The Brexit cascade
Other European nations (can we still use that word?) clamor for their own referendums:
Now eight more countries want to hold referendums to exit the EU ”“ France, Holland, Italy, Austria, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, and Slovakia all could leave.
The unthinkable is now quite thinkable. Will any of it happen? No one knows, just as no one knew what would happen in Britain (for that matter, we stil don’t know how this will play out there over time).
Government by referendum is dicey. Note that in the US we don’t have national referendums, at least none of which I’m aware. This is not an accident; it’s because we are a republic and have chosen not to go that route—so far. In general in the past, US presidents have had discretion in joining alliances that involve foreign policy (or trade), often with the approval of Congress (for example, joining NATO involved a combination of President Truman plus Congressional approval; see this).
Since Brexit was decided by referendum, I was wondering whether the Brits also had joined the EU by referendum, and whether other EU countries had joined that way, as well. Here’s a summary, and the answer is that some nations did and some didn’t use referendums to make their initial decisions (after a “yes” decision, of course, the EU then makes its own decision about whether to accept each country).
Referendums seem not just dicey but somewhat arbitrary in their timing and use. For example, in Britain there was one in 1975 in which the voters chose to remain in what was then the European Communities (an EU forerunner with less power than the EU now has), but that was the first and last referendum on EU membership in Britain until this recent one.
Earlier incarnations of the EU, called by other names (Common Market, for example, towards the beginning) really were trade agreements in nature. Today’s EU has morphed into something much much more—an overbearing political and economic entity that constitutes an overarching and powerful nanny-state hand that reaches out from Brussels to grip the rest of its member-nations in a tight and less-than-loving embrace. It’s something most countries’ populations never voted for and never bargained for, and it’s not surprising that they might want out.
On the EU’s website, there’s a page devoted to the EU’s Founding Fathers. Very surprised to see Winston Churchill listed, who is quoted as calling for “the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’.”
Perhaps Churchill envisioned more of a republican USE in which the central power was limited. I can’t believe he could have ever dreamed of regulating banana curvature. I also can’t believe he could have imagined a bunch of unelected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels determining whic tea kettles are permissable.
Ann:
Hugh Hewitt and Dr. Larry Arne discussed Brexit and Winston Churchill in the Hillsdale Dialogs from last Friday, available on line today. Churchill’s position was “With it but not in it.” He supported the formation of a precursor to the EU but wanted Great Brittan not be part of it. So the EU website may not be entirely “accurate?”
Expat:
If you delve into the 175,000 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations, you will find that un-elected bureaucrats decree much of the minutiae of our daily lives.
Of course California is fond of Referendums (called propositions).
The most famous, or notorious, was Prop 13 governing Real Estate taxes. It is much bally hoo’d as reducing taxes. Well, anytime the government speaks someone needs to explain the fine print. If you were a resident when it was passed, you made out; if you moved to the state later, you paid for those who made out. Kind of like every welfare program–somebody pays.
Lots of balls in the air. It will be very interesting to see how many can be juggled.
The U.K. doesn’t usually hold referenda and when it does they are advisory and not binding as Parliament is sovereign. When they are held they are usually on constitutional matters and as the U.K.’s constitution is not written the need does not arise often.
I think it is wrong to say that the US doesn’t use referenda. While true at the federal level quite a few states and smaller areas do hold votes on various propositions. California springs to mind.
Of the countries listed, I would guess Hungary to be the most likely to leave the EU. I’m highly doubtful that either France or Portugal will leave.
London Trader:
Well, I don’t see anyone saying we don’t use referendums. I wrote: “Note that in the US we don’t have national referendums,” and I even italicized national to try to make it clear that I meant on the national rather than state level.
States use them, of course.
CapnRusty,
I would have no problem firing a bunch of our own bureaucrats and cleaning up the regulations.
The six founding countries of the EU are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
What that really means is Germany>France>Italy> Holland.
Think of the EU as the Axis powers plus Vichy France conquering all of Europe, no shots fired. And now come the migrants! Maybe they can be conscripted into an EU army of color, constantly bleating “Allahu Akbar.”
