Posted on 11/13/2011 3:47:46 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Europes scorched-earth policies have begun in earnest. The inherent flaws of monetary union have created a crisis of such gravity that EU leaders now feel authorized to topple two elected governments.
As I long feared, the flood of cheap credit into Southern Europe and the slow death of Club Med industry by currency asphyxiation have together created such a dangerous situation for world finance that informed opinion is willing to turn a blind eye to EU sovereign trespass. Some even applaud.
The Greeks were ordered to drop their referendum on measures that reduce their country to a sort of Manchukuo, with EU commissars "on the ground", installed in each ministry, drawing up lists of state assets to be liquidated to pay foreign creditors.
Europe had the monetary and fiscal means to contain the EMU debt crisis long enough for Greeks to give or withhold their crucial assent to this ultimatum in December.
It chose - under German-Dutch pressure - not deploy those means. Instead it forced Greece to capitulate by cutting off an agreed loan payment.
In Italy, the European Central Bank has engineered the downfall of Silvio Berlusconi by playing the bond markets, switching purchases on and off to enforce compliance with its written dictates ("La Lettera"), and ultimately allowing 10-year yields to spike to 7.45pc to drive him out.
Europes president Herman Van Rompuy swooped in to Rome to clinch the Putsch. "Italy needs reforms not elections," he said.
We are not that far from use of EU judicial coercion, and then EU police power, and ultimately EU "border troops" - for those old enough to remember Soviet methods of fraternal assistance.
Chancellor Angela Merkel tells us that peace in Europe can no longer be taken for granted, and she is right. Her own
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
As an example, if I were a bank robber making his getaway, I wouldn't want to comply with the law... so without compelling force exerted against me, there would be no way to get me to comply with the law.
And there is simply no way other than brute force to *MAKE* someone do anything. And even then, it's not perfect in making someone do something.
You see it all the time at work. If, as a manager, you try to give a simple task to someone who doesn't want to do it... they oftentimes will not do it.
Why? Because you cannot *MAKE* them do it. Force will result in criminal charges against you and a lawsuit against the company.
Furthermore, as long as they don't show a trend of continually refusing your taskings, they won't get fired, either.
Whereas if you look at war, that is the most blatant example of how it truly takes brute force to make others who do not want to comply with your directives... comply with your directives.
The Taliban of Afghanistan did not want to turn over Osama Bin Laden to the US... and there was nothing we could do to *MAKE* them do it.
And even the brute application of force didn't to it. For ultimately, in the end, you can choose to die before compliance. It's the ultimate act of refusal (as well as the last act you can do).
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I'd also point out that nothing the British crown did could make our American colonists comply with British directives back in 1776. We had had enough.
And it took a war (brute force) for Britain to even *TRY* and make us comply.
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And if Greece felt as strongly about this issue, there would be nothing the EU could do about it *EXCEPT* use brute force.
That the Greeks do comply implies that they find compliance with EU directives to be more in their favor than outright refusal.
They still had a choice. Each choice has side-effects they had to consider. And in their self-interest, they decided that taking the bailout was the best course of action.
The last time there was a case of a European head of state being ‘forced’ to do anything was with the Anschluss of Austria by the Germans in WWII. I supervised the grand-nephew of the Austrian Chancellor of the time. The stories he told of the Anschluss literally had the German delegation chasing down the Chancellor, forcably seating him, holding him down into the chair, placing the pen into his hand, placing the treaty in front of him, and then pointing a loaded gun toward his head.
With Greece and Italy and all the rest, they did not have anything even remotely close to that.
They found that out of all the available options they could take, taking the money was in their own best interest.
You really sound like a so-called ‘free speech’ advocate that is upset that others may decide to exercise their own right to free speech... to protest your own. Or in other words, someone who wants to be able to do whatever they want without regard to the consequences.
I’m not talking about foreign policy. I’m talking about individual choice. You, Olog-hai, cannot be ‘forced’ to do anything withut a certain and credible threat of force backing it up.
And that same notion also applies to the politicians who control nations.
That is what you fail to understand.
As a thought experiment, say you owe your bank $10,000,000 but cannot afford to pay it back... and I show up at your door with a check for $1,000,000.
If I say that you can have the check and 9 more just like it... but I want you to divorce your wife and let me marry her, are you being ‘forced’ to do it?
That you have no ability to tell me to go and shove it?
No... you’d have a choice.
And so do those politicians.
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