The End of Westphalia
You know there’s a chance that hell has frozen over when you see an article titled “A Stealth Coup d’État in the United States” published in Pravda, quoting Thomas Jefferson and authored by a retired United States Army colonel.
Democrat and Republican elected officials continue to block any objective investigation of Barack Obama’s personal history because it would reveal dereliction of duty by most and criminal conspiracy by many.
The politicians recognize that if the truth was told about the depth of the corruption and the extent of the criminality in the government, the American people would rise up in open rebellion against those who have undermined the Constitution and flouted the rule of law.
As Abraham Lincoln said, the American people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. The loyalty of the American people is to our country and our Constitution, not to shady officeholders or petty bureaucrats.
Between now and Election Day on November 6, 2012, there is a window of opportunity to stop the coup d’état, restore the Constitution, uphold the rule of law and pave the way for the election and appointment of honest members of government.
Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?”
The battle line of the Second American Revolution has been drawn: expose Obama and the entire corrupt system protecting him will also be exposed.
The time for education and persuasion is over. The time for resistance has come.
Without commenting on the substance of the article, most people will agree that it’s tone is consistent with the increasing polarization of American, and indeed global politics. It’s now “us” against “them” — everywhere. The term “stealth coup” as applied to Europe is democratic deficit, which denotes the alleged transfer of power to small group of bureaucrats almost without anyone noticing.
Democratic deficit in the European Union was initially used to denote the loss of democratic accountability inherent in national parliaments transferring their right to legislate to ministers meeting in the Council of ministers of the EU. It was considered that this transfer of power should be compensated for by giving an elected European Parliament the right to approve or reject EU legislation. Now that there is an elected European Parliament that (albeit recently) acquired such powers (exercised jointly with the Council in a bicameral legislature), the term has taken on a different and less precise meaning, often linked to the distance between EU institutions and citizens. Opinions differ on how to remedy this, and some argue that the deficit is structural, i.e. cannot be resolved without changing the nature of the Union.
Everybody’s got a demographic deficit and we are told that it’s not a bug, but a feature. In the last few weeks, the leader of Spain has “called on euro members to give up sovereignty over their budgets to cement a fiscal union, reversing his stance from three months earlier”. Nor is he alone. German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a political union as a precondition to Germany considering further bailouts.
A “political union” or phrases like ‘European political integration’ are really a polite way of saying “all your base are belong to us”, a bon mot which if anything means that your nation state as you knew it, is over. Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, the UK, the US — who needs it?
The tendency is so global and yet its currents so unseen that even Henry Kissinger has noticed it only with regard to its effects on Third World countries. He observes that they too have been effectively abolished. Kissinger calls the phenomenon the overthrow of the Westphalian state. Writing in the Washington Post, Kissinger argued that President Obama’s actions in Libya and Syria have now signified the end of internal sovereignty. It’s a cataclysmic event, which like the light from a distant star, has yet to reach the popular through the layers of smoke and mirrors of the MSM.
The modern concept of world order arose in 1648 from the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. In that conflict, competing dynasties sent armies across political borders to impose their conflicting religious norms. This 17th-century version of regime change killed perhaps a third of the population of Central Europe.
To prevent a repetition of this carnage, the Treaty of Westphalia separated international from domestic politics. States, built on national and cultural units, were deemed sovereign within their borders; international politics was confined to their interaction across established boundaries. For the founders, the new concepts of national interest and balance of power amounted to a limitation, not an expansion, of the role of force; it substituted the preservation of equilibrium for the forced conversion of populations. …
The diplomacy generated by the Arab Spring replaces Westphalian principles of equilibrium with a generalized doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In this context, civil conflicts are viewed internationally through prisms of democratic or sectarian concerns. Outside powers demand that the incumbent government negotiate with its opponents for the purpose of transferring power. But because, for both sides, the issue is generally survival, these appeals usually fall on deaf ears. Where the parties are of comparable strength, some degree of outside intervention, including military force, is then invoked to break the deadlock.
Nations — and those who formerly controlled them through the vote in countries where they voted — ain’t what they used to be. They’re in the way now. In place of Merkel’s “it’s for the Euro” the principle “it’s for the children” is substituted for a reason everywhere else. But the problem, as Kissinger points out, is that having abolished the Westphalian principle in one country after another where does it stop?
