Blogging on my Treo sometimes results in problems like the ones resulting from my post on Ireland's vote down of the EU reform treaty. Thumbing incentivizes minimal content, and that can be misinterpreted, which we see in some of the comments on the post itself and a recent response on Chicago Boyz. For my part, I'm sorry I didn't communicate clearly.

Consider our own adoption of the Constitution: once a super-majority of nine states was reached, the Constitution went into effect for those states. Rhode Island (where I used to live), dragged their feet and weren't in the first nine. They eventually did come in, but they didn't have to. And their non-ratification didn't scotch the whole process.

(Note: Smitten Eagle has the ratification process in his first parenthetical paragraph, and it's a pretty major point.)

The current EU treaty is for reform. This is roughly analogous to amending our Constitution. The way we do it: once you're in, if 3/4 of states ratify an amendment, you're stuck with it and beholden to it.

That's what I meant WRT to Ireland: allow a non-unanimous process of amendment or make some kind of way for nations to opt back out. What are the odds of amending the treaty with unanimity required? The Irish weren't incentivized at all to approve the treaty. Enough of them didn't want to change their constituiton that they could simply vote no. They get to stay with the status quo with no consequences whatsoever.

All I really meant was that unanimous ratification of amendments will almost always result in no amendments, and that seems like a pretty bad plan.

Beyond that, Smitten Eagle (where do these pseudonyms come from?) and some of the commenters on my post draw conclusions based on something I wasn't trying to say at all. I don't think they apply, so I'll just leave them be.

(I am on the record many places as not valuing democracy as the end-all and be-all of healthy nation status, but that is a different discussion.)