With the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty coming up in just a couple of weeks, the Powers That Be in the European Union are doing their utmost to silence and disable any opposition to their grand project of total European The latest move involves a procedural change in the European Parliament. According to The Telegraph:
Plans to eliminate Eurosceptics as an organised opposition within the European Parliament are expected to be agreed by a majority of MEPs this summer.
The European Union assembly’s political establishment is pushing through changes that will silence dissidents by changing the rules allowing Euro-MPs to form political groupings.
Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP, is leading the charge to cut the number of party political tendencies in the Parliament next year, a move that would dissolve UKIP’s pan-European Eurosceptic “Independence and Democracy” grouping.
Under the rule change, the largest and most pro-EU groups would tighten their grip on the Parliament’s political agenda and keep control of lavish funding.
In other words, only the big guys will be allowed a seat at the table. The little guys can forget it, and since the Euro-skeptics are — surprise! — a smaller group, they’ll be disallowed.
Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, claimed that the move goes hand in hand with the denial of popular votes on the new EU Treaty.
“Welcome to your future. This shows an EU mindset that is arrogant, anti-democratic and frankly scary,” he said.
“These people are so scared of public opinion they are willing to set in stone the right to ignore it. Freedom requires the governing elite to be held to account. They must be getting very worried if they are enacting such dictatorial powers for themselves.”
“Worried” may not be quite the right word. A combination of “prudent” and “unscrupulous” seems more appropriate to me. The nomenklatura of the EU know that any frank discussion of the Lisbon Treaty will be its undoing, so they are determined at all costs to eliminate any frank discussion.
- - - - - - - - -
Current rules allow 20 MEPs from a fifth of the EU’s member states to form groupings, giving them a say in the Parliament’s administration and power structure.
Under the changes, the threshold would become 30 MEPs from one quarter of the EU’s member states.
The Liberal Democrats, Greens, the far Left, Eurosceptics and other groupings have vowed to oppose the plans during a vote scheduled for July 9. Andrew Duff, leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat Euro-MPs and a committed EU Federalist, has opposed the silencing of UKIP on the basis of democratic principle.
“Whatever one’s views about their politics it cannot be argued that these small groups do not represent a strand of European public opinion,” he said.
“If the European Parliament is to be the legitimate forum for post-national democracy, all sorts of minority opinions have to be given effective, if proportionate representation.”
The European Parliament, by its very nature, will never be a legitimate democratic forum. It is structurally impossible. The only way the EU can possibly maintain itself is by suspending democratic processes, because the opinion of the European “regions” will always be against it.
The President of the European Commission has resorted to outright threats against the Irish if they have the temerity to say “No” to Lisbon. His strategy is likely to backfire, however, since — if my wife is any indication — the Irish are contrarians by nature.
According to the Irish Independent:
Ireland and Europe will “pay a price” if there is a ‘No’ vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned voters last night.
Putting the gun to Irish heads ahead of the referendum in just over a fortnight, Mr Barroso said rejection of the EU Reform Treaty would be bad for the whole of Europe, including Ireland.
His comments could be used by the ‘No’ campaign to show that Europe is trying to coerce Ireland into voting ‘Yes’.
They will cause a further headache for the ‘Yes’ campaign, which is already watching its lead narrowing while also trying to fight public confusion on the treaty’s details.
Mr. Barroso is emblematic of the cabal of Lisbon-supporters, which includes a who’s-who of senior statesmen, former prime ministers, eminences grises, and various apparatchiks who feed out of the gold-lined trough in Brussels.
On the other hand, the strange bedfellows that make up the opposition are a motley crew. Among the people urging the Irish to vote “No” are hard-core socialists, a prominent Anglican clergyman, and Irish farmers who object to the WTO negotiations being conducted on their behalf by the European Union. And we mustn’t forget the information warriors of the Counterjihad, as represented by the readers of this blog and others like it.
Fjordman has this to say in today’s Brussels Journal:
This is part of a long-term plan to merge Europe with the Islamic world. As I’ve said many times before, the creation of Eurabia constitutes nothing less than the greatest betrayal in the history of European civilization, possibly the greatest betrayal in the history of any civilization. An entire continent, the cradle of the greatest civilization mankind has ever seen, is to be culturally dismantled and turned into an obedient dumping ground for demographic warfare by its Islamic enemies. Those among the indigenous peoples who object to this will be harassed, and opposition to these policies will be banned by law. This is done by the very same individuals who are supposed to be these nations’ entrusted leaders.
The time has now come for the natives of Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Spain, Greece and other countries to treat the European Union for what it is: An aggressively hostile organization fundamentally opposed to anything we hold dear.
Opponents are pinning their hopes on the Irish referendum, and the bookies in Dublin have recalculated the odds in favor of a “No” vote.
So the signs are not auspicious for the EU. According to The Telegraph:
Superstitious EU officials are also keenly aware that the referendum result will be announced on an inauspicious date, Friday the 13th of June.
My advice to the mandarins of the EU is this: watch out for black cats, and don’t walk under any ladders between now and June 13th.
Hat tip: Gaia.
62 comments:
Wow, very scary stuff. It just shows how completely anti-democratic the EUSSR already is. What it will become once it's fully constituted is nothing less that a dictatorship, pure and simple. The will of the European people doesn't matter to them.
To all our European friends, be strong, be brave.
Though the aims of liberalism are symmetrical with Communism -- and given that Communism itself is an attempt to extend liberal democratic equality into the economic sphere by abolishing private property -- we still shouldn't call the EU the EUSSR. It isn't really accurate. Compare the two constitution documents of the EU and the USSR for instance. I appreciate the need to attach a rhetorical devil to the EU, but could we choose a better one?
I'm in favour of this sort of label-affixing.
Big government has become the new opiate of the masses and serves as the tool with which we will all be enslaved. I am as opposed to the EU superstate as I am to the continuing consolidation of power in the US federal government. Freedom lies with local government due to its proximity to the governed. The global stateless elites that sit atop emerging superstates revel in the insulation that a superstate provides. They know that by the very size of big government that they have little chance of being held accountable by the governed.
Fortunately in the US we actually have state primacy written into our Constitution. Unfortunately though most people are too stupid, lazy, or morally corrupt to understand separation of powers and limited government and it is precisely this ignorance that allows our power hungry "leaders" to tighten their grip on us.
