EU Constitution is Dead (for the moment)
Northwest Harbor, Me: The Editor discourages weekend political postings in a worthy effort to reduce weekend agitation, but I just want to say that France was, for once, right - but for the wrong reason - in rejecting the EU Constitution. Their reason was that they did not want more capitalism sauvage imposed by Brussels.
But, on the the larger issue, they were correct: France didn't want to sacrifice its autonomy (even if their motives are in error and their understanding of economics is infantile). That is good. That represents an aspiration for freedom and a healthy distrust of distant government. Didn't they have an ugly revolution about that kind of thing? Watch the Netherlands vote "no" too - another weenie nation headed straight towards third-world status. Why have these nations no faith in the energy, productivity, responsibility, self-sufficiency, and ambition of their people? They have become nations of infants, voting for milk in baby-bottles. Pathetic.
Bill Kristol in The Weekly Standard:
It's hard for Americans to appreciate just how out-of-touch the establishment (and it really is a single establishment) of Paris, Berlin, the Hague, and Brussels is. Its arrogance almost beyond belief. Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the father of the 448-article constitution, early on in the campaign dismissed complaints about the document's opacity by assuring his countrymen, "The text is easily read and quite well phrased, which I can say all the more easily since I wrote it myself." As Ivan Rioufol of Le Figaro, writing in the Wall Street
Journal, commented, "The French didn't know whether he was simply cynical or unaware of the absurdity of his statement. And so he became a caricature of the self-obsessed, aloof politician."Now, watch for calls for a re-match. Hey, EU, how about best of 3?
That's enough. I am off to the boat, and God Bless America and protect our brave men at arms.
