This story (click the link) basically says the EU's elected parliament has little or no power when it comes to passing (or in this case, not passing) laws which affect all of the EU. The European parliament decided a software patent law was not in the best interests of the nations it was elected to protect, and so therefore voted overwhelmingly against it. In a very un-democratic way the European Commission (the un-elected branch of the EU's government) decided to ignore the wishes of the elected parliament and pass the law anyway. I really like a quote from the story, by the way:
"After the parliament requested that the current software patent proposal be scrapped and that the process for a software patent law restart in the parliament, the unelected European Commission completely rejected the parliament's request and moved ahead with pushing through the old software patent law. I also wouldn't be surprised if the European Commission then laughed at the parliament, mooned it, and said that the parliament's father was a hamster and its mother smelled of elderberries." Ever see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"? Very funny movie, and in this case the quote is very accurate.
So why is this distressing? Well, the thing is we have Supreme Court judges here in the US which have taken it upon themselves to use international law in lieu of US laws and our Constitution in order to make decisions about how laws should be carried out. I used the word "decisions" loosely, though. It's more like judges taking it upon themselves to make laws as they see fit simply because there is no real risk of them, you know, losing their job, or having to answer for their actions... It's very reminiscent of some of the underlying problems with human nature written about by William Golding in "Lord of the Flies". If left unchecked an entity which is responsible for the protection and governance of a people will be corrupted by the power they have been given. This is precisely why we have elected officials in all other branches of government. I think we should re-examine why we have decided to let our judicial branch become the same thing as the European Commission. It's only a matter of time until our judicial branch does something monumentally stupid and we have no way to fix it, because everyone knows there is no one on the Senate Judiciary Committee has the balls to do something about wayward judges. That would mean doing their freakin' jobs!
"After the parliament requested that the current software patent proposal be scrapped and that the process for a software patent law restart in the parliament, the unelected European Commission completely rejected the parliament's request and moved ahead with pushing through the old software patent law. I also wouldn't be surprised if the European Commission then laughed at the parliament, mooned it, and said that the parliament's father was a hamster and its mother smelled of elderberries." Ever see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"? Very funny movie, and in this case the quote is very accurate.
So why is this distressing? Well, the thing is we have Supreme Court judges here in the US which have taken it upon themselves to use international law in lieu of US laws and our Constitution in order to make decisions about how laws should be carried out. I used the word "decisions" loosely, though. It's more like judges taking it upon themselves to make laws as they see fit simply because there is no real risk of them, you know, losing their job, or having to answer for their actions... It's very reminiscent of some of the underlying problems with human nature written about by William Golding in "Lord of the Flies". If left unchecked an entity which is responsible for the protection and governance of a people will be corrupted by the power they have been given. This is precisely why we have elected officials in all other branches of government. I think we should re-examine why we have decided to let our judicial branch become the same thing as the European Commission. It's only a matter of time until our judicial branch does something monumentally stupid and we have no way to fix it, because everyone knows there is no one on the Senate Judiciary Committee has the balls to do something about wayward judges. That would mean doing their freakin' jobs!
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