Posted on 05/29/2005 1:12:07 PM PDT by Betaille
Blindly throwing open your nation's borders, sovereignty and markets is LIBERAL.
I applaud France for rationally protecting their nation's interests.
KARL MARX advocated FREE TRADE. He believed it would destroy the world's middle classes and hasten the revolution...
Touche!
OK, let's call it a bureaucrat elitist run project, but given time and this Constitutional Treaty and I'm convinced that we would have something close to Vichy France - without the deportations of course.
I may be wrong, but I don't want to take the chance, so I hope they'll never get neither the time nor the treaty.
(Remember in Belgium the government ruled by decree a number of months to force the country into the EMU (the euro). Also, I have posted a number of articles on Tillack and press freedom in EU. Check them out.)
If it was here a judge would say they voted yes.
History teach us that there cannot be a coherent union of people who are made up of different nationalities, speaks different languages, have a different cultures, have different history. You may say that the USA is made up of different nationalities and it is the most successful and powerful nation on the planet. The answer to that the "vast majority, over 95%" of people in the USA consider themselves Americans, they speak English, and they are very much part of the American culture. This will never happen in Europe, their will never be a common language, or culture, and thus any union will eventually fail in this continent.
EU was a reactionary response to the incredible super power of the United States. Many of the EU laws and regulations, including the EURO, were nothing but a set of anti-US emotions to confront the US on economic, political and "may be" economical level, all masked under a strong Europe. Because it is mainly hostile emotions, it will eventually fail.
EU is proven to be an economic failure so far and the future will be even worse. The average uneployement rate is twice then that of the US (10% Vs 5%), the EU GDP growth is half of that of the US (2% Vs 4%). EU has adopted a heavy socialist welfare system that impose very heavy taxation on hard working people and businesses, taxation that are much larger than that in the US.
The socialist welfare system will eventually got bankrupted, and the utter economic disaster will strengthen the voice of nationalism in the large powerful members (Britain, Germany, France, possibly Italy) and the call for leaving EU will get very strong and this will lead to the collapse of the Union that was built on sand.
I spend a fair amunt of time in the EU and that is what I see. This vote and a large no from the Dutch will have an effect. When the SDP is put out in the fall, the CDU will most likely cut back on Eu expenditures.
As I said, this is the high water mark of integration for quite a while. There is going to be a reeveluation of the whole project now, and the elites are going to be under real pressure.
I am going over next week...can not wait to see what the reaction is on the ground.
But the rest of the markets are open. The US forex Wall St. crowd will be trading in Asia tonight big time. It will be interesting to see if it was really discounted.
I'll be curious to see what they're thinking in Spain, where I'm going next week! They voted a narrow Yes, at the urging of their socialist crackpot Zapatero, but had an incredibly low turnout because most people wanted to vote "No" but had been told by their government that only right-wing cranks were going to vote No. (This despite the fact that the Conservative party, the PP, also urged a Yes vote.)
Spanish leftists are devoted to France. Even in the 18th and 19th centuries, the "progressive" element were referred to as the "afrancesados," the lovers of things French, which we might translate more colloquially as "Frenchified." And now Spain has voted Yes, while their idol, France, has voted No. Hah!
Still?
" A common market and a pan-European democratic mechanism to negotiate the rules is a good thing. A loose confederation which allows for common trade rules and reasonably free movement of people and goods is one element of preventing devastation in Europe again.
But a ludicrous, Orwellian screed written up by freak Leftists in Brussels desperate to impose Socialism cum Multiculturalism is an anti-European nightmare."
I absolutely agree!
"It wasn't a "Constitution", but the terms of surrender to a lumbering slave state at the hands of embittered Communists, angry at the loss of the Soviet Union and the possibility that they might not get to confiscate the entire land mass of Europe for their own control."
Well, there are actually A FEW good parts in the constitutional treaty. In certain areas it actually is an IMPROVEMENT over the status quo we have now. But overall the constitutional treaty is certainly not what I would have hoped for. What we need now is a new treaty that leaves the good parts in place (like the subsidiarity principle) and does away with the undemocratic institutions like the current structure of commission and council of ministers in favor of a transferral of power to the European parliament (i.e. the people's representatives). But one can only hope...
"As far as the French go, every one of them that I spoke with in the last month said the same thing: "Turkey". There were certainly other reasons, but that was the one that came out most often.
Maybe the French want to stay French. Whoda thought it."
Germans are even more against the idea of Turkey as a member of the EU. It simply isn't feasible. The 10 new members is more than the EU can take right now. Plus: The democratic reforms in Turkey look good on paper but don't translate to real changes for the population. There simply isn't enough common ground to start from (plus the still dire situation of Turkey's economy). Israel, for example, is a hundred times more "european" than Turkey.
I know, the Bush administration would love to see Turkey join the EU. But frankly, it's an internal affair, so it's none of their business - after all, the EU also shouldn't have a say in U.S. - Mexican relations.
Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club - the week's in-spot for what's left of Britain's lit glitz and nouveau rock riche - when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about "Your country's never been invaded." (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) "You don't know the horror, the suffering. You think war is..."
I snapped.
"A John Wayne movie," I said. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie - with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD.
"We're the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d'Antibes. And we've got a American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
"You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying 'Cheerio.' Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch."
Have a great 4th, guys.
What will Javier Solana do now???
His empire is in jeopardy.
This is FAR from over.
I trust we FReepers can look forward to an extended detailed briefing when you return!
Shaven pits?
Never thought I'd see the day...
Viewing each at a resonable font size for these tired old eyes, I counted 19 screens to look at the table of contents for the 448 articles in the EU Constitution; each article runs anywhere between a few paragraphs and a full page or so.
Whereas it took 12 screen views for entire text of our original document, and another 2 screens for the Bill of Rights (1st 10 ammendments).
Now... consider the rollercoaster we get from the SCOTUS' and district Courts of Appeals' interpretation of our (reasonably) succinct constitution, as ammended. The EU legal system will be a mad house!
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