In a somewhat related aside, I spotted a bumper the other day that said "Liberals Care". To me that sums up the problem exactly and brought two thoughts immediately to mind, 1) when did "feeling" surpass "reason" as a foundation for good government and 2) who allowed Liberals to define what is meant to "care"?
I would argue that it is far more compassionate, to borrow from Christ, to teach a man to fish rather than to give him a fish but Liberals by their very nature "feel" compelled to immediately relieve the man's burden rather than helping him develop the skills to relive his own burden.
Thus the Liberal (superstate) gains power over the man in need and has created a client whose needs will forever require the Liberal (superstate). Perhaps the relationship can be described as co-dependent. The Liberal needs the affirmation gained from "helping" while the client can avoid responsibility for their own actions.
The Conservative (small government kind) seeks to free the man from the bondage of government.
How about this for a bumper sticker?
"Liberals Care, They Just Don't Think"
or, maybe:
"Liberals Care About All the Wrong Things"
or
"Liberals Care, But They Don't Give a Darn About You"
I'm on the telephone already, ensuring my Irish relatives will vote 'No'.
Notice how Andrew Duff, a committed EU Federalist,is quite comfortable with the complete loss of national sovereignty for each European state with his phrase "post-national democracy".
These people have been lying and plotting the betrayal of European nations for decades, and as Fjordman's post indicates, not just to form an EU Federation, but Eurabia.
Muslims will never live under Infidel law, the very nature of Islam forbids it, so what truly baffles me is that those who have schemed to establish this EU monster seem to believe that they will continue 'life as normal' under Islam. Islam will not go away willingly, it can't. It will never back down, never entertain assimilation, integration or an 'also ran' status. It can only be forced down and then held down as long as it's adversaries are capable and willing to apply pressure; tragically, at the moment there are only welcoming embraces for this evil creed.
What is the endgame here for Islam once they have conquered Europe? are their eyes then to turn to The Great Satan? They will have access to the nuclear weapons of both Britain and France. What these fools leading the charge to Eurabia must be made to understand is that Islam will never, ever back away. Just how to get that across to them is the problem.
"The more liberals - the more CAIR"
Btw, I have just found the most amazing blog about what's going on in Italy:
http://parmigiana.wordpress.com/
For those of you that can read Swedish. The only pity is that it's not written in English, because it's world class information about what's happening in Italy right now.
Homophobic Horse, I'm digging into the story of the European Union (The Great Deception) these days, and I assure you that the 'EUSSR' moniker has merit. Nothing is a perfect match, of course, but this one is workable.
Probably the finest example of a prefect Soviet-style system in EU is the Common Fishery Policy, which came into being by improvisation because France and the other early EU countries saw an opportunity to gain access to the outstanding fishing waters of the Northern countries Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. They simply made up that policy from scratch to get to our fish-rich waters, then implemented a stupid control system that wasted billions of fish (they're also living beings) and an ecological disaster to boot. Soviet couldn't have done better.
The EUSSR label is a mixture of what's already there and of what might come down the road if we're not vigilant. During the Lisbon process our political leaders detatched themselves from their voters, and I doubt they'd be able to find their way back. They will keep making mistakes, and our job is to call them on it, systematically.
The Soviet Union also had a nice-sounding constitution riddled with loopholes, and the loopholes are there in Lisbon and related documents (such as the ECHR).
The Byzantine array of treaties, conventions, judgements etc. are already close to impenetrable by the average citizen, and I expect this obscurity to get worse.
It is appropriate to raise the spectre of the Soviet Union, and it is up to us, as ordinary citizens, to sound the alarm when things take the wrong turns.
@HH,
EUSA: EUnited States of Arabia (don't know how to pronounce this. Perhaps: Eeew! - Ez - Ai?)
Little story:
The notorious Ludwig Christian Haeusser (born, 1881) once styled himself "President of the United States of Europe".
It was in those crazy Weimar days that this bearded, long-haired prophet of a German "master race", who took up nudism so as to personify the "naked truth," unfolded his political programme. It included the closure of all asylums and prisons and the pardoning of their inmates; the universal abolition of property; a ten-day strike; and a reformed officialdom, whose watchword would be to be nice to the disadvantaged. The guillotine awaited anyone who resisted the "spirit of truth" revealed by the "peoples Kaiser". He sometimes ate leaves and slept in ditches. He attracted quite a following, mainly women, who were blindly devoted to the prophet. On one occasion a very drunk Haeusser leaned over the lectern in the middle of a public lecture and vomited over the audience, whereupon several young women rushed to get mops and buckets to preserve the stomach contents of "the saviour".
His business as a champagne seller went to pieces as customers who came to buy champagne were treated to hours of prophetic ramblings. He ended up in jail and while every other political jailbird was being pardoned, including Adolf Hitler, the prophet stayed behind bars. He died in June 1927, 45 years old.
[Source: Michael Burleigh. Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to al-Qaeda]
Moral of the story?
Then as now, people dreaming of the "integration" of Europe are chiefly power-hungry cranks most of whom belong behind bars.
@Dymphna,
How about this one:
- "Liberals care, you Pay" -
@henrik,
I noticed several times that you're interested in sound historical scholarship ;-)
So have you read anything by Michael Burleigh yet? It's good.
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Er, wait a minute here.
There are 785 members in the European parliament. Are you telling me that the Euroskeptics will be permanently disenfranchised because they cannot muster THIRTY (less than 4%) of these members into a coherent group?
If Euroskepticism is truly an emerging force, there should be no problem elected thirty euroskeptics to the European parliament.
Ah, but I know the next comeback - THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IS RIGGED AGAINST THE EUROSKEPTICS!
Well, in Great Britain that rigging is called "first past the post" elections in districts, which is an electoral system used in the UK (and the US) to ensure a two-party system of power.
Perhaps we should abolish the system. BUT WAIT! This is the system used in British politics for time immemorial - abolishing it would in fact take away a key element of the unique national British character so beloved by Archonix and other "little Britain" posters on Gates of Vienna.
Unless Euroskepticism is truly a frail flower, it will have no problem mustering 30 members out of 785. If it can't do that, then maybe Fjordman, the Brussels Journal crowd, GOV regulars, and the other eurohaters are indulging in delusions of grandeur
Sagunto, I didn't do any Burleigh yet. If you were to suggest just one book, which would it be?
Decatur: Muslim immigration needs to be completely and permanently stopped, if necessary banned by law. Even that isn't enough, we need deportations of sharia-sponsoring Muslims. Infidels cannot coexist with Islam.