Those ungrateful Morlocks! Don’t they realize we’re ruling them for their own good?
Italy barely wants to stay part of Italy, much less part of the EU. But man, untangling currency is hard. The usual way it’s done is by killing half the ruling class and declaring a new government.
It’s really tough to see France exiting. If they did, the system would be over. No way half of Europe is staying in a coalition dominated by Germany.
Neo: I missed your use of national (and reading it on my phone certainly missed the italics). Note that they are pretty rare in the UK too. The last national one was in fact the 1975 one you mention (I think). There have been a number of regional ones all on the question of devolution or independence.
When the Euro came into being some 14 years ago economist Milton Friedman gave it 10 years. His argument was that one could not create a common currency without a common political will.
While his timeline might have been off, IMO what we are seeing with Brexit and the potential Frexit, Italexit, et. al., is the surfacing of that lack of common political will which Friedman referenced.
The European Union has been revealed as an organization intent on erasing national differences — no more should one be a “German” or “French” or Slovak,” but should be a citizen of a greater Europe whose loyalties lie in Brussels, not Paris or Berlin or Warsaw, Prague, Athens or Rome. As Friedman predicted, we now see the futility of believing that one can impose a common will among autonomous nations.
neo: “Referendums seem not just dicey but somewhat arbitrary in their timing and use. For example, in Britain there was one in 1975 in which the voters chose to remain in what was then the European Communities (an EU forerunner with less power than the EU now has), but that was the first and last referendum on EU membership in Britain until this recent one.”
One man, one vote, one time.
The Left uses the same rationale.
Anytime their agenda is defeated, they push and push until they get another bite at the apple (Congressional vote, election, judicial review, whatever).
Once the laws or rulings run their way, then “the science is settled” forever.
Like democracy, referendums are bad, except everything else is worse.
Switzerland manages fine with plenty of referendums.
They are the best way to manage constitutional change, in my view. Anything else looks like party-politicking.
And if Britain had not held the referendum, do you think the problem would have gone away? Because that’s now what generally happens to problems you ignore.
Well, I don’t see anyone saying we don’t use referendums.
We don’t. The Constitution doesn’t allow for them – Thank G-d.
This is just another reason why Barky’s idiotic White House petition site is so un-American and alien.Well, I don’t see anyone saying we don’t use referendums.
We don’t. The Constitution doesn’t allow for them – Thank G-d.
This is just another reason why Barky’s idiotic White House petition site is so un-American and alien.
Furthermore, our Founding Fathers despised the idea of pure democracy (referenda) and explicitly constructed the US with this in mind. The Constitution is built to restrict the whims of the People in the same way that it restricts the powers of the formal branches of government. What James Madison said about pure democracies pretty much tells you everything you need to know about referenda and our nation:
Democracy is the most vile form of government. … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as the have been violent in their deaths.
National referenda are about as un-American as you can get.
progressoverpeace:
That point was about referendums in general—meaning that in the US some states have them, so no one was saying we don’t have referendums at all in this country.
We don’t have national referendums because we are not a pure democracy (and yes, it is logical to assume that the Founders would have been against them), but there is nothing in the Constitution explicitly banning them.
Article 5 is the ultimate referendum. Let the hunger games begin. May the odds be in your favor. Personally, I welcome a convention of the states.
The most famous, or notorious, was Prop 13 governing Real Estate taxes. It is much bally hoo’d as reducing taxes. Well, anytime the government speaks someone needs to explain the fine print. If you were a resident when it was passed, you made out; if you moved to the state later, you paid for those who made out. Kind of like every welfare program—somebody pays.
—————–
Yes, and no.
What Prop 13 did was to restrict the increase in property taxes that could be levied from year to year. So if you’ve just moved into a new house, then you’ll be paying the full property value of the house as a tax. But if you stay in the house for ten years, you could very well end up paying significantly less than what the county assessors would like you to pay.
