the Council and the fact that the Union is still an international organisation in to many aspects; and that the Union is very complicated. The legitimacy is also a matter of how democratic and transparent the law making organisations are. These problems could be solved with a clear federal constitution, but seeing this is difficult for a person not interested in politics, which is the majority in my understanding.

The word federalism used in the previous paragraph, has been known as the f-word in some circles (the one who introduced this was actually no other than Marget Thatcher) and can be very sensitive. I've met several who just went pale in the skin when one mentioned the word "federation", but when asking them about the issues they had with the Union, and the solutions for these, a lot of the anti-federalists came up with very federal solutions for a lot of the problems, e.g. shift power from the Council to the Parliament. And this when not realising that the solutions was just what the federalists want.

I am not afraid to call my self a federalist (which should be clear for those reading this blog on a regular basis) and of course, being a federalist does not mean that you believe that everything from Brussels is good (a lot of the anti-federalists seem to believe that this is the definition of federalism). I am a federalist, but still, if you read this blog, you can find some substantial critique of the Union's architecture and it's policies, so how does this mix?

Federalism is belief in a form of government where the decisions are taken on the lowest level possible, preferably by the individual. A federalist accepts that there are questions that cannot be answered solely by an individual, a family, a municipality or even a state. Thus with a federal system we have a level of government above the states. In order to clarify, all decisions should be taken in a democratic form, and laws should NEVER be made by assemblies that are unelected.

Thus, a federalist typically want the Union to handle foreign policy, defence and internal trade, but the rest is typically supposed to be up to the states or at lover levels. More importantly, since the Council is unelected, we do not want the Council to exist in it's present form. It should either be abolished and hand over all their power to the elected parliament or transform themselves into an elected senate.

Federalism is not blind obedience to the federal government, it is the belief in a federal and democratic constitution, where decisions are taken on the lovest level possible and law is made by elected representatives and not indirectly appointed officials.

Stop the Tyrant

Jingle.se has published this image in protest against the Swedish minister of justice Thomas Bodström.

In my most humble opinion, this man is the most grave threat against the liberties of ALL EUROPEANS. Bodström was one of the greatest proponents for the data retention directive, and in the local state debate, he has even more wild ideas that would scare any true supporter of liberty and democracy.





Also, in other news, the Swedish goverment is preparing a proposal that will redirect all wire-bound telecommunications that cross the Swedish border to the FRA (the Swedish version of the NSA) head quarter. They in term will filter ALL E-MAIL and other electronic traffic, that is sent abroad, and in this case, abroad is as always defined as not in Sweden, this mean that any messages you send to friends and family in the EU, in Norway, the US, the Japans and other places, will be monitored. Allthough, while the FRA stated that they will delete any love mail caught in the filter, this deletion still relies on the fact that a human operator reads it and decides that it is not a terrorist message.

Time to get serious about encrypting e-mail.

Eat that Tony!

Mr. Blair who placed a lot of presteige in getting an agreement for the Unions budget between 2007 to 2013, have now after he handed over the precidency to Wolfgang Schüssel, received a major setback. The parliament overthrew Tony Blair's budgetary proposal with 541 votes against 56, plus 76 abstentions.

Blair's budget was to cut down Union spendings by 4.13 %, and this in a time of enlargement. The Union will also annex at least two more states during this time frame, maybee more.

The defeat of this budget is a welcome one.

Bibliography
Euronews

DRM, No Thanks!

Everyday, we vote with our money. I usually have this in mind when buying stuff, but not everyone do this. In order to vote with your money, you have to state your reason for not buying the thing, otherwise, the producer will never learn what they did wrong.

Now, this is for the music industry (presently occupied with annihilating themselves): I herby pledge that I will never, ever buy a CD with DRM. Nor will I buy music online with DRM, except if there is a way to disable the DRM without loosing quality in the process.

You can pledge the same here