If it is their right is down to local courts and laws, not to your personal view. There is a world (quite large actually) outside the US of A, they can do as they please. You can dislike it as much as you want, you won't change it, and nor will they.
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Apple Denied Request to Ban Tax Protestors From Its Stores in France
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A restraining order is exactly what the "main request" from Apple was. Basically Apple wanted the activists barred from entering their stores.
The judge argued that activists simply entering the shop not damaging anything don't constitute the "danger" the law requires to allow for the limitation of their rights of expression, and that the "damage" claimed by Apple is not sufficiently supported by the evidence Apple presented.
The main body of evidence presented by Apple are some photos from Internet without the proper contextual information, some snippets from the activist webpage, some pamphlets from the activists and some newspaper articles reporting the "event". I mean... I bet Apple's lawyer in France is looking for a new job now.
The French court is a state court. It's not even a national court. It's a local court for a petty claim.
Just like there are district courts and state courts at the state level in the US, there is a EU court that supercedes the states, EXACTLY like there is a Supreme court that may overrule judgments made at both state and federal level in the US.
When you diagree with a ruling in the EU, you go one level up, at the state level, and if the state denies you, you can bring your case to the supreme court which is the EU court of justice.
Your claim that I do not understand my own justice system is outlandish. I understand it perfectly well and it has its equivalent in the US justice system. They are so similar it's not even funny.
Now, I don't know what confuses you to mix matters of a local district court in France dealing with the Attac/Apple case and that of The EU Commission against Ireland being brought to the EU Court of Justice.
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In the French Constitution, "Government" is distinct from "Parliament." http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/details.jsp?id=5560
Oops. Permanant paint.
I was too stooped to now the difference.
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Uhm, you are indeed correct. "Government" as defined by the French constitution actually does represent only the executive branch.
Does that include painting graffiti on property that doesn't belong to you?
Happily I live in the US and a state where, if I catch someone "protesting" on my property, I can exercise my right to show them the business-end of a 12 Gage.
Sure it will. This is not about simple political ideology. Read your history for the love of Pete. 28 separate Nation States with 28 different cultural histories all acting as one? Won’t last. Once the next big global crash comes they will be at each other’s throats. You already see the seeds of discontent in regional successionist movements.
Then on top of this Germany produces close to 45% of the EU commodities. The most unlikely for Nationalistic Feelings, eh?
Yeah. Everyone is going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Nice wish. Not reality in our lifetime. Sorry.
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The court is one of the three branches of the government in most countries I'm aware of, including France.
And who is going to wash the paint? It costs to remove those paints. The chemicals and all costs money. How do you know those paint are washable?
The point of having glass wall is to promote products -- just like billboard. Is it a right thing to do to paint over a billboard?
Also, blocking entrance to store is also antibusiness act that should be illegal.
Different definitions of the word "government" as applied to different countries. And since wench was the EU a "working democracy"? ;-)
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Then you team the LAWS in Ireland illegal and get new ones in place. Given how nebulous the EU tax regulation is, the CJEU can make very arbitrary judgments if they want to. The "Right to White Wash History" is a perfect example of the atrocities the CJEU is capable of.
That is called libertarian philosophy. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
Because partyism is stupid. Single topic voters are the best!
Please speak English.
The law is the law. The Irish state was breaking its own laws. That’s nit hard to understand, and that is the truth of the matter. The EU didn’t change the law, and EU law has nothing to do in this matter. Only Irish law. It is illegal in Ireland to pay less than a certain amount for companies. AND there is a principle in EU that in a democracy, everyone must abide by the law and noone is above the law. The Irish state is not above Irish law.
Stop your propaganda trying to obfuscate the truth. The EU was rightful, the EU protected the Irish people, the EU ordered Ireland to collect the money that was truly theirs. Iteland benefitted from the ruling, NOT the EU. But seeing that Ireland contributes to the EU budget, the EU wasn’t getting its fair share of the tax, and therefore all EU states were robbed of consumer’s/taxpayer’s money. You pay your taxes where uou do your business. It’s the law. And you pay what the local law says what you have to pay. Apple and Ireland conspired to break Irish law and thought they could get away with it. Not in the EU. Ireland is welcome to leave the EU and make its own rules, but still, Apple and the Republic of Ireland should and could have been sued in Ireland for the same crime, but nobody wanted that to happen because of corruption.
Or in many cases are paid professionals. The sooner society realizes this the better.
All those political riots & public outcry we hear about in the news? Guess what it is all fake. Every single bit of it. There are WAY too many people falling for the charade, believing in anything these purposeful manipulators want.
A normal person is too busy working a full time job to join in on these things even if they wanted to. You might find one or two legitimate protestor who fell for the charade and think they are doing the world a favor. Social justice warriors you might call them, but a better description would be a pawn, or perhaps a useful idiot?