Prop 13 was passed back when real estate values first shot up in the residential areas of California. Because property taxes are based on the value of the property, people suddenly had to pay exorbitantly higher amounts of money in property taxes than they’d previously anticipated. In particular, retirees, who were now on more or less fixed incomes, were suddenly in danger of losing homes that they’d lived in for their entire lives. Prop 13 helped to stabilize the tax situation for long-time residents, while still allowing the local governments to bring in income through property taxes (the traditional method of paying for the county budget) being paid at full value by new residents. Of course, as those residents settled in, the value of their property would end up rising at a much faster rate than the taxes that they paid on the property each year.
but there is nothing in the Constitution explicitly banning them.
The Constitution guarantees that all States will have REPUBLICAN forms of government. James Madison spends all of Federalist 10 explaining how bad pure democracy is and why republican forms of government are the only reasonable solution to problems of democratic factions causing mischief. You can make of that what you will, I guess …
A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a
republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the
latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; — Madison, Federalist 10
Constitution, Art IV, Sec 4:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
And, BTW, I was addressing exactly what you had written in your comment – where you went to pains to make the point that you were talking about national referenda (as I commented on). I’m not sure why you took issue with that … But, if you had wanted the whole nine yards, State referenda are clearly against the Constitution, too, as I explained above.
We do have a form of referendum at the state level, ballot initiatives. Usually, initiatives seek to amend the state’s constitution. So it is the people deciding directly the wording of their state’s fundamental law.
Case in point: Proposition 8 in California, by which the citizens decided to amend their own constitution to restrict marriage to one man* and one woman.* A federal court then ruled that Californians could not decide such things for themselves, emulating the pontiffs of the EU (“How dare the stupid little people make decisions for themselves!”).
So, we don’t have national referenda that can be utilized to initiate change, but states can theoretically use referenda to allow citizens to participate directly in the making their laws. However, any state referendum can be nullified if our central government doesn’t agree with it, which means the central government can veto the results of a referendum.
In the present controversy, Britain is a bit like a U.S. state, and we shall now see the EU attempt to quash the will of the little people, as did our Federal Government with Prop 8.
* Of course, the terms “man” and “woman” are no longer operative.
Why Brussels?
they can never resist word games, and so much of this “duping delight” where they do things that hide things that those in the know or care will figure out… tons of it… tons and tons of it.
i guess starvating and having to eat your children was better than prostituting your daughter… but then again, marxist feminism has turned the average young girl into a prostitute that gives it away, and does things prostitutes of the past refused or would charge high fees for… not only that, but she puts it in instagram, facebook, etc… and the elite no longer have to try to get around the family.. and they no longer have to be responsble for children that come from using the underclass. it also has the added benefit of exterminating the underglass with below replacement and leaving the wealthy to repopulate the upperclass with their genetics, while erasing the middle class as a pool for new elite. [leaving dummies on the bottom and able on the top, and repeating the worst of the egyptian society.. which is interesting given that they have put obilisks and such wereever they progressively have gone and taken over…]
another thing to pay attention to is the “code words” that they took from marx and his days in paris… this is where FORWARDS became big for hitler jugand later as Voorworts, and for the communists as Vpered…
Bakunin used anti-Jewish sentiments that suggested a Jewish system of global exploitation;
This whole Jewish world, comprising a single exploiting sect, a kind of blood sucking people, a kind of organic destructive collective parasite, going beyond not only the frontiers of states, but of political opinion, this world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other… This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralisation of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found
Early nationalism: I feel myself always the patriot of all oppressed fatherlands. . . Nationality. . . is a historic, local fact which, like all real and harmless facts, has the right to claim general acceptance. . . Every people, like every person, is involuntarily that which it is and therefore has a right to be itself. . . Nationality is not a principle; it is a legitimate fact, just as individuality is. Every nationality, great or small, has the incontestable right to be itself, to live according to its own nature. This right is simply the corollary of the general principal of freedom. -Bukunin [quoted by Alfredo M. Bonanno in Anarchism and the National Liberation Struggle, pp. 19—20]
but back to marx…
it was that funky austrian fellow with the gas mask inspired moustache that took up this work and created “the final solution to the jewish question” as his landmark program to free the world of capitalism, which was said in these documents to be an invention of the jews and would not be eradicated until they were removed or changed
which is why Forwards! was obama campaign slogan, the hitler youth, and the communists of stalin era… and its also why LEAGUE became code word for communism socialism as a way to identify fellow travelers and avoid being connected… ie. like isis lone wolves are described by the socialists to use that idea against the idea of a coordinated effort, as if only direct orders are valid. (no, the CPUSA and other groups put out goals and then let the termites go at it without orders so the conspiracy could never be dismantled or proven… now ISIS does the same)
remember, obamas ayers weathermen came from the SID, which before that was the LID. League of Industrial Democracy
Like other more benign organizations, the public ignores these coordinating games and until its so much and so bad… then they react and wash them.. which is why in woodrow wilsons time and FDR, league was the key word… but like socialism and communism they wear out the positive cache and then move on, which is why league is rarely in use today, when it was literally all over before… as what happened to Forwards! and so on.