I'm giving serious thought to putting all of my writing about the EU, Eurabia and the EUSSR available for republishing, also in print, for those who desire this. I haven't decided yet, but will do so within the end of this summer.
If Euroskepticism is truly an emerging force, there should be no problem elected thirty euroskeptics to the European parliament.
Unfortunately, I think you're setting the chart before the horse here. Euroscepticism is getting stronger within some circles of the independent elite, not because we have much of an idea how to fix the problems, but because we notice them and consider them BAD.
For the moment, Euroscepticism is more of an intellectual sport than a mass movement. We get letters printed in the newspapers, articles published on blogs, and make contacts. We try to confront relevant politicians and civil servants with the problems, but they usually prefer a retreat over a confrontation. That's easier in the first place, but damages the confidence in the system in the long term, a damage not easily repaired.
Personally, I hope we can make clear that a deep, democratic reform of the EU is needed. Friends of mine differ and hold that it needs to be abolished in its entirety. I can't see how we can maintain our confidence in the current system, but predicting the future is not a favorite sport of mine.
For now, I'm just learning and reacting.
Regarding the electoral system, it is indeed approaching the British, and my party in Denmark, even though we take a healthy 12-14 % in national elections, might have trouble getting even a single MEP, because the eurosceptics in Denmark are quite divided, one MEP each.
What the large groups in the EP are trying is of course to make the eurosceptics less visible, hoping the problem will go away. They should, of course, face the issues *raised* by the eurosceptics, but don't hold your breath for them being that fair.
Public awareness of the inherent problems of the EU is still so low that it is not really a factor at the polls. Even the eurosceptics - and our party belongs there - seems to draw most of the votes on a hazy notion of loss of self-rule rather than a precise understanding of the problems.
OK, one for the future:
If the eurosceptics ever become a major force in the European Parliament, it would be when the system at large is about to fail. Which certainly isn't imminent.
There is a simply way to deal with this. Simply elect anti-EU legislators locally.
Then abrogate the treaty one state at a time.
No member states = no EU.
@henrik,
It's the middle part of a trilogy actually, but definitely this one: Earthly Powers
Sag.
Thanks, Sagunto. Looks like it's just up my alley dealing with legitimacy of rule from religous and/or secular sources. A copy is now headed my way. Hardcover. I *love* hardcover books. £16 - fair price.
Are you telling me that the Euroskeptics will be permanently disenfranchised because they cannot muster THIRTY (less than 4%) of these members into a coherent group?
It's not just 30 members, but they must now come from 25% of the member countries rather than 20%. It dilutes to irrelevance countries that have larger Euroskeptic delegations, which is exactly the point.
Off topic
------------------------------
Baron, you know I like your writings but, hadn't Fjordman said he would write 1001 essays? So please, do not forget to follow Fjordman's work. No matter what.
Also, I always wonder what happens in places where the MSM suddently fails to report what is happening.
Haven't you have nothing about Pakistan or something?
Thanks.
Well, I'll always be a Portuguese don't matter what but with things following this course, I wonder if I wouldn't be more confortable in Argentina, in the hot of Rio or São Paulo or in the cold of Moscow or St. Petresburg...
Barroso, Sócrates, Lisbon... so many Portuguese names evolved in such evil. Sorry, world!
Do not hate us...
@Henrik,
Fair price indeed. I switched to hardbacks when too many paperbacks were returned by friends in a terrible state (one by prof. Watson about the Lost literature of Socialism a good companion to Hayek's seminal work). What some can do to books, the horror..!
Thomas Woods is one author I regularly see on your list of recommendations, and rightly so. His works are particularly interesting 'cause economic issues are very well covered, due to his association to the Austrian School of Economics (L von Mises institute). Now his work really embodies the true traditionalist, conservative (classical liberal), and free market spirit. Would be a welcome antidote to the EU perversion of free market economics.
Speaking about well priced hardcovers coming one's way, I'm eagerly awaiting Rothbarth's 2-volume take on the history of economics. Necessary reading i.m.o. for anyone writing about the "left" vs "right" distinction, often done without any reference to economics, which is somewhat of a surprise, 'cause you'd think economics is where it all starts.
Anyway, here's an insightful article by Rothbard on the history of economic ideas, of course leading all the way back to the Medieval Scholastics, once again ;-)
Sag.
"Liberals care, you Pay"
Nice.
Saharians --
Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the second of these rules.
By "temperate" I mean: No exhortations to commit violence or foment insurrection, etc.
If you are advocating that our governments pursue the kind policy you recommend, please make it explicit, for that is a different matter.
Fjordman, I agree with you and have called for the same thing here in that - from my perspective - Islam as an ideology is simply not compatible with any of the views we hold. I'm not saying this well.
This post is so stirring it has inspired me to write another one on Ireland and the up-coming vote June 12. I wish we could vote on the North American Union. :)
Great post...
Sagunto,
EUSA: EUnited States of Arabia (don't know how to pronounce this. Perhaps: Eeew! - Ez - Ai?)
Forget about EUSSR or EUSA. Eeew! summarizes it just fine.
"Liberals care, you Pay"
Brilliant!
The Irish are always up for a good fight, so threatening them would be the wrong way to go about getting a "yes" vote out of them - they'll just dig their feet in harder.
Sagunto,
Now his work really embodies the true traditionalist, conservative (classical liberal), and free market spirit
You are confused. You think left and right is about economy, but the real difference is about culture. Probably because you, like everyone else, are surrounded by a society of cultural leftism in an age of cultural leftism. Hayek, Rothbard etc, are not conservatives but right-liberals. Yes, so much better than left-liberals, but still liberals. All on the Fukuyama bandwagon to the end of history by liberal democracy.
Even the paleo-libertarians inspired by Rothbard have turned left-wing.
Economy is a light-weight issue. Leftism is cultural in its nature. There's no real contradiction between leftism and capitalism, they go fine hand in hand. And people who are blind to the cultural nature of leftism, and bought the image of politics being all about economy, and bound to adopt the cultural leftism themselves.
And concerning a matter that was recently discussed. Read here how the American oil industry handed over half the profit to the Saudi's (for free!) in a typically right-wing way (if defined as economically right-wing), i.e. or tax reasons!
[In 1950] King Saud decided that Saudi Arabia should get 50% of the oil profits. But instead of increasing royalties, Saudi Arabia passed an income tax...
