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Comment by BonoboBoner | Hacker News Reader

"In February, a secret meeting of the European Union’s Law Enforcement Work Party (LEWP) resulted in a worrying proposal."

How can some small EU working group even dare to discuss my human rights in a secret meeting without any democratic legitimacy?

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This is symptomatic of the whole EU enterprise. You might ask how it is that a totally non-elected person like Baroness Ashton, the so-called High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union and Vice President of the EU (I repeat, no one elected her bar a coterie of the elite in the EU) can call for the EU to be given a seat on the UN Security Council. By the way, the president of the EU is unelected as well. Oh, and the EU finances have not been passed by the auditors in 13 years.

I apologize for this off-topic comment but a little background for non-EU folk is useful in considering this latest EU nonsense regarding the internet.

Civil servants, government ministers and heads of state in many if not most democratic countries are not elected directly by the people. There's nothing special about the EU in that regard.

It's a symptom of government to reduce one's freedom and human rights.

Haha! Complaining that no one elected Baroness Ashton is like saying that no one elected Georgy Zhukov - almost no one in the EU is elected.

They don't need legitimacy - they have guns.

Fortunately we have compilers and computers so the fight isn't going to be fair.

Legitimacy is actually made out of guns.

No it is made out of consent of the ruled.

The moment they loose consent they become the oppressors.

Being oppressive doesn't remove your legitimacy.

As long as you can hold on to being the government (guns!), you make the laws and are by definition legitimacy itself.

Don't confuse power and legitimacy. This is one of the major reasons why India isn't ruled by the British now. British had power, Gandhi and the peaceful revolutionists had legitimacy... guns can only project so much power.

Guns are the only form of power. Sometimes you just don't have enough guns.

One could argue that money is more powerful than firearms. How much power and influence do corporations wield? I don't see many CEOs packing heat.

They can influence those who do.

Case in point: Gaddafi

You might say that morally it should come from consent, but descriptively, legitimacy comes from having a monopoly on force and not being totally, utterly hated.

Legitimacy comes from:

Democracy, e.g., election as described by customs or laws

Tradition, e.g., a monarch's son becoming the next monarch

Charisma, e.g., a charismatic leader such as a tribe leader, dictators like Hitler, etc.

The military junta currently running Burma/Myanmar has a lot of guns, but it is not legitimate.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha legendary.

They can talk about whatever they like, it doesn't mean it will pass. This working group has no authority on their own.

Do I detect a small amount of sarcasm about the democratic structure of the EU?

The democratic legitimacy of that working group derives from the democratic legitimacy of the governments that send their representatives. I'm not happy with these proposals at all, but it's not exactly unusual that such proposals are being worked on by civil servants and ministers.

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