What Barack Obama’s ‘Forward’ Slogan Really Means
It behooves conservatives to understand where progressive are coming from.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/scott-galupo/2012/05/02/what-barack-obamas-forward-slogan-really-means
to those that know the history and the game, they speak clearly, to those that dont, there is doubt and no belief whatsoever.
which is why they won and now are just cleaning up..
read it before its cut down… who knows how long it will last… enjoy!
Some people have wondered why the Irish/Scot/English don’t ask for US Statehood.
It seems to me you may have overshot the mark in this case, and that despite what Madison might have intended by “Republican” as synonymous with representative democracy, those who commented on the section, had in mind a more common, etymologically understood definition.
” 326 Thus, Randolph on June 11, supporting Madison’s version pending then, said that ‘‘a republican government must be the basis of our national union; and no state in it ought to have it in their power to change its government into a monarchy.’’
1 id. at 206. Again, on July 18, when Wilson and Mason indicated their understanding that the object of the proposal was ‘‘merely’’ to protect States against violence, Randolph asserted: ‘‘The Resoln. has 2 Objects. 1. to secure Republican government.
2. to suppress domestic commotions. He urged the necessity of both these provisions.’’ 2 id. at 47. Following speakers alluded to the dangers of monarchy being created peacefully as necessitating the provision. Id. at 48. See W. WIECEK, THE GUARANTEE CLAUSE OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION ch. 2 (1972).”
Constitution of the United States Annotated
Again, I am not perfectly clear on the precise contention here, but ballot initiatives are pretty common in the states.
Perhaps some of the commenters have always lived in states where no such process exists under law.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/initiative-referendum-and-recall-overview.aspx
Parker, we view Prop 13 through different lenses. I moved into California four years ago, and bought a house that had been occupied by the same couple for 25. They certainly benefited from Prop 13 were paying less property tax than I paid in Virginia–where all property is reassesed every three years, and the tax rate may, or may not, be adjusted. When I bought the property the tax value more than doubled. Same property, major tax increase overnight..
California could have reformed their property tax system in many ways; they chose, by referendum, to install a system that benefited the current population and penalized the devil out of late comers.
Probably a common temptation in pure Democracy situations to benefit the majority and penalize the minority. The Founders understood this.
A friend uses this as his email signature: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.”
Oldflyer,
I am not clear on how you think we differ. You folks in CA can go your own way. I was posting about the option of Article 5 to put a halter and bit on the beltway.
Another take on Brexit
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/146709758156/the-time-i-accidentally-plunged-europe-into
Angela Merkel is facing calls for a referendum to free German people of “EU slavery” in the wake of Britain’s sensational decision to cut ties with Brussels. Far right figures in Alternative for Germany have promised to call their own vote if they clutch power in country’s general election in autumn next year. A party spokesman branded Brussels a “bureaucracy monster”, before adding: “Next year the AfD will enter the German parliament and Dexit will be top on our agenda”.
The Republic, which died in the US, was the lesser evil. Democracy, direct and its variations, is the greater evil by implication.
People should keep that in mind whenever people talk about voting for the lesser evil in this direct democratic system, pseudo oligarchy, of a USA.