Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/14/six-days-left.html
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I gotta laugh or I’ll start crying.
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It’s particularly acrid for those of us on Garbage Island who spent the last couple of years trying to explain to closet fascists how the EU’s smothering bureaucratic regime has been wildly exaggerated
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If I were a European, I’d be feeling pretty Euroskeptical right about now.
If it helps, remember that all the people making those decisions were put there directly by the local electorate (who couldn’t give a rat’s arse) or by people elected by the local electorate.
So it’s all our fault really.
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Gah, America about to foist some other terrible idea on the world… Wait? What? This is us not US? Goddam EU! Do better!
If a federal organization doesn’t have safeguards against this kind of overreach, you’d probably be better off not being a member. Then you only have to deal with local assholes.
Well, strangely enough it does. The same ones any smaller polity does. Elected representatives vote on it.
Julia Reda sets out the position quite nicely:
One final note
Are you frustrated you have to constantly fight to defend your digital rights? You and me both.
But it’s important to me to underscore that the solution to bad legal proposals and unbalanced lobbying is not to curse or even advocate leaving the EU. (In fact, it’s Anti-EU, Euro-skeptic and right-wing parties that are responsible for giving these proposals majority support in the Committee! Don’t let Eurosceptic politicians get away with voting in favour of breaking the Internet and then blaming the EU for it later!)
These problems exist at the national level as well, and regulating the internet in 28 different ways on one continent is utterly unworkable. The way forward is to participate fully in the EU political process: Pay more attention to EU lawmaking in its early stages, demand reporting on it from your local media, support European civil society organisations fighting for your rights (such as EDRi, Liberties.eu, Access Info or Corporate Europe Observatory) and strengthen progressive parties at the ballot box.
Then we’ll be able to fight for positive change, and not just defend against the worst proposals. Until we get there: Grit your teeth and pick up the phone! The internet is worth it.
I was talking about specific limits on the powers of those elected representatives, established at the beginning, like a constitution. Something like "it can’t establish more strict limits on speech or press than the most permissive member state. "
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