Re: European Convention and European Constitution -- LIFEBOAT

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Date Posted: 06:38:08 12/03/02 Tue
Author: SwimmingUpstream
Subject: Re: European Convention and European Constitution
In reply to: Wayne Hall 's message, "Re: European Convention and European Constitution" on 13:57:20 11/19/02 Tue

Dear Wayne,

In the first part of your reply "active citizen" means one thing, and then at the end it seems to mean another thing.

First: In the concrete context in which I live in at the moment "active citizens" means the Social Forum of this European Union member-country: Greece.

Then: Who then would be the active citizens? They would be the supporters of the social forums as opposed to the parliaments.

The latter makes "active citizen" sound like a voter -- someone who has participated in electing a parliament, or who merely supports the concept of parliamentary elections...

As far as "justifying" your proposed coup goes, merely breaking a deadlock is meaningless. The deadlock could as easily be a good thing as a bad... Here you are on the slope of defining a program of government policy as the justification for government structure...

And then there is the decision-making process by which someone or group gets to decide which is THE social forum, and which is merely a party. This looks very like the whole idea breaking down into electing parties to run the government...

Government by coup, or referenda, or structured election of "active citizens", or structured election of individual candidates -- what makes one better than the others?

Your reply does not go to the underpining philosophical concepts that can give us a principle by which we can reckon whether a reform is truly an improvement.

Do you care to try to tackle this groundwork?

Kindest Regards

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Replies:

Re: European Convention and European Constitution -- Wayne Hall, 15:31:37 12/19/02 Thu
- Re: European Convention and European Constitution -- SwimmingUpstream, 08:13:14 12/20/02 Fri