The European Constitution

[Sgt. Boomer]

The EU as a loosely defined economic association with a free trade agreement is a good idea – and profitability is enough to keep people happy.

But the EU as a centralized, integrated super-state, particularly with a “progressive” (read: radical meddling social-engineering) minded government is a very, very bad idea.

=D.C.L.I=Everest Wrote:Look at the USA, for example: they grew up together. Their states share both history and language. Now, Europe is thousands of years old, with literally hundreds of peoples spread across it. Our cultures differ more because of that than the USA\'s. The Civil War proved how hard it was for a country that was only about 250 years old (counting from the first settlements). How on earth is it going to work in Europe?

That about sums it up. The US also had two other powerful assets: a sense of nationalism that bordered on the religious; and a single religion that permeated the public consciousness and conscience. European nationalism works against the EU, and modern liberalism has virtually destroyed the Christian/conservative ethic of self-sacrifice for the greater good.

European nations have had time to adjust to the idea of wealth redistribution and social change and compromise within their countries – but neither came without major upheaval. Trying to impose more of the same, and for the sake of other nations and cultures, would take either tremendous prosperity to keep everyone placated, or a very strong (i.e. tyrannical) central government.

The EU constitution as it’s written is broad enough and vague enough to allow an ever stronger central government to override the democratic process of individual nations. Just look what judicial activists have done in the past few decades by having judges overturn or create laws by interpreting the US constitution however they pleased. And the US constitution is short and concise.

Whether you agree with the judicial definition of progressive is irrelevant, what’s important is the issue of accountability. Once you start yielding power to government it can be difficult to impossible to get it back.

shift Wrote:As far as I know, that Civil War was about abolition of slavering, an ideal, but the real reason was to get their hands on the economical power of the south regions. Correct me if I\'m wrong.

:con: ? So you’re saying the civil war was about blood for cotton?

No, it wasn’t about economics. The 1850’s had been a time of extreme tension between the North and South over the issue of slavery. It was so bad that on one occasion, after an abolitionist senator made a particularly critical speech, a Southern congressman beat him unconscious with his cane. By the time the South seceded, the anger on both sides was such that compromise was out of the question.

So the war was about slavery, though not in the sense that every Northerner was a virtuous abolitionist fighting for the ideal of freedom. For many it was about ideology, for most it was about the expansion of the West. The 1857 Dred Scott decision struck down the 1820 Missouri Compromise (as unconstitutional :roll: ) thus permitting slavery in the Western territories. To many Northerners, with dreams of going West, that meant the possibility of competition with both large slave plantations and free blacks in the new territories (a bit of xenophobia and chauvinism). And for the South, it was anger over economic and ideological interference in their lives and culture.

In short, just about everything that p****s people off and makes them want to kill each other.