Aramco could have fought the tax, since a 1933 agreement with the Saudi Arabian government barred income taxes. But it decided to pay anyway, because the tax did not actually cost Aramco any additional money. It simply shifted the company's tax payments from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia.
Very business-wise. And civilizationally suicidal! And the Saudis continued to bully the Americans until the point where they had taken over all of Aramco. The end result being that America has arranged for all the funding of the spread of Wahhabi Jihadism around the world. A country represented by men in business suits should not go into enemy land and find valuable resources in the first place--such girlie-men cannot handle it.
The talk about weaning off oil should have been done even before digging for it in the Middle East. Now it's too late. Or better, remove the men in business suits--this uniform of egalitarian pacifism--from the top of society. We need to go back to a conservative society where properly trained classes of military and diplomatic aristocracies deal with foreign affairs. And organic society where different classes of people are like the different organs of the body, and what you do is your life form. A society represented by business suits illustrates how egalitarian it is, how every person is an exchangeable commodity, how void of substance. And the world around us are studying how easily bullied we are, and they are laughing at us and despise us.
We can get off oil, but it'll be a super-large 'Manhatten Project'
I do all kinds of little lobbying in blogs and letters, including my favorite: Electostatic fusion
We should have dropped the oil habit when the Shah of Iran suggested it in 1973...
Since I was mentioned by nym I shall briefly comment:
The EU parliament is elected by proportional representation, in districts that have been gerrymandered to favour Europhile parties. It is, in fact, a system entirely alien to British tradition.
There are, nonetheless, more than 30 people in the toy parliament capable of calling themselves eurosceptic, however they do not find amongst themselves representatives from 30% of the EU, since they are concentrated into just a few highly eurosceptic countries. Many of the eurosceptics in parliament are also members of parties who's official policy is to avoid grouping with other eurosceptics. Many of the big supposedly euroscepetic parties (the tories come to mind) also draw up for themselves party lists that do not reflect the stated policies of the party, largely consisting of ardent europhiles (and remember, this is proportional representation, you vote for the party and not the candidate). Why? I haven't a clue. It's probably to do with the penetration of just about every political party in every country by europhile politicians.
So there it is. The EU is a thoroughly undemocratic institution hiding behind the false democracy of a "parliament" with no power, which is now itself taking steps to abrogate that democratic sheen.
Regarding lobbying, here's an example (in Danish):
Using algae for fuel
It's a press release from Dansk Folkeparti, based on an article from our engineering weekly. People like myself are forwarding this information to the politicians, and they use it. Builds connections, too.
Henrik,
We can get off oil, but it'll be a super-large 'Manhatten Project'
Yes, it's a huge project, and I don't think a society as degenerate and dysfunctional as ours, without any real adults in leading positions, can pull it off.
But more importantly, the whole idea is like the vegans and animal rights people who stay away from certain products out of purity code. If we stop buying oil from the Arabs, then the Chinese, the Russians, etc., will continue buying it, and the Arabs will stay equally rich. We however will fall a step behind China etc. To replace oil took huge amounts of investment money from us, and the replacements aren't as effective as the oil. The only thing we achieve is to live according to our purity code.
This is what the so-called "tough" and "conservative" right-wing has come to: suggestions that are fully congruent with the purity code of vegans and animal rights people. Useless!
It's annoying to hear people regurgitating this sort of folly over and over as there was anything tough with it, without thinking for a second whether it has any proper meaning.
CS, note a difference in approach here:
I know we're in a messy state, politically. But instead of worrying about that, we can point at solutions, then hopefully someone are going to pick them up. Islands of common sense and foresight will have energy when the crisis truely breaks, and the more of these islands we have, the better.
Planting seeds for future growth, it is.
Henrik,
Suggesting to weaning off oil sends all the wrong signals of self-sacrifice, cowardness and useless sanctimoniousness. It makes people continue in their irresponsible ways. It's congruent with the Global Warming scam in the respect that the cure is to act together with a swarm of Christian good mini-deeds from the small people, and with governmentally imposed micromanagement. This doesn't build men of virtue.
While on the contrary, the idea of invading the Persian Gulf to regain our oil embodies and emits all the right sense of morality: self-interest, courage and justice. This is what builds men of virtue.
And regarding a possible oil crisis, I apply a Bjorn Lomborg sort of approach: better to be as rich and top technological level as possible when it happens. And then deal with the problem when it appears (if it appears) when we know what shape it will really take.
[quote=ConSwede]
"..Sagunto,
You are confused. You think left and right is about economy, but the real difference is about culture. Probably because you, like everyone else, are surrounded by a society of cultural leftism in an age of cultural leftism. Hayek, Rothbard etc, are not conservatives but right-liberals. Yes, so much better than left-liberals, but still liberals. All on the Fukuyama bandwagon to the end of history by liberal democracy.."
Well CS, I might be a little confused, by for instance upholding the delusional belief that the creation of wealth in a free market and the defense of liberty (e.g. against statism) are two closely related sides of the same golden coin, but I'm not entirely convinced that you're not even more so.
In any case, whatever your argument is: conflating Hayek with Fukuyama, imagining them on the same "bandwagon" is a hilarious blanket statement for anyone who has ever read anything by F. A. Hayek. If anything, it just simply adds to whatever confusion there might be.
Moreover, in my comment @henrik I referred to "his work.. etc." when I talked about Thomas Woods and his thoughts on free market economy and liberty in the old Jeffersonian sense.
Now I want to keep this reply a.s.a.p. (as short as possible) and provide you with some in vivo info about the beforementioned scholar, while also keeping a close eye to the topic at hand, i.e. about the EEEEW!, so this is what I'll do:
Below is a link to a genuinely entertaining lecture by Thom Woods in which he speaks, among other things, about "The Principles of '98". That part starts at about 7min30sec, though I recommend the whole rest of the lecture as well.
The point here is, that prof. Woods shows the importance of these forgotten Jeffersonian Principles as cultural foundations for genuine opposition to an overarching centralist State in America, whether in the hands of liberal leftists or "conservative" right-wing leftists. The link with the EEEEW!-situation is obvious i.m.o. and worthy of close attention.
Meanwhile, you CS, may decide for yourself whether you think that Thom Woods is confused by the omnipresent cultural leftism, which obviously surrounds you no less, I imagine?
Here's the lecture by prof. Woods
Enjoy.
