naï, né, pù shi, nò, nej, ne, ei, tidak, nãom, Нет, nie, nage, non, nein, no or just a simple Dutch NEE!

Dennis van der Stelt
After post 200 was about RotS, post 201 is about voting NO! today. I cannot believe why still so many people want to vote for the proposed constitution. Some reasons, according to our government, who’s always trying to be the best kid in class, where the class is the EU:
  1. If we vote no, there will come a war.
  2. If we vote no, the economy will fall down for exactly one year.
  3. if we vote no, the Netherlands will look really bad in Brussel
  4. Because of the EU, Germany and France haven’t been at war for 60 years. The EU accomplished that.
  5. If we vote yes, we will not become a small part of a superstate, dominated by France, Germany and Britain.
Where Chirac could tell his country and people they would benefit from the new constitution, our government hasn’t given us any clear clues as to what we will benefit from it. From the beginning, they have had arguments that should make us fear a *no* vote. A quote from CNN : *Although the politicians want us to vote “Yes”, we don’t know why, they don’t explain much,” says one Dutch person.”* Back to the reasons to vote. Of course these are all very not true. The first two have been confirmed by other politicians, a war will not be started just because of us voting *no*, and the economy won’t fall because of a *no*. But how about the second? Will we look bad in Brussel? Another quote from CNN : *“The Netherlands is one of the bloc’s founding members and is a nation accustomed to saying yes — on such matters as Amsterdam’s infamous sex parlors and legalizing drugs.”* I cannot remember ever saying yes to those topics. But besides that, everyone expects us to say yes, because they’re used to that. Will voting *no* make the Netherlands look bad? I think not! It makes people look at us and the EU differently. Another quote from CNN : *“The result raises profound questions for all of us about the future direction of Europe. About the challenges in the rest of the world and the ability of Europe to respond, “says British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw.”* I’m not really sure that this is positive, but at least they’re thinking again! Then reason number 4.It’s ridiculous! Whoever thinks that is the or a reason to vote yes, should first explain me how it is possible that England and the Dutch haven’t been at war since 1784.That’s for over 200 years! We didn’t need the EU for that, did Germany and France need the EU for not going at war with each other? And would they also dare to say that if the EU was setup before 1929, the second world war wouldn’t have happened as well? The arrogance! The last reason then. There are so many examples that this is not true. For example, Rick van der Ploeg. Former “staatssecretaris” of culture. What value have statements by him? Be sure to know he teaches economics in three EU countries, Italy, Britain and the Netherlands. As an extra, he went for the role of “Europees commissaris” for the Netherlands, but didn’t get the role. 🙂 Anyway, when interviewed by a large newspaper in The Netherlands, he was asked what he thinks of the fact that the constitution determines that countries can’t provide Eurocommisionaries anymore. He responded : “*That is a logical effect of the close corporation. In The Hague is the Dutch government, and nobody is questioning whether there’s someone from every province in our country in there. That’s how you should look at it.”* And that’s the thing I’m afraid for! That we just become a part of a large superstate. Because… When, in the past, Chirac and Schröder didn’t like the guidelines by Dutch eurocommisionary Bolkestein about free invisible trades, they had a private chat. Afterwards, Chirac openly declared : “*The principle of his guideline (…) was not acceptable. Both France and Germany have made that clear in Brussel, and so the guideline doesn’t exist anymore.*” And that’s how it’s currently going, my friends. This cannot improve, but will only get worse in the future. Two other reasons I have to vote a no:
  • The Netherlands pays relatively the most money to the EU. Our government promised us to do something about it with the new constitution, but failed to do so. Only some vague guidelines were submitted. And when we take a look at the rules about every EU country it’s budget deficit, we all know what happened to those in the past. And those rules were/are clear!
  • It has become clear that we should’ve never agreed on the Euro or at least how our own currency was rated.
I think I’ve made my point clear: **NO!**

I'm a developer, international speaker and coach/trainer. I love to discuss code, software architecture and distributed systems, messaging, star wars and lego with anyone who wants to listen or speak.
I currently work at Particular Software on NServiceBus.

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