but a couple of months ago he was was calling anyone who didnt vote yes a headbanger. a debater indeed!!!!
checkit out…
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/charming-chancellor-steers-clear-of-headbangers-1348153.html

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Nobody is suggesting anything should be dumbed down. It seems to me that the present proposed document needs to be smartened up.

It’s a challenge to write rigorously in plain language, but it needs to be done. Like Grandad, I won’t be voting in favour of something I can’t understand.

Well, I study Law - thanks - and I can tell you, I do not make a fat living of it at all, maybe never really will, we’ll see. Not everyone who has a legal degree makes a fat living. I would be happy if that was a rule I could rely on though.

I am currently one of the poorest people in Germany and probably within Europe. I get no support at all at this point, I am living on about 400 Euros at the moment - and I pay my rent, my health care, my food, for my entertainment and everything with the help of that little bit of money. I don’t know how much money you have all in all, but I have my strong doubts that you have less then 400 Euros. Most people have at least twice as much as I have, and that is sure still not a lot of money then. I mostly survive on rice like people in China. It’s beyond ridiculous sometimes, but I have decided to just try to survive for now, because there’s light at the end of the tunnel - at least I believe there is. People always tell me, in Germany there are no social traps you can fall into - I actually can tell there are traps, and you need to be tough sometimes to survive.

But I agree with you on the need to make things more comprehensible. Already when I was at elementary school and we began to learn Latin words to replace German words we had learned before I said I did not know why I had to learn Latin words as long as I can express myself in German as well. Well, it is probably partly about an elitist way of thinking, on the other hand Latin sometimes helps to understand different languages. But I’ve always been against making things less comprehensible than they have to be. Though I know some academics do not like texts that sound comprehensible, because they seem unprofessional to them even though their content is not bad, too.

Though when it comes to legal texts the goal is not really always precision, but it is mainly generalisation. You need to write a text that fits as many similar cases as possible. You have to think about all kinds of cases you want to regulate with one simple rule that is as short as possible. It’s not easy to write that sort of rules sometimes. You need to use certain legal keywords to shorten rules. During my Law studies I learn how to handle such keywords, I learn the way of thinking that is necessary to understand legal texts.

I think the necessity of generalisation is the reason why people who do not have a legal background think those texts are vague. But the next step a legal expert would have to take is to qualify the borders of each rule - and each rule does have its borders within the system as a whole. But that systematic way of thinking, that’s simply something that needs to be learnt.

An alternative to generalisations would be Case Law, but I think it’s a lot more difficult to get an idea of what you can and can’t do if you have to know all kinds of cases.

I think the Lisbon Treaty could be “dumbed down” a little more, but you’d still have to deal with generalisations and probably still find it vague because of those generalisations if the Treaty was shorter and a bit more comprehensible. Though I even noticed that in some cases the Articles have become more comprehensible and make more sense than they do in the current Nizza Treaty.

Unfortunately, people who study Law become so infatuated with their antiquated, and deliberately obscure language, that they eventually come to believe their own fallacy: such language is necessary for precision.

It doesn’t work. That’s why people who study Law make such a fat living arguing over its ambiguities.

People who study Law have a vested interest in promoting badly-drafted documents written in obscure and unnecessary jargon. They have no business telling the rest of us not to bother our uneducated little heads demanding plain words. People who study Law would be better employed drafting documents people can understand, if they were up to the job, which most of them are probably not.

It isn’t impossible to do, you know. Just unusual.

On the other page I linked I already explained that I think not trusting your government is the major problem why it’s impossible for many to believe the truth politicians are telling. They could probably tell you every possible truth and still you wouldn’t believe them. Something definitely has gone wrong with governments in too many countries within the EU. In Germany it’s not any different at all.

Though at least looking at it from a legal point of view I can tell that our politicians are telling the truth this time. People are just not looking at the documents to verify what they are told. I think it’s a mixture of distrusting your government and laziness in general.

But I do not believe that voting against the progress of the European Union because your government has made too many mistakes is what a referendum should be about. The European Union is not the enemy in this case. I even consider the EU the one that balances out many problems caused by our governments in many cases. Due to the Lisbon Treaty, e.g., the EU wants to get more involved also in social standards, which it couldn’t so far, because the EU didn’t have a say. I believe the increasing involvement concerning social standards is one important factor why this Treaty should be ratified.

Even in Germany - and I know many believe this country is doing so well - our government has not done enough to support the poorer people to help them get back on feet they can actually fully stand on all by themselves without the financial support of the government. Our unemployment rate is going down - woohoo -, but the truth is that many people still depend on financial support by the government, because they are partly forced into bad jobs! I believe one important thing that needs to happen is the introduction of social standards within the EU. This Treaty would allow the EU to have a say also concerning those standards our governments have not wanted to introduce for everyone so far.

I could have taken part in two referenda in Saxony already twice, because in my federal state referenda are possible, while they are not possible in Germany as a whole. And I have to tell you, in both cases - one of them just recently - I also did not know for sure what the best decision was, because I did not have enough knowledge. In one of the cases I simply did not take part, because I thought people should take part who actually know what’s best. My vote is worthless if it’s an uninformed vote.

I think if I did not know what to do I’d not vote at all. Nobody forces you to vote if you do not know what it is about.

Apart from that there is enough material on the Treaty online. You just need to ask people questions if you want them to clarify parts of the Treaty and ask them to point out the Articles they are talking about. Why would you not believe it when you can see it for yourself? Why be so irresponsible and just sit back and pretend like it’s impossible to get the facts straight?