If adopted as a principle of foreign policy, this form of intervention raises broader questions for U.S. strategy. Does America consider itself obliged to support every popular uprising against any non-democratic government, including those heretofore considered important in sustaining the international system? Is, for example, Saudi Arabia an ally only until public demonstrations develop on its territory? Are we prepared to concede to other states the right to intervene elsewhere on behalf of coreligionists or ethnic kin?
There is nowhere obvious to stop. So the trend will probably keep right on going, not only internationally but domestically.
To those who say matters pertaining to America’s involvement in foreign wars are limited by a Congressional Declaration of War should note two things. First, the President didn’t think it was necessary to even ask Congress about the Libya operation, nor was it in the loop with the regard to the Arab Spring. Second, the President has in general been disinclined to require anything from Congress if his executive action, the reasons for which are protected by executive privilege, will do. For more on this subject, refer alas, to Pravda.
The next and obvious question is why anyone would need Congress any more than one needs a government in Madrid? Remember, it’s for the children.
All of a sudden, almost without anyone noticing it, the entire world is experiencing a “democratic deficit”. Politics has slipped out of popular control. Entire European countries are on the verge of functional abolition without even so much as the courtesy of a faked plebescite.
The silver lining in the situation, if it can be spoken of as such, is that all these shadowy groups towards which sovereignty is being increasingly concentrated are running out of money. Zerohedge points out that Spanish banks are in such dire straits that they are offering toasters and Spiderman beach towels to induce depositors to entrust their savings a little longer to them, the towels being substituted for the toasters, which have run out.
Just how broke they all are was expressed by Italian Prime Minister Monti, not of the three card fame, who “has warned of the apocalyptic consequences of failure at next week’s summit of EU leaders, outlining a potential death spiral whose consequences would become more political than economic.”
One the common characteristics of too-big-to-fail schemes which are on their last legs is the strange juxtaposition between their espoused and vaulting ambitions and tawdry and petty reality. Recently the Obama administration hosted a group of Philadelphia gay activists at the White House. There they were honored by a Marine band. They returned the gesture by posing for photographs giving the finger to the portraits of Ronald Reagan on the White House walls.
But where’s the money? Despite the fetes at the White House the President’s campaign spent more in May than it took raised. In other words, the munchies at the White House ultimately cost more than these gay activists contributed. Here’s hoping they can sell those photos for the price of a cup of coffee in the coming months. As for myself, I would take the toaster.
Belmont Commenters
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Some might say, we can’t have it both ways. Either it’s better to rule by bureaucracy or by citizens in the streets, but not both.
So long as the nation-state has to govern several hundreds of millions with widely diverse interests, perhaps some form of more frequent electronic voting would help get the governments under better control by the citizens. Why not require all bureaucratic orders be re-approved by the elected legislatures annually, or by the citizenry itself if the legislature fails to act, and require they automatically expire if not specifically renewed by an open vote?
As for the unsettled question of interventionism against sovereignty on behalf of human rights, the focus upon political and civil liberties would accomplish much more and sooner if the focus of the human rights regime were turned to economic liberties. They missed this strategy at Westphalia, and it is still missed today at the UN.
“the leader of Spain has “called on euro members to give up sovereignty over their budgets to cement a fiscal union, reversing his stance from three months earlier”.”
I believe this is in reaction to the “running out of other people’s money” problem. His stash is gone… but, if Euro members lose sovereignty over their own budgets then his stash is extended.
Governments all over are doubling down on sucking up the stash. This is the inevitable result of refusing to take a haircut like the rest of us rubes and gave birth to too big to fail fallacy which itself was a thin cover for the great lie; that government can act as an engine of economic growth independent of the private sector. That was in effect the whole basis for communism and it did not turn out well. That it is wholly undemocratic and anathema to our constitution is another matter.
GW Bush may well have initiated this cascade failure the world over by overreacting to terrorist threats, growing government and establishing a precedent for global nation-building. Bold actions have emboldened more radical ones in an equal and opposite re-action. What is sure is that bold actions themselves are not conservative by their nature.
that its tone is consistent with the increasing polarization of American, and indeed global politics
piffle, its tone is consistent with Pravda for the last 80 years.
Communist Internationale sung in some indeterminate language but with English subtitles of Billy Bragg lyrics. I think if you click this link you will qualify for a free tattoo of the Obambus campaign, which will then be applied to you at night without warning.
