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Wildcat oil strikes: Europeans are finally waking up to the demise of democracy
Angry people across the EU are discovering the fine print in all the treaties signed by their leaders, says Janet Daley.
Janet Daley
Last Updated: 7:55AM GMT 02 Feb 2009
The peoples of Europe have finally discovered what they signed up to. I do mean "peoples" (plural) because however much political elites may deceive themselves, the populations of the member states of the EU are culturally, historically and economically separate and distinct. And a significant proportion of them are getting very, very angry.
What the strikers at the Lindsey oil refinery (and their brother supporters in Nottinghamshire and Kent) have discovered is the real meaning of the fine print in those treaties, and the significance of those European court judgments whose interpretation they left to EU obsessives: it is now illegal – illegal – for the government of an EU country to put the needs and concerns of its own population first. It would, for example, be against European law to do what Frank Field has sensibly suggested and reintroduce a system of "work permits" for EU nationals who wished to apply for jobs here.
Meanwhile, demonstrators in Paris and the recalcitrant electorate in Germany are waking up to the consequences of what two generations of European ideologues have thrust upon them: the burden not just of their own economic problems but also the obligation to accept the consequences of their neighbours' debts and failures. Each country is true to its own history in the way it expresses its rage: in France, they take to the streets and throw things at the police, in Germany they threaten the stability of the coalition government, and here, we revive the tradition of wildcat strikes....
...The protesters are simply demanding what they thought – what all free people have been taught to think since the 18th-century enlightenment – was their birthright. That is to say, for the basic principle of modern democracy: the understanding between the state and its people that the proper function of a government is to represent the interests of those who elected it. And to be fair to both presidents, Obama and Roosevelt, this assumption is so deeply grounded in the American psyche that it is almost inconceivable for any US administration not to abide by it quite literally.
In the grand abstract terms of the enlightenment, the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed, and therefore no government should have the right to hand over its authority to some external body which is not democratically accountable to its own people. So when the framers of the EU arranged for the nations of Europe to do exactly that, they were repudiating the two centuries old political struggle for the rights and liberties of ordinary citizens, of government "of the people, by the people and for the people". It has always been my view that this was a quite conscious decision by the EU founders who, in the wake of two world wars, came to believe that the infamous national crimes of the 20th century could be traced directly to the democratic revolutions of the 18th century, and that the only long-term solution to this was to replace democracy with oligarchy....
and recognizing those tendencies, the Founders went out of their way to enumerate the federal powers, reserving the rest to the states, to keep government as close to the people and limited as possible.Adding to that...
During the creation of the Bill of Rights, many ideas were promoted, and, at times, the thoughts were not well expressed in the words proposed in the various items which were to be assembled into the Bill of Rights. Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a Representative from the State of Massachusetts, noted this in a speech in Congress, which was expressed in The Congressional Register of 14 August 1789: "Mr. Gerry said they were not well expressed, we have it here 'government being intended for the benefit of the people,' this holds up an idea that all the governments of the earth are intended for the benefit of the people: Now, I am so far from being of this opinion, that I don't believe that one out of fifty is intended for any such purpose. I believe the establishment of most governments was to gratify the ambition of an individual, who by fraud, force, or accident, had made himself master of the people. If we contemplate the history of nations, ancient or modern, we shall find they originated either in fraud or force, or both; if this is demonstrable, how can we pretend to say that governments are intended for the benefit of those who are most oppressed by them. This maxim does not appear to me to be strictly true in fact, therefore I think we ought not to insert it in the constitution."
They didn't.
Governments Derive Their Power From Where?
Governments Derive Their Power From Where?
From the barrel of a gun, of course.
In more civilized societies, there threat of the gun is really all that's needed, but ultimately all laws are empowered by the gun.
Governments Derive Their Power From Where?
From the barrel of a gun, of course.
In more civilized societies, there threat of the gun is really all that's needed, but ultimately all laws are empowered by the gun.
How do they get them ?
From the barrel of a gun, of course.
In more civilized societies, there threat of the gun is really all that's needed, but ultimately all laws are empowered by the gun.
How do they get them ?
They buy them from America usually, but sometimes China, Russia or France.
How do they get them ?
They buy them from America usually, but sometimes China, Russia or France.
And I assume they use tax money to do it ?
They buy them from America usually, but sometimes China, Russia or France.
And I assume they use tax money to do it ?
Most of them rely on natural resource wealth and the granting of concessions to large multinationals. Others rely on the kind support of a patron government. I suppose initially it was just the biggest guy with a club, or maybe a group large enough to take that guy down. See 2001 A Space Odyssey for example.
No, no in America they get their power from purchase power of lobbyist and politicians. In that they use the gunman to do their dirty work.Governments Derive Their Power From Where?
From the barrel of a gun, of course.
In more civilized societies, the threat of the gun is really all that's needed, but ultimately all laws are empowered by the gun.
That gun is either overt, as in repressive societies, or it is implied, as in civil societies.
But in both cases, that gun will be put into play if one refuses to acknowledge the authority of them which wield them.