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Those two things are unrelated, other than that the two parties we naturally have for other reasons couple them.
Laws need to be changed and if you have a company in a country you pay tax in that country on every dollar earned in that country.
Working people have days off during which they can protest. Or they're students, like many I know personally who protested stuff at my university. Or they're unemployed; I've heard France pays you a lot to not work.
You know, a lot of Trump supporters came to where I live to (peacefully) protest... idk, I guess against the violent anti-free-speech guys, provoking a battle. I assume it was their day off cause it was Saturday.
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I clicked on all the links in the summary and none of them report that the protesters spray painted anything, nor blocking entrances.
Apple has no
I clicked on all the links in the MacRumors summary, none of them cite a source for the vandalism. Fake news.
There's vandalism shown in the picture on this article.
No, again, Americans using words they don’t know the meaning of...
A government is what Americans call « an administration » that is, secretaries and their cabinets. The latter being called MINISTERS and cabinets everywhere else in the world, but hey, America (and the UK...)
Not to forget that the head of state isn’t the head of government in most EU countries (it’s monarchs, presidents of the Republic, etc.)
A government consists of the head of state or the head of government (Prime minister / Chancellor) and ministers (secretaries in the UK and US).
A government is NOT a conflation of judiciary, legislative and executive powers. That is a definition that is purely and uniquely American.
But that purely semantic distinction does not change the nature of checks and balances between powers (or, as Americans might have it « branches of government »).
The ignorant thing to assume is that because it’s called a government in the US, the same prerogatives apply to what European countries call their “governments”. It does not.
There is no such thing as a EU government. The EU is a union of SOVEREIGN STATES OR COUNTRIES.
Again, states are not countries per se in America. But in Europe, the European states are full-fledged countries, and nation-states.
Do not presume to apply American vocabulary to European politics, is what I mean. This forcing of American acceptations of words on foreign contexts is what dooms Americans to ignorance and hubris where European politics are concerned.
The European Commission (who went after Apple/ Ireland) is an administration (not an American “administration”), that is an INSTITUTION where civil servants work together with the current 3 countries/states presiding over the Commission to harmonise national policies and define the common roadmap for the Union. It gives advice as to the policies that would be most beneficial to single Member States but never forces local policies on sovereign states. It sees that European law is respected and implemented at the state level, but the implementation proper is left to Member States. It’s like Member States are given assignments and they are free to be creative and even add to the law. In turn, laws have to be ratified and inserted in local member state/country legislation and everything is debated locally. Heads of local governments/ heads of State (Prime ministers, Chancellors, presidents... what have you) are part of the Commission and may butt in to defend their own country’s vision. Like president Macron and Chancellor Merkel who are so vocal on the EU scene. Others do give their opinions too, eh ?
The EU is a working democracy without a government. Member States work together for the common good on a common agenda. Rogue states are held in check, such as Greece and its deficit that almost sank the whole Eurozone €, or Poland and its neonais fusing the executive and the judicial powers. Or Ireland acting like a criminal state favoring tax evasion, being Apple’s bitch.
We have a Court of law, just like there is a Supreme Court in America, and we have MEPs (Members of European Parliament) who are directly elected like senators in the US. Think of it like a sort of “EU Congress”.
There is no EU central government superceding the local Member State Governments, the EU isn’t a federal state.
The EU is an alliance of sovereign nation-states or countries woking together on key competences that the individual Member States have devolved to the EU. For example, the agricultural policy, or fisheries are the EU’s prerogative to govern. Because the local states said so.
The EU Commission and EU Council ARE the executive branch. Think of all the local governments as one supermassive government. A rotation system allocates the presidency to one state for a period of time. And now we also have a president of the EU Commission. He’s the one who’s always there in international summits like the G20. He’a as close to a President of the EU as anything comes.
The legislative power is shared between the Commission and the Parliament. The EU is governed by its own Member States’ governments that make up the Commission and the EU Council (which is NOT the “Council of Europe”!!!!).
Only the Parliament may adopt white papers into law, however. So the people of Europe have the last word.
The executive power is the prerogative of Member States who ratify EU law to integrate it into Member State legislation. Furthermore, the Commission monitors that EU law is respected throughout the EU. It can refer Member States to the judiciary branch of the EU if they break the law.
And the European court of Justice (as well as the European Court of Human Rights, etc...) is the judiciary branch of government (but there is no EU government, I say branches of government just so Americans can follow...). It’s the judiciary POWER within the EU.
The EU is a working democracy. It’s been working for a long time now, both its executive as well as its legislative branches are directly elected by the people, but the rotation system between the 27 Member States means there’s little room for radical change in policy. Mostly, Member States do whatever they want, which weakens the EU as a superpower.
