Posted on 06/01/2005 4:31:34 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
The title quote is from Le Monde a year ago. It has been updated over the decades, as France has grown. It is false. That many Frenchmen (or Englishmen, or Americans) can be wrong. The French proved that this week in voting down the proposed Constitution of the European Union.
Oh, they were quite right to vote it down, as was the Netherlands, later in the week. The error was in their reasons for voting it down.
Unlike most who’ve written on this story, I read that 28-page constitutional monstrosity. Here are a few examples why this is a mishmash of (presumably) good intentions, but nothing resembling enforceable law. The Preamble states the purpose as, “to live together in freedom, justice and peace, to advance our common interests in the world, and resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer Union among the peoples of Europe, whilst respecting the diverse cultures of Europe,...”
This Constitution does not even define its own terms. Under Founding Values, it says, “(4) The Union shall respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Social Charter of Turin and the constitutional traditions common to the Member States.” So other sources and documents, unknown to the people voting to ratify or reject this Constitution, will define it in unknown ways at unknown times.
Under Solidarity Rights, one of the reasons for the failure of this Constitution rears its head. “(2) Workers and employers, or their respective organisations, have, in accordance with Union law and national laws and practices, the right to negotiate and conclude collective agreements at the appropriate levels and, in cases of conflicts of interest, to take collective action to defend their interests, including strike action.”
The simple truth is that the major economies of Europe, especially those of France and Germany, are already stagnating and dying because of a death grip that their unions now have over the operation of all manner of businesses and institutions. There is no reason for Americans or the British to be smug about this. For historical reasons rather than good planning, both those nations avoided that same failure point, though Britain still faces that possibility.
Looking at the demographics of Europe and its various benefits, those economies are much closer to collapse than is the US one, due to Social Security failure. Still, the Constitution would have locked Europe in its march toward economic doom. Under Solidarity Rights it also says, “(8) The Union recognises and respects the entitlement to social security benefits and social services providing protection in cases such as maternity, illness, industrial accidents, dependency or old age, and in the case of loss of employment, in accordance with the rules laid down by Union law and national laws and practices.”
The height of silliness, in a Monty Python sense, comes in “Article 22 : Sincere Cooperation” which provides that “Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and abstain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of the Union.”
So far, almost all of the approvals of this Constitution have come from the governmental elites in each nation. Now two of the three rejections of the Constitution have come from nations which committed their approvals to a national referendum. There is a strong, and ancient, tradition in Europe that the elite know best and should govern for, and over, the ordinary people. But those two groups think entirely differently.
William Buckley in his column this week, “Europe Kaput,” points out that “We know that 70 percent of French farmers voted no on the new constitution. Now, French farmers are the most coddled economic tribe in the entire world, so why should they invite any change in the laws they live under? Public and blue collar workers, and of course the unemployed, voted no on the constitution.”
The irony is that the Constitution, which seeks to give away the store, has been defeated by those who want the government to give away even more. So, the rejection of the Constitution was a correct French decision. But the reason for that objection is absurd.
Alistair Cook was a modern equivalent of Alexis deToqueville. He came from another nation, but studied and understood America better than its own residents. I saw Cook present in person the 13th and last program in his series, “America,” at a fundraiser in Baltimore decades ago. The last sentence Cook used to sum up the genius of America was in a quote from a street vendor used to end the series.
It was, “There ain’t no free lunch.” Societies which hold the failed belief that rights or benefits can be made up from thin air, without consequences, are doomed. France, Germany, and many other nations of Western Europe have exactly that failing. They just haven’t recognized the truth in front of their faces.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Yes they can.
French bashing is so passe.
it's from, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
It is interesting.
I would suggest that it is certainly not a given that we have avoided, or will avoid the same trap.
I suspect that without some very significant domestic policy successes on the conservative side, in the next few years, the socialist trends in the US will resume as if this republican majority had not happened. We will not be given 60 years to prove that our way works, as the Dems were given.
I just did a google search, and find several sites which confirm your statement that TANSTAAFL first appeared in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, an old favorite of mine.
But I'm pretty sure I recall seeing it earlier in one of his short stories, which appeared in Amazing or The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It's been fifty years or more since I read that story, so my memory is a bit vague.
I guess I last read it around 1972...
I used to include "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in a Science Fiction course I taught. I just checked my records and the last time I taught the course was 1986. But the other story, if I remember it rightly, was much earlier, back in the early Heinlein days. I first started reading Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke back in the late 40s and early 50s.
Got me beat - I wasn't born unti 1962! LOL
You know, lately, the French have been acting kinda right.
First they killed Arafat, then they knee capped the EU.
A good one, Congressman Billybob. Unfortunately as this foreigner I understand your point will look like alien-speak to Europeans, particularly French.
Their understanding of politics is too different/weird/eccentric/bizzare/deficient/retarded (circle one if you wish).
ping
They have been acting right by accident.
Arafat was a combination of their doctor's incompetance and his general condition. Basically, you don't wait until the person's already on life support to take them to the hospital.
The other was out of arrogance. They felt it didn't go far enough to communism.
Paul
The bureaucratic mind lives my means of jargon, obscurity, ambiguity, and incoherence. The language they use is intended to make you think that they are really smart since they wrote this dense document, and you are really stupid because you cannot understand the incomprehensible, so you should just submit without protest. I think that the French and Dutch rejected the EU constitution from a gut reaction. And that is the proper response to claptrap, regarless of your politics.
Yes, I think you have summed it up very well. That is the difference.
I believe that "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is the best Science Fiction books ever written in the category of "Not part of a trilogy". A couple of asimov's robot books, and Dune repersent close seconds ("trilogy" came much later) in that category. I would love to hear your other candidates.
TANSTAAFL, I was always under the impression, came from the book, but perhaps it appeared in some earlier work.
I did mostly "classic" SF in the course, plus a few later novels that moved the genre. Here are books from the last few times I gave the course:
Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Asimov, Foundation.
Arthur Clark, The City and the Stars
John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids
Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
Frank Herbert, Dune
Robert Silverberg, Downward to the Earth
Samuel Delany, Nova
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep\
Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Larry Niven, Ringworld
Piers Anthony, Macroscope
Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer
J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Some years I would do different books just to take a rest, such as Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, or Kornbluth and Pohl's The Space Merchants.
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