The original lyrics of the Internationale are in French. And its chorus runs thus:
These lyrics puzzled me for a long time, but now at last I know what they mean. Groupons are coupons that you can use to buy discounted meals at many outlets throughout the world. Why just the other day I enjoyed a delicious dinner with some friends at a restaurant down the street who were in the possession of just such a discount certificate. Now where is the Internationale restaurant?
Yes, it seems to be about food, I don’t habla French but it seems to involve some bad raisins:
Westphalia dead? Where will we get our ham?
Obama was a coup, but G. Bush and a parade of “compassionate conservatives” paved his way. They gave us “duty to protect” and nation building in the savage Muslim sewers of the ME.
Obama was simply the reckoning for what had already transpired. It’s not unlike my selling my house last year in the Los Angeles hills. I thought it was worth about a half million more than it was. When it finally sold, it simply recorded the damage which had happened long before I noticed. So too with Obama. He’s the sequelae of the diseases of affirmative action, unchecked uncrushed communism in academia, identity politics, race pimping pastors in the Black Church, “reaching across the aisle” to the people bent on destroying America, etc.
It’s over. Romney may stir some paroxysms in the corpse, but he is simply a slo-mo cummunistic politician like everybody from Bush 1 on. Lady Liberty sailed away a while ago. We just haven’t done he reckoning yet.
The Yurps and their counter parties in Washington would very much like to spike the democratic deficit but I think that the social mood, if there is such a thing, is running in the other direction.
The hoi polloi has no trust in big institutions and probably no trust in any big government institution at all. They’ll cash the Federal checks as long as they keep coming but I think we’ll see people turning more local to find solutions for community related (political) problems.
Big government liberalism has played its hand – and lost. I don’t think that people are just going to sit around to wait and see what the masters of the universe come up with next. We’ll see.
Wife met Kissinger when she was just a young lass, afoot to the beach with her dog unleashed. Apparently, the commands of the secret service to stop went unheeded by the beast (canine).
Henry was in good form, poised as usual and quieted the alarm of his escorts. In his inimitable rumbling voice, he chided her mildly about the leash policy of Cypress Shores.
Tricky Dick was visiting his Western White House, and the Secretary, lodging neaby, was strolling up for a briefing.
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“The lights are going out all over Europe” — literally.
Well at least they’ve still got water for now.
This is what it has come to in the end. Standing across from the soaring rhetoric of the EU, with its promises of peace, prosperity and equality is the stark reality of utility cut-offs and breadlines. Not to mention bank runs. Nor are prospects really any better across the Atlantic. Hope and Change has come to down to promises of more foodstamps.
And yet the Greeks have voted for even more of it. What was the warning? Beware of Greeks bearing grifts. According to the polls nearly half of all Americans want another helping of current policies to see them across the sands of depressions to the cool waters of the promised land.
When they get there they’ll find it is really the Promised Land Junkyard and Municipal Dump, population 50. That doesn’t sound like the wonderful place the authors of the Internationale had in mind when they were pushing the groupons discount certificates. But then maybe that’s the reality. Then a lot of those who came along for the ride will find that their dis has been truly gusted. But by then it will be too late.
Where’s the money? That’s the classic question, but when the issue is what will the money buy, you’ve got to ask where are the assets? Where’s the land, buildings, machines, materials, designs, patents, brands, transport, showrooms, media, insurance, working capital and people to run it competitively? If assets back the money, then where is it? If not, welcome to Weimar and Zimbabwe. This is why I keep coming back to the Cultural Reserve Bank concept. The PIIGS have artworks, antiquities and gems — the classic forms of portable wealth. Those assets haven’t been in play, but financial innovation could put them in play so assets start backing the PIIGS sovereign debt. Who’s going to want artworks derivatives? Well, start with the people and institution holding PIIGS sovereign debt. Holding claims on their artworks, antiquities and gems is a step up in security relative to their ability to generate Euros for debt service, which is pretty much nil at recent interest rates. Putting some hard assets up to replace broken promises could calm markets a lot more than new promises would.
No wonder this song’s a hit on the Euro-pop dance charts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NKUpo_xKyQ
I do believe I’m gonna bitterly cling to this vision of sovereign America.
” Zerohedge points out that Spanish banks are in such dire straits that they are offering toasters and Spiderman beach towels to induce depositors to entrust their savings a little longer to them, the towels being substituted for the toasters, which have run out.”
