Adam's Apple
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- Apr 25, 2004
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In Rejection of The EU, Voices of Pride
By James P. Pinkerton for Newsday
June 21, 2005
GENEVA - This is a great place to observe the workings - and unworkings - of the European Union, because the Swiss were never dumb enough to get caught up in the politico-bureaucratic trap of the EU.
The failure of the European Union to become a "United States of Europe" provides a cautionary lesson to all those - on the right as well as the left - who think national borders and cultural traditions are just so many scraps of paper to be trampled upon in the name of some abstract global Good.
The Swiss are nobody's enemy. They haven't fought a foreign war since 1815. Indeed, they are eager to trade with anyone, as well as offer foreigners those famously secretive Swiss bank accounts.
But precisely because Switzerland became a rich country by doing its own thing, the Swiss never wanted to join the EU, the 25-member-state conglomeration that stretches from Portugal to Finland to Greece.
The EU has been in the news lately because voters in two linchpin countries, France and Holland, voted down the proposed EU constitution that would have cemented the Union. That constitution was a 474-page brick of a document, written by pan-European elites who wanted to flatten the continent, politically, so that decisions about the fate of 450 million people would be made in Brussels, far beyond the reach of any mere individual nation.
Americans, who prize state and local control of their government, would immediately reject any similar attempt to move political authority to Washington, let alone move it to a coalition of foreigners headquartered in a foreign country. But most observers thought that the Europeans were different and that people there would vote for the new EU constitution, thus forever mixing the Irish and the Spanish and the Maltese into the same Brussels blender for the benefit of multicultural business, as well as multicultural politics. But of course, because true democracy is impossible when the voters speak 100 different languages, the EU constitution would have ushered in a perpetual Eurocratic reign.
Well, now we know the stubborn truth about Europe. In voting down the constitution, Europeans demonstrated that they, too, have a pride of place and reverence for their unique traditions. They don't want to see their flags, anthems and everything else buried by red tape from a centralized Eurocracy.
for full article:
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppin214313200jun21,0,5541863.column
By James P. Pinkerton for Newsday
June 21, 2005
GENEVA - This is a great place to observe the workings - and unworkings - of the European Union, because the Swiss were never dumb enough to get caught up in the politico-bureaucratic trap of the EU.
The failure of the European Union to become a "United States of Europe" provides a cautionary lesson to all those - on the right as well as the left - who think national borders and cultural traditions are just so many scraps of paper to be trampled upon in the name of some abstract global Good.
The Swiss are nobody's enemy. They haven't fought a foreign war since 1815. Indeed, they are eager to trade with anyone, as well as offer foreigners those famously secretive Swiss bank accounts.
But precisely because Switzerland became a rich country by doing its own thing, the Swiss never wanted to join the EU, the 25-member-state conglomeration that stretches from Portugal to Finland to Greece.
The EU has been in the news lately because voters in two linchpin countries, France and Holland, voted down the proposed EU constitution that would have cemented the Union. That constitution was a 474-page brick of a document, written by pan-European elites who wanted to flatten the continent, politically, so that decisions about the fate of 450 million people would be made in Brussels, far beyond the reach of any mere individual nation.
Americans, who prize state and local control of their government, would immediately reject any similar attempt to move political authority to Washington, let alone move it to a coalition of foreigners headquartered in a foreign country. But most observers thought that the Europeans were different and that people there would vote for the new EU constitution, thus forever mixing the Irish and the Spanish and the Maltese into the same Brussels blender for the benefit of multicultural business, as well as multicultural politics. But of course, because true democracy is impossible when the voters speak 100 different languages, the EU constitution would have ushered in a perpetual Eurocratic reign.
Well, now we know the stubborn truth about Europe. In voting down the constitution, Europeans demonstrated that they, too, have a pride of place and reverence for their unique traditions. They don't want to see their flags, anthems and everything else buried by red tape from a centralized Eurocracy.
for full article:
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppin214313200jun21,0,5541863.column