Sagunto,
creation of wealth in a free market and the defense of liberty (e.g. against statism)
There you have it: cultural leftism in a nutshell. Short-sighted, individualist goals of liberty and wealth, anti-state sentiments, etc. The mindset for tearing a civilization apart. In cultural leftism the will of the individual is the highest sovereign instance. Among other things this hands over the power to Muslims and other turbo-breeders, since they have the highest number of individuals.
Sagunto,
Below is a link to a genuinely entertaining lecture by Thom Woods in which he speaks, among other things, about "The Principles of '98". That part starts at about 7min30sec
A typical liberal, who sees freedom as a metaphysical absolute (here freedom of speech), without even considering problematizing the issue of attacks on your own government in the middle of the war. This is the seed of the anti-Vietnam War mentality, something typically American (unmatched before in history).
There are no checks and balances in the mind of Thomas Woods. He's the usual culturally leftist freedom-fascist. Destructive to our civilization, quite as the E.U. is.
@CS,
Why don't you first try and view the lecture and then attempt to build an argument that at least sounds like you're ready for something that resembles a rational exchange of views, eh? Just for a minute (well in fact the 45 minutes it takes to actually listen to Mr. Woods) try to refrain from the typical quasi-prophetic rambling, like you did when trumpeting your unspecific faith in some form of paganism (what was y'r favorite among those many gods again?).
Then I'd like to hear from you - after listening what prof. Woods says about them - what you think of Jefferson's Principles of '98, perhaps even provide sound scholarship or a book that you might have read to support any claims you wish to make.
Here's the link once more:
Principles of '98, prof. Woods' lecture
* * *
@henrik, @Fjordman, and others,
Just to be sure to get some reasoned feedback on the abovementioned Principles of '98, and the importance I see to wed traditionalist localism to that Jeffersonian opposition to an allmighty SuperState (see e.g. Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal on that particular topic of traditionalist localism), I want to ask you guys what you think of those principles mentioned by Thom Woods in his lecture, in relation to the threat of the EU superstate. Obviously I think there's a lot of merit in those principles; what do you think?
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
P.s.:
In the earlier post I mentioned 7min30sec as a starting point but it's actually a bit earlier and the introduction is quite funny, so I won't bother to pinpoint the exact moment the principles are introduced.
I'm with Conservative Swede on the oil issue. There's no point in weaning ourselves off oil if the alternative isn't cheap and plentiful enough to edge oil off the market. Any "Manhattan Project" should have as its goal a product which provides the energy more cheaply per BTU, and without any government subsidy.
But there are immense oil reserves in the USA which haven't been tapped yet, which are now economically feasible to go after, and whose extraction won't violate any EPA rules. Google "Bakken formation" and see what I mean.
The utilization of these reserves would not only seriously reduce our dependence on Saudi oil, it would cause the price to drop to the point that that the sheikhs would really feel the pain.
Conservative Swede,
"We need to go back to a conservative society where properly trained classes of military and diplomatic aristocracies deal with foreign affairs."
Once again, I agree with you and I've already come up with such "horrendous" idea on my own. Nice to know there are some people "walking the same path" (or who have walked...).
But looking back there is a big problem. Degeneration.
Nobility has a tendence to degenerate and to close on itself. It excludes "noble, valuable" people but includes some jerks who have been born to great parents.
At some point, nobility will not enforce "education" and will "take it for granted".
The class will cease to have the "men of virtue".
My conclusion to the question "What can we do to stop degeneration of the higher classes?" is:
You have to invent a meritocratic nobility; nobility can not be that closed and there has to be a great competition on who's noble or not. Dynamics, like in Free Market. We have to put money under nobility and somehow assure that only men of virtue can be rich so that a man is noble first and only after that can he be successfull. But it is (more or less so) utopian.
Do you already have such a solution to that question?
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Sagunto,
I like your comments very much but I simply can not see left/right in such a materialistic way. And that is because I do piously believe that "rightism" is not materialist, leftism is.
Imagine this scenario: You live in Holland and hold dear Amsterdam, as well as you hold dear freedom.
Now imagine a Dutch Amsterdam as free as you want, exactly as you idealize it in a utopian way.
You wolud live there happy and free and Dutch, as well as your children and great children. But after that, Amsterdam would be muslim.
This is leftism. It is only worried about the present, not considered what the legacy will be.
On the right side of the Earth, right wing people wouldn't mind to go trough enormous sacrifices as long as their legacy would continue "for ever". It is quiet metaphysical. But not. Because the rightist not perfect Amsterdam would be a much better place in two hundred years than the in-your-life-time perfect Amsterdam.
Do you recall the Jewish King Salomon (Salomão)?
He got knowledge and winsdom and Israel turned great but after him it was chaos, in such an extent that Nabucodonossor and Hitler happened. (Salomão being culturally right wing and the other Jews in question culturally leftists)
This is the difference between left/right wings:
The left attemtpts to create a perfect (utopian) world in which its members can live and desfrutate;
The right tries to create not a Universalistic utopian perfect world but "our" perfect world, with the principles we hold us ours, immortal, that define us. The principles and vallues we apreciate more. The right knows the perfect world will not be built today or tomorrow but makes an effort to perfectionate the world generation by generation, being loyal to the "immortal" principles.
That's why Hard-line-conservatives are always so not confused when it comes to complicated ethic judgements: Exs: Abortion; Wars like Irak, Vietname and in a lesser extent WWII; "racism"; etc.
That's also why I not commented on Henrik's thread about the muslim charities. Because I see in that such a moral elevation that we in the West can only aspire. It is something created in the community that strenghtens the community and makes it loyal to their VII century desert tribal vallues.
I have more resoect for Ben Laden than for, say... Obama?
I'm with Conservative Swede on the oil issue.
Baron, I .. stick to my guns.
There's no point in weaning ourselves off oil if the alternative isn't cheap and plentiful enough to edge oil off the market.
Oh. It is. We've got wind accounting for some 20-25 % of electricity in Denmark. I just reported on an exiting project to make algae provide jet fuel. Norway is busy constructing a Thorium-based nuclear reactor which is much safer than Uranium-based. And while classical nuclear power has a strong revival (I've always been for), my favorit is Eletrostatic Fusion, where the prototypes blow away traditional nuclear energy on both safety and efficiency.
Any "Manhattan Project" should have as its goal a product which provides the energy more cheaply per BTU.
Yes. That's a moving target, of course.
and without any government subsidy.
While government-funded research has been discredited in many fields, I think this is an exception. I'd certainly make energy research a priority over welfare handouts, if I get the choice.