Let me present a scene from Spiderman 2, where aunt May and Peter Parker go to the bank to get more funding for a mortgage they can not pay- and if they deposit a certain amount they get a toaster. However, Aunt May and Peter did not have the amount for deposit needed to get the toaster. No Mortgage. Disappointment. Immediately after, Spiderman springs into action attempting to foil a robbery at the bank. No toaster – but, Hey there’s Spiderman!
Now we know why Pootie was lookin’ at 0bumbler like he was a chump. Can’t even handle something as simple as a stealthy coup. Pootie is on his second.
The Treaty of Westphalia’s main accomplishment was ending R2P, or rather the 17th century version. Like all political fiction, the 30 years war was about POWER. Religion was the excuse used;
http://www.pipeline.com/~cwa/TYWHome.htm
The above URL has ‘cleaned up’ the 30 years war. Yet without the dirt, the picture is inaccurate. Catholics hired Lutherans to pillage and rape Catholics. And vise-versa. Yesterday’s ally is tomorrows enemy. An entire continent of psychopaths on the loose. With the Black Death and the Inquisition as a backdrop.
Henry the K., as usual, is short sighted. A superb Tactician, the man is strategically blind. R2P as a tactic creates the chance for a really nasty war. As a strategy, it is the best hope for peace on this weary planet.
The US military is so dominant that no nation or even combination of nations has a chance against us on the battlefield. That doesn’t mean they will quit. It means our enemies resort to indirect warfare. Avoid the battlefield, attack the homefront.
Look at Pootie’s Russia. Their main defence is the threat of nuclear tipped ICBM’s. An ABM system disarms them. No way the Russian military can neutralise our ABM systems, so they count on diplomacy to do it for them. Look at Pakistan. The Paki’s understand that in a military conflict against the USA, they have a half life measured in minutes, so they ride that fine line between outright war and political harassment.
The counter for America is regime change. The rational for regime change is R2P.
The best thing about R2P is it can mostly be done without ‘boots on the ground’. Air power is a function of technology. America currently has an enormous technological advantage. We are wasting it.
WESTPHALIA OR WESTFAILURE
There’s no disgrace in failure
We’re told as we grow up
For failure teaches that we
Should not ever slow up
Keep at it and don’t falter
And surely then success
Attends your every effort
How could you ask for less?
And yet we see the wells dry
The creeks refuse to rise
And portends of doom coming
Run brightly through the skies
And so what once was seen as
A holy work of man
Was only just another
Failed broken five year plan
The account of the Exodus generation, freed from slavery in Egypt, is a remarkable study of human behavior. When adversity arises, when insecurity intercedes, when problems present, we can suffer an extreme loss of perspective and utter gap of gratitude for all of the miraculous manifestations that brought us out of bondage.
A cursory examination of recent history demonstrates that we are perched on a pinnacle of prosperity – the blessing of liberty discussed in our important documents. Yet we wince at the possible pain of lack that life can conjure.
Young men and women in the armed forces are destroyed in far-off lands, and we agonize because the most expensive medical procedures are unavailable to others. Is everything to be made free in this land?
We reached this point, where enemies dare not attempt direct kinetic action, but must plot their intrigues in dark places, because we valued liberty more than security.
We are being undone by backroom deals, perverted environmental premises, and evil perpetrated for the express purpose of violating volition of the common man.
Who must tell a lie, concealed in a wrapper of truth, to obtain his objectives is not separate from the serpent, in that place of perfection.
It’s not any different than giving the gospel. Stick to the message. Don’t try to prove, but persuade. Make the issue clear.
It’s about the result. Do we want everyone on the government dole, or taking responsibility for their own outcome. Should we all be on food stamps or earning income.
Should we warehouse people in disheveled high-rises supported by tax-payers or nudge them toward productive places, where jobs may be found.
Make the choices clear. Our solutions need to move us in the direction that we intend to go.
odd that the new class is having trouble finding a population willing to be its slaves. shame if they all ended up face down in a ditch somewhere.
maybe all that will happen is that very large nations will devolve into federations of smaller nations.
Morton @ #9: The left made a long march through our institutions. Romney is not ideal, but perhaps he (with a majority in congress) can become the first step in our long march to take the country back. Remember that it is the members of that same leftist march who daily do their worst to portray Americans as dumber and weaker than we actually are, in order to wear down our resolve. I still have faith in this country of Americans, as exemplified by the work of people like LLIII, our military, my neighbors, friends, family, fellow Belmonters…
I am teaching my children about this great nation, and sending them to a school that does the same. I’m not quitting, hell, the fight’s just starting to get interesting.
