Posted on 12/26/2004 4:10:53 PM PST by UnklGene
The author seems to believe that the EU at one time HAD power and relevance. And that this supposed time of EU ascendancy is now passing away, with the EU "becoming" impotent and irrelevant.
His naivete makes me smile.
See the new Euroislamic state rise from the ruins..
Unrelated, but interesting: When Rome sacked Carthage, it destroyed everything and salted the fields. But, 100 years later Rome rebuilt Carthage.
EU is a retreat to the pre-Enlightenment times, since the members voluntarily lose their sovereignty (or having been bullied to surrender thereof).
Can that continue for any long historical period?
I don't think so. All the more that nowadays' invaders are not Germans (who were a big unknown in the days of Rome) but Mohammedans of all sorts (whose precious qualities as citizens and neighbours are notorious).
"EUthanasia" Now that is a great, new word for the Euro-weenies.
The EU had better worry less a "country" will secede and worry more the ever-increasing Muslim hordes will instead overwhelm current populations and rulers and set up their own states, in the very pattern of Gaiseric!
Bunk.
What will do in the EU is the fact that bigger government is not necessarily better than smaller government. The Europeans don't seem to appreciate this. They are a continent of conformists.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Paris, do as the Romans do. When in Bonn, do as the Romans do. When in London, do as the Romans do.
They obvious question is: Why? What's wrong with local governance?
Prior to that Roman culture, if not government, was definitely in the saddle.
Best anyone can tell the Dark Ages thing started with an abrupt change in the weather and a population dropoff throughout Western Europe.
The Eastern Empire was hit hard as well, but it took another 700 years to bring it down the old fashioned way, with war and politics!
Europe would be stronger as federations of homelands (as De Gaulle envisioned) with strong local rule and respect for local traditions and common Christian heritage.
Unfortunately EUrocrats are rabid secularist, gentler in methods but not less hostile to the Church tan Bolsheviks. They hate Christianity so much that they will bring in Islamic countries to use one religion against the other and to try to establish the atheistic utopia of John Lennon.
Imagine Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people living for today... Imagine there's no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace... Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say Im a dreamer, but Im not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one.
bump for the morning coffee!
I don't think they understand the theory behind federalism. The idea is to have as much as possible decided at the local level, and leave to the federal government only those things that must be handled centrally. Instead, they are trying to handle as much as possible at the level of the central government, and leave only those things which absolutely cannot be handled at that level for the local politicians.
That's not the way to maximize freedom, and it's bound to cause friction. Their response is to simply ignore their own laws because they are impractical, which is something they are good at doing anyway. It will ultimately spell their demise.
They do not care. They are drunk with power and they believe that they will bring the perfect atheistic paradise with them as the philosopher kings. They think that they have learned on the mistakes of Jacobins and Bolsheviks and that through the shrewd manipulation they will turn European (and some Muslim or Asian) nations into a mass of docile sheep.
The Orange Revolution on the Ukraine is just a test.
I agree.
The author states, The problem Rome faced was: do we fight to keep the barbarians out, or are we prepared to make concessions?
The fall of the Roman Empire clearly began when citizens figured out they could vote themselves entitlements. In otherwords a lack of hard cash in the treasury. Of course with our own Federal Government we just print more fiat cash.
That's what it's become, but the original idea behind the EU was to pattern Europe after the common market example of America, maybe even to improve on it. They missed the key feature of the US example, though. They ended up with a policy of standardization purely for its own sake, which is antithetical to the American experience, and makes no more sense to the Europeans, either.
It would have gone lot more smoothly if they'd realized from the outset that there was a method to the American Founder's madness. They weren't just trying to bring the States together. They were trying to do so in a way that minimized the role of the federal government to just those things which are necessarily handled at the federal level.
They cannot, they are driven by the fanatical atheism - the same one that was animating Jacobins and Bolsheviks.But EUrocracts believe that they will not fail as their spiritual brethren did. They hope that the cunning, patient brainwashing and playing one group against another will do the trick.
That is why they will bring Turkey into Europe. They will use Muslims against Christians and Christians against Muslims. EUrocrats love Ataturk's cruel secularism and they hope they will be able to adopt it in the European nations in the name of tolerance, religious peace and freedom from the moral constraints.
That's right, and even the EUros have recognized this. In EUrospeak, the concept is called subsidiarity and it's written into the latest treaties.
Of course, being written into a treaty and actually practiced by the EUrocrats are two different things, but they at least pay lip service to subsidiarity.
I think it's wrong to pin Europe's problems on the EU. At most the EU is merely a symptom of the underlying malaise of population stagnation and the economic suffocation of socialism.
Europe has been dying ever since it self-slaughtered so many in World War I.
It'll be real interesting to see if the EU can secularize Islam. I bet not.
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