How 'bout that democracy — that working for you, Ireland?

It seems that a few weeks ago the Irish decided to throw their lot in with the European Union. Down with an independent Irish nation and into the embrace of Brusselscrats. The Irish have voted, the referendum has been decided in favor of the EU and that's the last word.

That was the stance taken by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso upon learning of the outcome of the referendum at the beginning of October.

"Ratifying the treaty should enable the Republic to restore its standing at the heart of the European project and wield more influence," Barroso said before continuing: "My message today is very simple. Thank you Ireland: it's a great day, for Ireland and for Europe. The Irish people have spoken. They have said a resounding Yes to Europe."

Not exactly.

In fact, this was the second time the Irish have voted on the referendum for the Lisbon treaty. The first, not so long ago, resulted in the Irish delivering a resounding No to Europe.

But the great democrats of Europe couldn't accept that vote. Proving that the commissars in Brussels have only as much dedication to democracy as it takes to get their way, after the initial Irish rebuff they essentially forced the Irish to vote again, suggesting strongly that the voters there should vote the correct way the next time around.

In an extremely valuable essay, Spiked Online editor Brendan O'Neill described what really happened, starting by noting the egregious double standard on democracy applied by Barroso and other EU functionaries. Those double standards, O'Neill noted:

are nauseating, clear evidence, if any more were needed, that it is not the Irish people’s voice at all that ... EU officials respect, but their ability to give the ‘right answer’, to accept the agenda of their betters, to do as they are told. When they said No they were bastards; when they said Yes they were good democrats. In the view of EU oligarchs, the people are not there to debate and decide, but merely to rubberstamp.

It is true that the Irish people have now accepted the Lisbon Treaty and that they did so of their own free will; they had not been turned into the voting equivalent of Stepford wives between the first and second referenda. But let’s not kid ourselves that the Second Irish Referendum was democratic. In fact the referendum represented a defeat of the democratic instinct expressed by the Irish people in June last year, and by the French and Dutch voters before them who rejected the EU Constitution – the Lisbon Treaty’s first incarnation – in 2005. The Irish have spoken, yes, but they have spoken in the voice of someone who has been put into a headlock, someone who is threatened and cajoled and denied the ability to speak back with clarity or vigour – and, crucially, someone who lacks his own gang to defend him and fight his corner.

If this sounds more like the way organized crime operates than the way democratic government is supposed to operate, you'd be right. That's because the EU is not interested in democracy, it is interested in power. In that, it is suspiciously similar to communist governments like the late, unlamented Soviet Union and that currently in Beijing, governments that are quick to spout democratic platitudes while cheerfully ruling with an iron fist.

Democracy in the hands of a demagogue is at best a dangerous bit of propaganda and nothing more. It is a great word for an illegitimate government to use when it is trying to convince its victims that it really isn't illegitimate after all. And for the hard core communist, it is a delusion: The ruling commissar says, and perhaps believes, that he alone represents the will of the people, and as such is the ultimate democrat. This delusion, which is not so different than the Pharaoh who thought himself, or pretended to be, a god personified, explains the dubious phenomenon of "dear leader" Kim Jong-il, and others like him.

And this is why the EU is dangerous. Far too many people believe that it is a harmless, and perhaps even benevolent, government and that the nations of Europe badly need its guidance.

It's actual behavior in cases like its treatment of Irish voters, unmasks it for what it really is, a government that former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky says "more and more resembles that of the Soviet Union."

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