I’m seeing a huge opening, a turning of the tide (rather than the lowering that was promised).
Maybe, just maybe, quite a few folks who voted with their hearts will start to use their heads instead, after this obama experience.
As Spain copes with shortage of toasters and Spiderman beach towels and Greece learns to live with its power cut off, Britain is facing a shortage of medications. Now we are really into Third Man territory.
The drugs are being sold in Continental Europe where they fetch higher prices. How did Harry Lime put it while watching from the heights of a ferris wheel?
And even after being shot in the sewer, Harry Lime kept the girl. It’s better to have been a player who lost than being someone who never stopped being a chump, eh Holly?
And how long did the EU last? And those cuckoo-clocks, they’re now made in China. The players never stay buried forever. As Calloway put it, what the world needs is a foolproof coffin.
The 30 years war a religious war and a bloodbath–Germany lost 30% of its population.
Interestingly the 2 treaties that ended it had a mandatory forgiveness clause signed by all parties–there were no “Nuremberg Trials”
The situation in Europe will resolve with the rich norther states dominated by Germany and the poor southern states becoming a source of cheap labor and tourism for the wealthy northerners.
Technically qualified southerners will migrate north – or to the USA.
North Africans immigrants will go home.
Turkish immigrants will flock to the thriving Turkish economy thereby solving its demographic challenges.
Turkey sure dodged the bullet by being rejected for EU membership-
-they will become the dominant power in MENA and further East-
Luckily for the US Turkey is along time loyal NATO member.
Uncle Jefe #19 – I sure hope you’re right, and that we can reclaim this righteous and mighty nation. Apologies for some of my latest dark posts. It’s hard to watch Romney having to curry favor with the illegal alien vote in order to prevail. But that’s where we’re at. At least he will be a vast diminishment in badness compared to the traitor.
Malinvestment. Misallocation. Subsidies and rationing. Perverse incentives. Deficit financing. Solutions based on spending programs to prevent invasion by space aliens. Untold billions spent on carbon certificates printed by China. The unilateral refusal to drill for oil. No unproven missile defense systems. Demographic catastrophe, paid for by government funds. The importation of whole populations dedicated to religious supremacy. Procrustean currency regimes. What could go wrong?
Julia? Oh Julia? The President has opened a registry, where instead of buying a wedding gift for yourself you can donate the money to his campaign. Maybe he’d like a toaster. What about a beach towel?
Thank God we’re being led by the “reality based community.”
North Africans immigrants will go home.
Not until they shut off the dole, they won’t. And the Yurps will keep that going to the very end. Hell, even organized rape/enslavement of native white British girls by immigrant Muslims isn’t enough to dislodge the multi-culti dreamscape from the minds of the Annointed. You think these people are going to cut off the dole? It will be cut to natives before it’s cut to immigrants of color. The multi-culti Left will self-immolate rather than give up their rainbow dreams.
think of obama’s recent actions as akin to ceaucescu running around that courtyard. to me he looks checkmated.
Wrethcard #10:
A little while back I saw an article about a courageous group of people in Greece who were going around and reconnecting the electricity for people who had it turned off due to non-payment.
Of course this group of electrical robbing hoods were not worrying about the fact that the electricity had to be actually produced somewhere, and that took money, not all of which was evil profit for the utility companies. The electricity was just “there” and it was wrong for someone to be denied it.
And no doubt they also are supporters of the need to “do something” about Global Warming and of efforts to ban those dangerous nuclear reactors and stop burning all that nasty coal. It’s too bad that those wonderful solar cells and windmills can’t do the job, but no doubt the electric robbing hoods still think that people still have a right to electricity, so somebody better do something.
In recent visits to the UK I see the appetite for “multiculturalism”is dead among the UK economic decision makers.
And they ultimately decide on policy.
The UK is now a surveillance society –a Panopticon
” The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Against my libertarian values–but that is the reality in the UK.
Labor like money is fungible — the recent immigrants to UK- the Poles- have already gone home.
The Pakistani and Jamaican immigrants will follow-or be relegated to supervised ghettos in Bradford and Oldham.
Merkel grew up in East Germany–they do not have any sense of guilt about WW2 and are not committed to the integration of Europe-
-they are German Nationalist first.