The "Bakken formations" (no, I don't need to Google) is but a temporary solution, and it still produces CO2. Geothermical energy might be the key to making it feasible, skyrocketing oil prices help, too, but we need something better, and we need it fast.
CS:
the idea of invading the Persian Gulf to regain our oil.
CS, sometimes I wonder if you're doing a parody... The oil in the Middle East is *not* ours. Deal with it - I do.
Poster Formerly Known as Gordon: "Well, in Great Britain that rigging is called "first past the post" elections in districts, which is an electoral system used in the UK (and the US) to ensure a two-party system of power. Perhaps we should abolish the system."
Yes you should abolish your system. I think the difference between the US two-party system and the English two-party system used to be that the English sytem was controlled from the top down, while in the US, it was a grassroots organization. The English system was obviously less democratic than the American system. Today, both systems are out of order, as conservative voters have to vote for parties that are not conservative at all. Proportional representation would help to unlock the system.
As Archonix said, Britain already uses a form of proportional representation for the EU elections.
Sagunto,
I will listen to the whole speech when I find the time.
Then I'd like to hear from you - after listening what prof. Woods says about them - what you think of Jefferson's Principles of '98, perhaps even provide sound scholarship or a book that you might have read to support any claims you wish to make.
This is a typical liberal pattern of argument. You lack the confidence in rational reasoning. Not being able to asses an argument on its own grounds, but having to hear it from an authority (books, scholarship) to being able to believe in it.
We hear the same argument from liberals when discussing the Koran. A rational approach by reading the Koran in the context of the Hadiths, pointing out what the Koran itself professes to say, is considered invalid. Only the authority of scholars is trusted. Liberals consider it more important to read the "scholars" than to read the Koran itself and reason about it.
typical quasi-prophetic rambling, like you did when trumpeting your unspecific faith in some form of paganism (what was y'r favorite among those many gods again?).
You have misunderstood my argument in that thread. It was an argument against Christianity, not an argument for Paganism (except for implicitly). I would say that you are intentionally misrepresenting my argument here, since you are intelligent enough to understand the very basics of my argument, e.g. that I clearly didn't promote any specific God. While I think this approach would have bought you support in any liberal forum, it surely doesn't give you any points here.
I will sum up what you don't like about the EU: Henrik thinks it is a French plot to gain access to the fishing waters of Northern Europe. Fjordman thinks it is part of a long-term plan to merge Europe with the Islamic world. Baron Bodissey thinks the European Parliament, by its very nature, will never be a legitimate democratic forum... Well, I think your arguments are too disparate and do not add up to any coherent criticism.
What I don't like about the EU is that it is now falling prey to the same left-wing ideology that has already infected most governments and institutions in the west. But it is no worse than the French of British government in that respect.
Sagunto,
I'm listening to the speak again. The case is is illustrated by the typical kind of liberal whining. The supposed "tyranny" that Jefferson was fighting was exemplified with a man having wished that one of the saluting cannon would fire a cannon ball right into President John Adams, and for this has fined $100. I think this is a perfectly legitimate law in a situation of war, and that it would have been splendid if such a law had been in place during the Vietnam War so that Jane Fonda could have been fined (today's equivalent of) $100 for posing on a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun.
Woods then goes on about his idealistic idea of a contract with the state. But a state cannot hold together if all inhabitants and all parts of a nation should consider themselves as equals to the state. Hobbes had more of the right idea here. The individuals of a society cede their rights to the sovereign for the sake of protection. However, if the sovereign fails his/their task, he will be overturned by rebellion.
The main fault of Woods argument is that he doesn't problematize the issue of attacks on your own government in the middle of the war. If free speech and any attacks on the government is to be considered as absolute, how then are we going to be able to deal with traitors of the nation? And if we cannot deal with the traitors, how could we motivate internment of foreigners that could pose a threat to a nation under war?
There has to be a balance of free speech and localism in a state. These are not absolute values more important than the state as such. And here we are discussing the situation of war. In a situation of peace, a federation like the American could allow for fairly unconstrained localism and free speech, but not in a situation of war. Woods is trying to extract a principle from the example he gives, but he gets it all wrong since he doesn't have a balanced idea of how a free government must work, since he's a liberal with anti-state sentiments. (Check Burke for how a free government must work.)
But the example is interesting in itself. Apparently the war here was a phony war. And clearly the sovereign (here represented by the Federalist Party and President John Adams) didn't do their job very well. So they were opposed by the states of Virginia and Kentucky. That this was possible was due to the weakness of the sovereign (due to a weak position in pushing a phony war) and in consequence weakened the American state even more. So John Adams and the states of Virginia and Kentucky managed to make the state of America weaker in the face of war, for the future to come. And this is lauded, by Woods and Sangunto, as one of the great conservative(?) principles behind the state of America! Get out of here!
Sagunto, Prof. Woods hits home in the most admirable way!
I think this split right to interpret the constitution is just and fair. The EU, obviously, hasn't concieved of this principle even in its deepest nightmares.
While I'm too tired right now to listen to the whole speech, I did click in at Bookdepository.co.uk and pick up a copy of his Politically Incorrect Guide on the subject.
Now, I don't see much of a chance for EU to implement the principles of '98 (that's 1798, BTW), as it would cause the construct to fall apart within a week, perhaps two.
One way to use this difference is to point out that the EU is on its way to becoming a radically more centralized superstate than the USA, and that the 'checks and balances' - which are not always working properly in the US even - of the EU system are deeply flawed.
CS seems to be a bit in the rambling corner today. Anything less conservative than Fred Thompson is an unbearably misguided .. liberal.
I'm certainly more on the Woods side of things, in particular on the importance of Christianity for building a bearable society. But that's another long story :)
And just when I was fed up with CS, he issues this gem:
The main fault of Woods argument is that he doesn't problematize the issue of attacks on your own government in the middle of the war.
That's a really good question. Using strong methods of force obviously doesn't cut it, but what then? Attacks on the government and on relevant institutions weakens our confidence in them, and that lead to some quite severe problems.
I'm quite blank on what would be effective.
Henrik --
I assume that you know that wind isn't a viable option in all locations. Denmark is fortunate in having reliably steady winds that cross the peninsula and the islands.
I'm all in favor of nuclear power. Unfortunately, in the USA the deck is stacked against it, thanks to the mindless Luddites in the media.
But none of these solutions solves the main problem: how to power vehicles. The vast bulk of oil is consumed by motor vehicles of one sort or another. The hybrid cars offer some hope for a solution, but the issue is not yet settled.
