Posted on 06/25/2016 5:29:59 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
It started with the best of intentions. In WWII, Western Europeans couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer numbers of American troops, equipment, and supplies moving through their countries, all under one flag and all speaking one language. After the war, various politicians in Western Europe noted how their continent and the United States - though both were roughly the same population, one had free travel for goods and people while the other didn't - and asked, why can't we do that here? And so the grand EU idea was slowly borne, and envious attempt to copy the US as a giant superstate. The EEC started as simply an economic union in the 1950s, and it was initially beneficial for those involved, just a few Western European countries because half the continent - all of Eastern Europe - was still shielded behind the Iron Curtain.
Ironically, the fall of that line in 1989 - and the sudden opening of Eastern Europe - changed the EU irrevocably. Their planners' ambitions expanded dramatically - an economic union was no longer enough, now there had to be equivalence of services everywhere, all controlled by a growing central bureaucracy. And of course a borders-free zone, just like the US. As more and more national sovereignty was surrendered through various treaties, the bureaucracy kept growing, becoming ever more intrusive and meddling in each countries' affairs - and anyone who tried to fight or oppose it, even on completely rational grounds, was penalized. The EU was, in effect, becoming a totalitarian entity.
Britain had seen this movie before, and knew it ended badly. They didn't fight and defeat one totalitarian regime in WWII just to be governed by another one in Brussels now. How many other Europeans think the same way now?
It was interesting how the ages broke. The older populace that had seen self-government and the dangers voted from leaving. The younger set that had no experience with self-government voted to stay,
It was a neat idea, but it was killed by two things. One, as you say, ever intrusive regulations about literally everything. Put in place by people over whom you had no control and no recourse.
And second was immigration. Open borders within the EU was one thing, Brits could work freely in Germany, Germans could live freely in Italy. But then they effectively threw open their outer borders, opening their territory to people who weren’t EU and had no cultural connection to it, no loyalty to any of its member states, and were coming in by quite literally the millions. And since the decisions to admit and frankly to invite them had been made at the supranational level, there was again nothing anyone could do about it.
Your only choice was submit or leave. If EU doesn’t want to break up further they will have to re-think the project but I doubt they are capable. Socialists, statist regulators, are what they are. They didn’t go into government to let people muddle through freely.
Sort of like the cargo cults in the Pacific in WWII. The Euros made certain observations but in their lack of understanding their attempt to reproduce success was only marginally successful. Like them it could only continue as long as the US was dropping supplies. When that ended the cults died.
The key part in the United part of United States was the moral unity of a Christian nation. Without that the various factions in their struggle for power only creates the totalitarianism that mimics unity.
Was thinking about this last night.
The United States went through this. It resulted in the Civil War.
The E.U. was sold as economic only, but in reality the nations had handed over their right to self govern to the E.U. The people then wanted to get out. Similar to what the States did setting up the Confederacy.
The Confederacy resembled the pre-Constitution Articles of Confederacy and the southern states were likewise having interstate bickering and might have left that body post war.
The E.U. luckily has no army and can’t fight England to remain. Is interesting though to compare the two events.
>>Sort of like the cargo cults in the Pacific in WWII. The Euros made certain observations but in their lack of understanding their attempt to reproduce success was only marginally successful.
That’s exactly why the EU failed and the US (prior to the rise of the UniParty) thrived. There are fundamental differences between Americans and Europeans. Our ancestors left for a reason, mostly because they were dissatisfied with some aspect of European society or government.
When our political “betters” started talking about how we needed to be more like Europe a couple decades ago, that set off alarm bells in my head. If my ancestors has wanted to be more like Europe, they would have stayed home.
America’s success (pre-UniParty) was simple: “Welcome to the New World. You better find something useful to do before you run out of money and starve.”
And the people who got off those ships were already one step ahead because they came here to find some thing useful to do and to do a lot more than avoid starving. They thrived even if it was hard work.
The Europeans they left behind never got that until after the World Wars, but then all they did was to either gather under the umbrella of the USA or the umbrella of the USSR.
If you have never read “Sometimes a Great Notion” you simply must. It was also a great movie starring Paul Newman. THE great American novel.
Ever read the EU Constitution?
I did, and it was an amazing, appalling train wreck of political correctness and special interests.
It made me realize how beautiful the US Constitution is.
Quote:
“The younger set that had no experience with self-government voted to stay..”
The Millennials think they are “citizens of the world.” They owe no allegiance to any flag or any country, only the Global Socialist Utopia and its “flag,” the flag of Multiculturalism.
This is why Obama’s popularity remains high, why Bernie Sanders was actually taken seriously, and why Hillary Clinton is the favorite in November.
Kumbaya collectivists build a new world order, only to misjudge the willingness of the massess to conform. Then comes the hammer, the regulations to limit freedom, the taxes to redistribute income from the productive to the snoozing class.
What’s not to eventually pull apart?
Just the initial thinking of The Plymouth Colony, although on a grander scale.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3096175/posts
The Maastricht Treaty was fundamentally flawed. The architects of the euro recognized that it was an incomplete construct: it had a common central bank but it lacked a common treasury that could issue bonds that would be obligations of all the member states. - George Soros
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/09/27/tragedy-european-union-and-how-resolve-it/
I read it 40 years ago. It was terrific, I agree. But what is the connection here? Self-reliance?
The elusive quest for the Great American novel has been around for a long time. Twain’s Roughing It and Huck Finn were great candidates. The point being, America WAS different and a Great American novel could explain how, why, etc. than economists or sociologists.
Ken Kesey did it. NEVER GIVE AN INCH. We can do better than this sticker patch. He really displayed the American ideal. The fighting against all odds. The rugged independence. I think of it frequently.
No one in the long waiting line with me seemed at all impatient and acted with a sort of grateful obeisance when they finally reached the counter. It suddenly occurred to me that in Europe the idea of proper order from top to bottom is still the State (replacing God), the Executive (replacing the King), the Bureaucracy (replacing the Nobility), the Security Apparatus (replacing the Knights and Junkers), and at the bottom the mass of Citizenry (aka Peasants and Serfs).
In America our idea is quite different, in fact turning that European pyramid on its head to put the Citizenry on top. And while reality is subject to the greed of the self styled "elites" and willingness of humans to be intimidated, we nonetheless work from a very different set of beliefs and principles than the descendants of those who lacked the balls to say "f#(& this!", board rickety leaking boats, and cross an ocean.
Multiculturalism will destroy your “upside down pyramid” model of America. Allegiance to the Global Socialist Utopia means submitting to it.
Like the cargo cults failed, like any attempt to recreate a thing will fail absent real understanding will fail. Trying to recreate American Success and Exceptionalism without understanding will fail. The first attempt, IMHO, is understand Roughing It, Huck Finn, Sometimes a Great Notion, and later, what went wrong, Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr Rosewater and Ice Nine, Sirens of Titan, Army of Mars. What we are could not be created without a firm knowledge of WHO we are just as Zero could not destroy us because no matter how much power he grabs he is not one of us. No libtard is. They don’t know who we even are. So even though they lie and squirm 24/7 we know they can not destroy us though we attend to their perfidy only occasionally rather spending our time duck hunting or building a family run lumber business. We can beat them IN OUR SPARE TIME. It has to be infuriating for libtards and perhaps explains much of the Libtard Derangement Syndrome.
Zactly
About time! Those nations should never have lofted a governmental body over their own.
It was EU/PU from day one.
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