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Comment by nutjob2 | Hacker News Reader

EU laws are made by elected representatives.

You make unsupported claims of censorship, but how exactly is a fine against misleading blue dot censorship since it contains no speech? The company could change how they describe the blue dot or attach disclaimers but they don't.

Why? Because the EU's actions serve Musk's and the Administrations political goals of vilifying anyone who has a different view, especially the EU, and using the levers of the state to retaliate and threaten.

> The EU makes more money from fining American tech companies than it makes from EU tech.

If it wasn't for ASML there would be no tech industry. The world depends on a single EU company for advanced chips and for its continued prosperity.

> Don’t let unelected bureaucrats convince you that this is anything more than a revenue raising exercise for themselves.

You're just another EU hater pushing mindless tropes. Why are you so full of hate?

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> EU laws are made by elected representatives.

No, they are voted on by elected representatives.

They must be proposed by the commission, which is not elected but appointed.

Ugh not this misdirection again.

The commission is appointed by directly elected governments. It's the same as any ministerial post in any government.

It's also the same level of indirection as the US presidency, which is appointed by the Electoral College.

> Ugh not this misdirection again.

Oh no! Someone pointed out an inconvenient fact again!

> It's also the same level of indirection as the US presidency, which is appointed by the Electoral College.

But the US President doesn't have a monopoly on setting the agenda of Congress, the Commission does with respect to the EU Parliament. Anyone with any political awareness knows that if you set the agenda you control the outcome.

> Oh no! Someone pointed out an inconvenient fact again!

It's not a fact. It's just pedantry that is conveniently not applied anywhere else. Nobody would say the US president isn't elected or ministers aren't elected, but when it comes to the EU a double standard is applied by dishonest ideologues.

The rest of your post is classic moving of goal posts, but fwiw Congress has been absolutely irrelevant since the sitting president decided to rule by decree.

> It's not a fact. It's just pedantry

Absolute gold, thanks for that.

> The rest of your post is classic moving of goal posts.

At least you lot have a wicked sense of irony.

I will remark that no one disputed OP when he remarked that the US executive power is also appointed, not elected, and that weirdly no one make the same point about how undemocratic it is. It does rs feel like OP is right about ideologues only being pedantic when it serves their points.

Except for this comment right here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46376178

Your understanding of irony is at an Alanis Morissette level.

You're wrong on facts and wrong on the comparison with the US system.

The US president can't propose laws, only Congress can, yet he can "set the agenda".

Only the EU Commission can propose laws, but the EU Council (composed of the heads of state or of government of the EU member states) sets the agenda.

"The European Council is a collegiate body and a symbolic collective head of state, that defines the overall political direction and general priorities of the European Union."

They are functionally equivalent.

> The US president can't propose laws, only Congress can, yet he can "set the agenda".

Fantastic example of unintentional scare quotes.

> Only the EU Commission can propose laws, but the EU Council (composed of the heads of state or of government of the EU member states) sets the agenda.

Who has to nominate all the possible members of the EU Commission? Is it the EU Council?

Face it, the entire EU structure is designed to prevent little people from ever being able to get a law passed which would possibly benefit them except as populist measures inside the EU which stick it to the evil Americans again to promote internal support for the EU.

The governments of each EU member state nominate their own candidate for a Commissioner, while the European Council (the heads of state or government) proposes the President of the Commission, who then works with member states to select the full team, all subject to approval by the European Parliament.

> Face it...

Beaten by the facts, you just move on to more vague and hateful nonsense. The EU is not the US. The EU is not a vassal state of the US, it will make its own determinations and punish whoever breaks laws within the EU.

US companies don't have to like it, they can leave. The US wouldn't EU companies breaking US laws so this is all just rank hypocrisy and bigotry.

> The governments of each EU member state nominate their own candidate for a Commissioner, while the European Council (the heads of state or government) proposes the President of the Commission, who then works with member states to select the full team, all subject to approval by the European Parliament.

Long windedly confirming exactly what I said while attempting to obfuscate the reality. You aren't appointing anyone to the European Commission that didn't get nominated via the European Council, which is the heads of states, and the resulting people then write the laws voted on by the European Parliament.

Unsurprisingly this leads to enormous bureaucratic inertia for the benefit of those that have already captured the system. It is as democratic as the internal functions of the CCP.

> US companies don't have to like it, they can leave.

Why doesn't the EU make them leave? Because you want to act all superior to, say, the CCP or Russia.

> Beaten by the facts

Not even close

> more vague and hateful nonsense.

Come off it - that's your whole m.o.

No, it's more like an ambassador that's appointed by the president, you see we have presidential tickets and you get the two people you vote for, which is different from voting for someone then having the person you vote for decide who to appoint.

Yes technically the us 'electors' could vote for a different presidential ticket, but that's never happened in practice and even then their options are generally limited by who ran, electors can't pick just anyone.

Technically there is a level of indirection even in the presidency, but sure.

Nobody ever complains about ambassadors not being democratic though. Same thing goes for, idk, a Secretary of State or whatever, they all go through the same process.

Only when it comes to EU institutions people can't hide their hatred and can't help themselves but make the same old dishonest claim.

Didn't it happened once? Southern democrat great electors voted for the republican Vice president, because the democrat vice-president had a non-white wife, and this was forbidden under US law?

Close:

Virginia’s 23 Democratic electors (Southern) refused to vote for Democratic VP candidate Richard Mentor Johnson due to his open common-law relationship with Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman of mixed race (octoroon). Interracial marriage was illegal under anti-miscegenation laws. They voted for Van Buren (president) but switched VP votes to William Smith (another Democrat), denying Johnson a majority. The Senate elected Johnson anyway.

If they weren't you'd be whining about a loss of sovereignty by EU states. It's an idiotic catch 22.

The EU systems balances national sovereignty with direct democracy but leans toward the former. It's a good system.

Anyway, EU states went to great lengths to join the EU and can leave at any time. Besides the self-destructive UK, none have.

> They must be proposed by the commission, which is not elected but appointed.

The commission is elected by elected representatives. Just like in many countries the leader isn't directly elected by voters but by their elected representatives.

Your comment is just ideological nonsense. You could argue in good faith about the pros and cons of various systems but you don't, it's just hate because you heard Trump or Musk or some right wing figure say it say it and you're garrotting it.

Prove me wrong by detailing whats wrong with it, and "muh democracy" doesn't count.

> Prove me wrong by detailing whats wrong with it, and "muh democracy" doesn't count.

We're at the "make arbitrary demands" stage of blatant denialism then.

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