While government-funded research has been discredited in many fields, I think this is an exception.
I never said that I opposed government-funded research, merely the subsidy of the industry itself. Ethanol is what comes to mind in that department.
Government-funded research may or may not be helpful, depending on the circumstances.
The "Bakken formations" (no, I don't need to Google) is but a temporary solution, and it still produces CO2.
Nobody has absolutely convinced me that more CO2 in the atmosphere is actually bad for us. It's gobbled up by plants to produce more biomass -- satellite photos have demonstrated the increased growth of forests and savannas -- which makes agriculture more productive across the globe.
And, as for any possible global warming, I haven't seen a cost-benefit analysis that weighs the flooding of Bangladesh and the Low Countries against the benefits of moving northern Canada and Siberia into the temperate zones.
Are we really worse off if the planet warms up a few degrees, and the atmosphere has more available carbon? I haven't been convinced one way or the other, and I'm keeping an open mind.
Henrik,
CS seems to be a bit in the rambling corner today.
I made a serious and perfectly reasoned argument, but apparently you were unable to deal with it in a rational discourse. Maybe reality clashed with idealism too much here for you to stomach it? Not having the energy to debate but only to say "I disagree" is perfectly fine, but to refer to a reasoned argument as "rambling" is low and indicative of a loser attitude.
One way to use this difference is to point out that the EU is on its way to becoming a radically more centralized superstate than the USA
Any country can leave the EU at any time they want. And they should start doing it. The problem is that with the same sort of political oligarchy in every country, no one has done it yet. But it's bound to happen in a not so distant future.
EU to implement the principles of '98
The problem with EU and its constitution is that it is phony and illegitimate. It needs to be dissolved--not amended.
And had the EU been legitimate and a proper federation, then it couldn't have had any "principles of '98" protecting the "rights" of Hanoi Janes. It would lead to anarchy. Which is, by the way, sort of what we have had all the time in EU, The EU directions and laws have always been interpreted differently in each country, where the meticulous Swedes have always interpreted them literally, while the laudable Southern Europeans always had a more relaxed attitude. Ordinary laws work less and less within the EU, while the glossocratic soft-totalitarianism is tightening its grip.
Yes, I would support implementing the principles of '98 for the EU. Precisely since they are designed to torpedo a federation, and that I'd love to see the EU torpedoed. But to elevate and generalize these principles as "sound conservative" principles for a proper federation is lunacy.
Henrik,
CS: the idea of invading the Persian Gulf to regain our oil.
CS, sometimes I wonder if you're doing a parody... The oil in the Middle East is *not* ours. Deal with it - I do.
Well, we owned it once and now we do not anymore. Something happened in between that involved a lot of improper threats and blackmailing from the Arabs. The process can be summarized as improper acquisition of property. That's why I speak about regaining our oil. That's dealing with it!
So who is, according to you, the non-parodic, legitimate owner of the oil?
And regardless of any possible disagreement between us on that issue: If we take it back, then we will own it, right? Would you dispute that?
Putting above comment of yours in parallel with this:
CS seems to be a bit in the rambling corner today. Anything less conservative than Fred Thompson is an unbearably misguided .. liberal.
Then it has become clear to me that your are taking the archetypal liberal position faced with a conservative. A liberal cannot conceive that the argument of a conservative is seriously meant. How could anyone, in good faith, deviate from the universal liberal truth? It must be a mistake, the person having a bad day, some issue, or that he's clinging to guns or religion?
There are of course many layers of liberals, a whole spectrum ranging from left-liberals to right-liberals, with different degrees of reality check, quite a few of whom refer to themselves as conservatives. But they all react the same way in the face of a conservative argument coming from beyond their horizon. They are unable to understand that it's made in good faith. And they are unable to reason about the premises of what they hold as the universal liberal truths, since they were never reasoned into them in the first place.
Henrik,
I might as well ask you too:
Who's the proper owner of the Golan Heights, and on what grounds?
Baron,
Nobody has absolutely convinced me that more CO2 in the atmosphere is actually bad for us.
The whole CO2 scaremongering is a fraud, from the beginning to the end. As you pointed out CO2 is a perfectly natural gas, and one of the gases of life on this planet. And the C02 does not stay in the atmosphere. Isotope analysis shows that only 5% of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels. According to Henry's law most of it goes into the ocean when there is an increase. And when it increases in the oceans it goes further down into calcite sedimentary rocks at the bottom of the oceans. These are balancing systems. And the magnitude of those calcite sedimentary rocks are a thousandfold more than the estimated amount of fossil fuel, so it can swallow it even if we would burn up all of it.
CO2 makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere. The dominating greenhouse gas is water vapor. Greenhouse gases captures heat waves each in specific intervals. CO2 only catches two narrow intervals, that are not already covered by water vapor. And the CO2 cannot capture more than all the infrared waves in those intervals. So there's a limit to it even if the CO2 wouldn't have gone down into the ocean, which it does. Furthermore, anyone who knows some basics about physics, know that when a greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere, the effect of it just increases logarithmically (it's like putting random black dots on a piece of white paper, the blackness grows logarithmically). So even if the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would double (which it wouldn't, because it goes down into the ocean), the increased greenhouse effect would still be rather small.
So there's nothing to this CO2 scaremongering. It's just the usual leftist/liberal hysteria based on lies, fake science and bullying. Just as Patrick Moore, founder and defector from Greenpeace, pointed out: these people want to ban chlorine. And as he said "Chlorine is an element in the periodical system, I don't believe it is in our jurisdiction to ban that."
Are we really worse off if the planet warms up a few degrees, and the atmosphere has more available carbon?
The planet is not warming but cooling. There has been no warming since the turn of the century, and recently the global temperature drop 0.6 degrees Celsius, which is as much as the whole increase of the 20th century. The ices of Antarctica are at their all time high then since satellite measures started in the '70s. The strait between Greenland and Canada is all completely frozen. Etc.
It's all a complete scam, promoted by holier-than-thou leftist/liberals. And upheld by lying media. Anyone surprised? This is the same deal as with everything. How can anyone trust the UN and the media?
And no, the temperature is not gonna increase with a few degrees. Impossible. As I have described, the systems of this planet are balancing.
Some references:
Ice between Canada and SW Greenland: highest level in 15 years.