But with eveey challenge the EU has faced, it has come through with strenghtened institutions and democracy.
The Apple case is one of those challenges. We are not even a century old, and just like the US’s Constitution’s amendments weren’t written in a day, the EU is still finding its footing as an expanding democracy.
Do not believe morons and Russian trolls spewing nonsense about the EU, read wikipedia and try to keep in mind that
- governement
- state
- aministration
- cabinet
- secretary
- etc.
don’t mean the same in American English in a USA context as they do in the rest of the world.
Although they share a lot of things in common, both the US’s and the EU’s democracies are very different.
But it doesn’t mean the EU isn’t working as a democracy. In fact, it works really well, considering we don’t all speak the same language and every law has to be tailored to accomodate each Member State’s national prerogatives and incorporated within the limits existing constitutions / legislation.
Mind you, some countries like the UK don’t even HAVE a constitution to speak of.
Vive l’Europe
Et vive la France
And screw those Irish ☘️ seriously bitches better have our munnies.
But they vandalized a store front with paint... So is that freedom of expression?
Wow. Just wow. I wonder how long it would take before you changed your tune if some people came over and spray painted YOUR windows every day for the rest of your life with foul epithets. Let's see if you think it's NOT A CRIME then. My god.... I've read some ridiculous statements in my life, but yours takes the cake!
The definition of a crime is NOT "violence!" What does proof of violence have to do with ANYTHING?
The DEFINITION of a "crime" is:
1> an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law.
2> illegal activities
3> an action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong
No matter how you define it, painting windows is absolutely and without a doubt, a CRIME. If not illegal, it most certainly falls into definition #3. Evil, shame and wrong (all three) as it trespasses on the will and rights of another in order to exact one's personal desires. Moral behavior can ONLY stand if the rights of every individual are recognized and respected. If you start excluding people, you pervert the definition of humanity itself! Many have tried in the past (including slavery) and some religions still treat women as property today! Violence will ensue as long as people do not respect the basic rights of people to exist and have their own opinions without having their physical and property rights disrespected, defaced or vandalized (or injured physical self), stolen or destroyed. Protesting CAN be done without such actions and in public places without trespassing or vandalizing anything. Saying it's in the public's best interests is like saying slavery is OK as long as a majority vote for it! Some MORAL values go beyond mere laws! Every person should have the same basic rights as everyone else or you end up with chaos.
NO ONE has the "right" to do anything they feel like doing to someone else or someone else's property without due process. It's TOTAL AND UTTER DISRESPECT of that person's very being. And the VIOLATION of someone's very being is the DEFINITION of SIN AGAINST MAN. One does not need a LAW to define EVIL as total and utter contempt for the rights and desires of anyone else but oneself. It is the EPITOME of EVIL when one is so self-absorbed that no one and nothing matters but one's own selfish desires. God or no god, no civilization that disrespects some or all people's rights to basic decency can stand forever. While it may seem trivial to you, the ATTITUDE of utter disrespect is far worse than the actions thus far. These people clearly felt ENTITLED to damage Apple's property.
Again, no one made them vandalize Apple's property or trespass on it. If France or the European Union CANNOT or WILL NOT recognize the rights of individuals or corporations property and livelihood, one has to question the justness of their government. It is not the job of vigilante's to enforce the law. Protestors should act with respect and dignity or their hurt their own cause. They are certainly winning no favor with me here and I'm not exactly a big fan of Apple's greed.
So, it's not vandalism if it's in the public's best interest? Exactly who the hell determines THAT, exactly? The other persons' shoes? Donald Trump's shoes, perhaps??? Oh, did your mean YOUR "public's" best interest as opposed to OURS???? The protestor's interests or Apple's? We outnumber the population of France by almost a 5:1 ratio, so I'd say our interests are more IMPORTANT than theirs!
This is the land of the 4 day work week and France has an unemployment rate of 9.8% and has been stuck there for AGES. Save for 3 years on two separate occasions, it's been over 9% since the 1980s! (https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...&ifdim=country_group&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false) You do the math of whether they even have a job or not. Who wants to create jobs in France when they don't want to work more than 32-35 hours a week? They're not allowed by law to work more than 35 hours even! My god, I know people that work over 80 hours a week to get by because their families DEPEND on them for survival (as opposed to begging for welfare). Work ethic? What work ethic? They're probably hoping Apple will help pay for them to keep living the socialist dream of sitting on their butts and contributing nothing meaningful to society for the rest of their lives. That's right! Tax them in violation of Ireland's voluntary AGREEMENT. Drive them from Europe and every American company as well. Who needs us or our technology? They can always get a Chinese knock-off!