Posted on 05/29/2005 1:12:07 PM PDT by Betaille
French voters have rejected the proposed EU constitution in Sunday's referendum, according to an exit poll. The poll quoted by French TV gives the "No" side 55% - in line with surveys published in the run-up to the vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
It's mre complicated, and more dangerous, than that.
Socialists accept that the will of the People confers the right to rule.
They just don't accept elections, or voting generally (if by voting you mean arithmetical counting of ballots) as a proper or valid means of determining that will.
The US Democrats are dangerously flirting with this idea, and when they fully embrace it, which they will if they lose a few more elections, they will become truly socialist.
Actually this is really good for Europe.
Red6
Yes, I know that. The thing is, if you have collective state institutions "tempering" the market, then it is NOT a free market. It is a "tempered" one.
Very well said, and finally a line of posts that can take us somewhere.
The father, or grandfather, of the EU is of course der Herr von Linz, He Who Must Not Be Named.
Father more in the Darth Vader sense, not the George Washington one, to be sure-but father nonetheless.
The whole EU project is a gigantic reaction formation to the collapse of the Third Reich-not the physical conquest and destruction by Russia and America, that's better forgotten-but to the loss of the Dream in hundreds of millions of European hearts-the dream of a Third Way, the dream of a solution to modernity that was not monarchical or clerical, the dream of solidarity instead of competition, gemeinschaft instead of geselleschaft.
The survivors and their children are still trying to mine something of value out of that bunker near Potsdamerplatz, and their failure is going to have longlasting and unpredictable consequences.
"There is no market value"
Tell that to the pilot.
First no market value does not equal no value as a subsidy implies - something for nothing. There is a product.
Second, bids.
Third, foreign sales.
"I'd expect the next move will be to dump the entire draft, and try to get the whole thing passed piece by piece, via treaties -- with changes of course."
----
This is what I think ought to have happened in the first place. They tried to go too fast with this stuff, and stepped on sovreignty, and it would have caused enormous and rapid economic dislocation. The whole thing probably won't fly, but with the various situations in different nations there, they have to work toward drawing closer together, rather than trying to melt Europe into one uniform piece.
I was posting endlessly about the real danger of returning to a world of city-states a couple years ago - If we allow the terrorists to cow us, if the civilized world fails to effectively join together enough to defeat the barbarism of the terrorists - we will eventually withdraw into a world where we do business only with people we individually trust - into our own little world. We will return to the Dark Ages.
The article you linked is the first time I've seen anything like this in an analytical journal. Thanks for posting that.
The french are too lazy and welfare dependent to accept anything that smacks of capitalism.
Euro Drops to Lowest Level of the Year.
...good call!
Good call. Vicomte 13 Thanks for all of the interesting information on this topic you contributed on other threads.
And all Mr. Chirac had to do was be a good man . . .
One of my liberal friends delights in saying to me, "Communism has never failed - It hasn't been tried yet." He maintains that the whole world must be communist for the experiment to be properly conducted.
We must have One World Government - in which everyone is coddled cradle to grave - for communism to work. Europeans have to figure this out for themselves, I guess.
Thanks for the link. Interesting article.
I don't think it'll happen the way you describe. Europeans are becoming more docile - too docile. They'll just roll over for the Muslims, and Europe will become more and more a center of moral support for Muslim terrorist activity throughout the world. Their only solution to the problem will be to give the UN more power, which of course will only make matters worse. That's the future I fear happening if something isn't done to reverse course.
"Very well said, and finally a line of posts that can take us somewhere.
The father, or grandfather, of the EU is of course der Herr von Linz, He Who Must Not Be Named.
Father more in the Darth Vader sense, not the George Washington one, to be sure-but father nonetheless."
Yes and no - but a very interesting and insightful post in any case. Actually the idea of a European Union is older than the Third Reich, as it was first circulated in the 1920s (WWI had already been a pretty devastating experience).
But during the first half of the 20th century Europe was the very center of the world, with the British Empire, the (very short-lived) German empire and France with it's colonies in Africa and Indo-China.
So in a way, one could say that the EU is the answer to not only the longing for a third way, but also to the loss of power of the European nation states. Empires are always doomed to fall (That wouldn't be different in the case of an attempt at an American empire.), and the end of European imperialism made it necessary for the European nations to reposition themselves.
Neither Germany, France nor Great Britain alone will be able to keep up with China or India in the future, so the necessity for a trade alliance like the EU is real.
"The survivors and their children are still trying to mine something of value out of that bunker near Potsdamerplatz, and their failure is going to have longlasting and unpredictable consequences."
That's the problem with history. It's never predictable. But I see no more reason to be pessimistic in the case of Europe than in the U.S.. Every nation / region has its traumas, even the United States. Maybe there still is a longing here for "instead of competition, Gemeinschaft instead of Gesellschaft" (although I think that recent trends have proven, that this is not the sole "raison d'etre" for European citizens). One might also diagnose an "irrational desire for security" in the US these days... the thing is: you never know, how it plays out.
But I myself see no reason to be overly pessimistic. The EU won't become a superstate, neither will it fall apart, it will just drag on as always... ;-).
You're welcome. :)
Mr Ferguson is an interesting historian who has written about US 'empire' in the positive sense.
Just to prevent misunderstandings: I don't see the U.S. American desire for security as irrational per se. It is indeed absolutely justified. I just wanted to point out how difficult it is to apply "mass psychology" to states and societies, especially when one aims at predicting the future. Nations simply aren't persons. That's why I'm generally sceptic about cultural pessimism ("Kulturpessimismus").
BTW: An interesting read for those interested in the topic might be "De la prochaine guerre avec l'Allemagne" by Philippe Delmas (of Airbus). There's a German edition, but I'm not sure if there's also an english translation.
BTW: How does one use Italics?
That kind of makes sense in its own perverted way. The communist ideal is a world where everyone has equal wealth--and if the whole world were communist, then everyone would indeed be equally poor.
As long as there are naughty capitalist countries like America--or as long as there exists even one tiny bastion of freedom anywhere in the world--the communist dream has not true, as there exists a nation that is wealthier than the rest of the world. But if the whole world is equal in its misery, then the Communists can be happy.
Pray for W and Our Troops
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