Europe, Interrupted (An excellent overview of the mess Eurabia finds itself in)

The Orange County Register ^ | June 12, 2005 | Alan Bock

[quidnunc]

For decades now, advocates of a "greater Europe" — to serve as a counterbalance to the United States, to secure greater prosperity for European inhabitants, to restore former glory, or perhaps to enhance the power of European Union bureaucrats in Brussels — has been a dream of European statesmen, leaders and the aforementioned Brussels bureaucrats.

That dream seems to be dying — or is it?

With the rejection by French voters of the proposed new EU constitution, the even more resounding defeat at the hands of Dutch voters, and the decision by the United Kingdom to postpone a scheduled vote, perhaps indefinitely, the prospect for European unity, at least in the form contemplated by EU leaders, has suffered a setback. Can European unity be reconstituted, perhaps in a different form? Would that be good for Europeans? What would be the impact on the United States and the rest of the world? Or would Europe be better advised to stick with economic integration and forget about further steps toward political unification?

EU leaders are scheduled to meet June 16-17. Instead of basking in the glory of successful referenda, they are likely to be asking themselves some hard questions about Europe's future.

In some ways the handwringing might be unnecessary. As Jeffrey Vanke, who teaches history at Kaplan University, recently wrote for the History News Network:

"Europe has had a constitution since 1951, and the 2004 Treaty of Rome [the formal title of what was called a constitution] contained only marginal changes in it. So the treaty's defeat will make little difference in European affairs, not to mention European history."

-snip-

[bill1952]

I felt the same thing when clinton was building his future legacy in Serbia.

I still don't like it one bit.

[bill1952]

It wasn't my intention to say that he was a writer, just that he was a founding father whom I admire.

[cloud8]

> ...the Declaration of Independence...established the revolutionary, fundamental principle that governments existed only by virtue of the "consent of the governed"

As thankful as I am to be an American, I have never given my consent to be governed, let alone been asked.

> [the governed have] the Right to withdraw said consent at their discretion..

So wrote Jefferson, but this Right is not in the Constitution.

Granted that we must be governed, we may at least take consolation in the fact that we are all equal under the law...aren't we?

[AntiGuv]

So wrote Jefferson, but this Right is not in the Constitution.

LOL! The Constitution is that Right.

[AntiGuv]

Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence, and thereby his legacy will endure long after the United States are ancient history. ;^)

The Constitution of the United States is merely an embodiment of Jefferson's eternal & universal principles that all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable Rights, and that governments are instituted and legitimized only by the consent of the governed in order to secure these Rights.

The Declaration of Independence was one of the few truly pivotal documents in the course of human affairs; the Magna Carta is notable only as its distant prelude, and the Constitution likewise as its progeny.

Admiration for Thomas Jefferson hardly needs defending!