Antarctic ice grows to record levels
On climate sensitivity
Another global "warming" link:
A review of the major global temperature metrics for April 2008: Still globally cooler than 1 year ago
Curves from the four major global temperature metrics. Two of which from satellites, two from ground measurements. Notice the lack of change. 1998 was El Niño. Of course this was also the year which the alarmists extrapolated from to draw the curves that hit straight up in the air. From January '07 to January '08 the drop was 0.6 degrees, as much as the whole global increase of the 20th century.
Well, we owned it once and now we do not anymore.
When, exactly, did we own it?
During the times of the Ottoman Empire?
During the French/British/Italian mandate times?
Other?
As for nuclear power, it is having a resurgence. Moonbats are trying to stop progress here, of course, but if we're being a little skillfull here, the public opinion will change in the right direction.
And I'm sure *none* of you took the time to investigate what the Electrostatic Fusion thing is about. It's mind-blowing, and it's safe. I'm promoting it actively behind the scenes in Denmark and Scandinavia (knowing the editor of a science magazine helps :)
As for global warming or not, I *hate* the way Al Bore exploits it to get back on the world stage. But I still take it seriously, though it's not proven yet.
Sure, I have a personal interest in this. Large areas of Copenhagen is within 10 meters of sea level, as is my own house. Others may not care if my house is flooded. I do.
There's a lot of doubt about global warming, and a lot of classical semi-fascist Gore-style powergrab connected to it. Still, I had noticed the problem 10 years ago and was wondering why noone paid attention to it. Suddenly everyone did, all at the same time...
In any case, I'm using the global warming scare as leverage to do what I think makes sense: To further the development of an oil-free energy infrastructure. Some of us can use wind, some can use solar energy, some biofuels.
All can use nuclear power, and one of the most interesting nuclear energy sources can be scooped up in the Mojave Desert: Boron
Life's interesting :)
Every time I hear the phrase "Global Warming" as being the cause for something, my body starts to tense up and I get the urge to want to murder someone.
VinceP, this is a very natural emotional reaction to the eco-fascists and their grab for political power on the issue.
It is also a clear sign that something important is at stake, and that something is wrong.
Thus, rather than focusing on incompetent liberals, I look for solutions that may take care of it all, both independence from Arabs and going to 0-CO2 emmission, which would silence the Gore wing forever.
Go nuclear - it's worth it :)
According to Henry's law most of it goes into the ocean when there is an increase.
Which is a problem. CO2 in water becomes an acid, and the sea waters turn more acidic. Now, those in land-locked nations may not consider that to be much of a problem, but we water-lovers know that it is. In particular, it makes gellyfish replace fish in the oceans. Just try frying one of *those* for dinner...
Henrik,
When, exactly, did we own it?
Wait, wow, so you did your whole "sometimes I wonder if you're doing a parody... The oil in the Middle East is *not* ours. Deal with it - I do" act, based on not having a clue at all about the issue. Neat!
Anyway, in 1933 the U.S. paid $275,000 to Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud for the oil concessions. The king laughed at the Americans for buying sand.
Liberals know what's the true Islam without ever opening the Koran. They know a priori since the universal liberal truth tells them that. Don't you think that you are doing the same sort of mistake here, Henrik? Being so dead certain about an issue that you do not actually know about.
@Henrik R Clausen
"Sure, I have a personal interest in this. Large areas of Copenhagen is within 10 meters of sea level, as is my own house. Others may not care if my house is flooded. I do."
Indeed, others do not care if Copenhagen gets flooded or not. Do you believe that the rest of the world will stop consuming oil even if Denmark did? No way.
Henrik,
Which is a problem. CO2 in water becomes an acid, and the sea waters turn more acidic. Now, those in land-locked nations may not consider that to be much of a problem, but we water-lovers know that it is. In particular, it makes gellyfish replace fish in the oceans. Just try frying one of *those* for dinner...
Hey hey, don't you run amook again with oversimplified extrapolations. These are balancing systems. First of all, the ocean holds 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. And as I already decribed the carbonic acid does not just stay and accumulte in the ocean. There are several processes that turn it into plant life and into carbonate sediments. Take off your blinkers and look at the whole system.
Here is a good introduction:
In the carbon cycle, atmospheric CO2 diffuses into lakes and oceans at the surface, where it may be used in photosynthesis by aquatic plants, or remain as dissolved carbonates and bicarbonates. Many oceanic (and also fresh water) animals such as crustaceans and corals convert carbonate and bicarbonate ions into fairly insoluble calcium carbonate sediments which settle to the ocean bottom. Over time these sediments become compressed into carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite.
Henrik,
Sure, I have a personal interest in this. Large areas of Copenhagen is within 10 meters of sea level, as is my own house. Others may not care if my house is flooded. I do.
Ahhh, so you really take this fear mongering seriously! How come that people continue to take their cues from the UN and the media? When will they ever learn...
There's a lot of doubt about global warming
No there's not. The whole Anthropogenic Global Warming is a scam. It's fake science from the beginning to the end, and it has been falsified over and over again. But what does that matter to the priesthood of this revivalist movement since they are in full control of the tools of propaganda and ostracism.
Vince,
Every time I hear the phrase "Global Warming" as being the cause for something, my body starts to tense up and I get the urge to want to murder someone.
You will emit an excess of CO2 in the process (and possibly methane). A few years from now, people like you will be sent to therapy camps in order to reduce the emissions.
@Henrik,
[quote=henrik]
"..Now, I don't see much of a chance for EU to implement the principles of '98 (that's 1798, BTW), as it would cause the construct to fall apart within a week, perhaps two.."
And wouldn't that be nice! ;-)
But I see what you mean. That's why I suggested to combine the P'98 with the ideas that Paul Belien wrote about in his essay on localism (link in my previous post). To keep my comment short, I didn't elaborate, but the main point of that combination would be that neither the EU nor the national governments are the focus of attention. What communities would be the obvious ones to adopt these P'98s? Well, look at Belgium and the Flemish call for independence. The people of Flanders would be the likely candidate, not the govt of Belgium for instance. So to a certain extent, resistance to the EU will go hand in hand with resisting the political elites in every nation belonging to the EU. That resistance (both against the EU and islamization for that matter) will most likely come from the traditionalist units indentified by Mr. Belien in Europe. In the US those units are more readily associated with the different states.
***
@afonso,
[quote=afonso]
"..Sagunto,
I like your comments very much.."
Now let's not get too friendly over here afonso. Remember there might be a thrilling match of football Portugal-Holland still ahead ;-)
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
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