The key issue for Northern Europe is Russian-because it controls their energy supplies.
The Greens are losing power-coal and gas fracking will free norther Europe from Russia’s stranglehold on their energy.
Malinvestment, etc., certainly make for a poorer polity, but sufficient design margin and financial reserves can allow reform and recovery. L3 gives an example of an emergent reform in the USA. Nothing so hopeful appears on the European horizon, but it still seems a shame for the PIIGS to collapse when they have such deep financial reservesin their hard assets. Would it be a bigger shame if they didn’t collapse? Some seem eager for a comeuppance, and reluctantto consider a muddle-on.
#26 — It’s nice to know that the Robbing Hoods are on the job. They have made world an electrifying place. Or as someone once said, “you light up my life”. This poor old planet has become a dangerous place. Take the danger posed by forks.
Before President Obama addressed the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the diners were asked to surrender their forks.
It used to be that people said of politicians “the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” The proper contemporary expression is, “the sooner he was to speak the more swiftly the Secret Service collected our forks”.
What will they think of next? Putting fluoride in water? Or into children’s ice cream? You can never be too rich, too thin, too honest or too careful about forks. There’s a moral in there somewhere, but I can’t think of it just now.
GERMANY booted Greece out of Europe last night — and for once there wasn’t a financial crisis in sight.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4389898/Greeks-exit-Euro-Bailout-no-boot-out-as-Germans-win-4-2.html
Islamist Turkey?
basted with polish hams?
#27 Victor
Just because BHO does not know how to play the game does’t mean that no one does:
Exxon Mobil scores big deal on Russian Arctic: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/25/153603820/to-tap-arctic-oil-russia-partners-with-exxon-mobil
Exxon Mobil declares Polish Shale Gas “uneconomic”: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5e883fdc-b94c-11e1-b4d6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1yZM3tVHi
Pravda is a hoot! What with article headlines like — “USA frightens China with super destroyer. China laughs”, or “US Presidents Useless – Putin”:
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a so called “reset” button in 2009. Hillary said she and Obama wanted to reset their relationship. The only problem was that the button said “overcharged”.”
Of course, compared to the LameStream Media Alphabets (let alone the BBC), Pravda seems strangely pro-American.
“Solutions based on spending programs to prevent invasion by space aliens.”
I see that as a tact admission that the Great Depression was ended by WW2, NOT socialist economic theories. Space aliens because Muslims are not PC as the enemy.
The Secret Service rounded up the forks to keep anybody from checking to see if 0bama was done yet.
If night time Greece looks like North Korea (from orbit) at night , does that mean the Norks can join the EU?
Wretchard #29:
No doubt The White House could explain that the 2nd Amendment does not apply and that people have no constitutional right to their forking flatware.
I wonder how they feel about those plastic “sporks” they use at KFC?
Nationalism dead? Not when the Soviet Union broke up. It quickly devolved into historical boundaries and ethnic groupings. It will not go away no matter the wishful thinking of the ruling caste. If nationalism can’t hold, it further devolves back to tribalism in any other form, see the former state of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile back in Scotland…
#29 Wretchard – I am dumbfounded by this, especially considering how many fundraisers he attends! The Secret Service rep said it had to do with the timing of when Obama was going to speak… nonetheless, if I was the Romney team, I’d make sure that video went viral.
#34 RWE – sporks okay, so long as you recycle. Although, fiction has it that even a piece of paper can be an assasin’s weapon – so, no napkins either.
The long march of oleaginous, obfuscating, officious, over-confident, oppressive, obnoxious, oafish bureaucrats towards the Glorious United States of Europe has fallen on its collective, socialist ass.
More nations now exist in Europe than existed when these geniuses set out to gulp and swallow every nation there into the maw of the new EU superpower. That other attempt to eat nations, the USSR and its child Jugoslavia generously donated a few more when they broke up.
Nations negate nattering nabobs and their nerdish notions of negating nations.
wretchard 29
I recall seeing a photo taken, IIRC, by David Duncan, in the USSR in the late 50′s or 60′s- it was of a tray of penknives, nail clippers, scissors, etc, at the entrance to some Soviet congress- he remarked on how they did not trust their own people…….no doubt, at the time, Americans found it astonishing.
Today it is just a dreary reminder of how far down the road we have come. To bad the road leads to the dump.
vector – our ‘wondefuel ally’ Turkey?
U.S. presses Turkey to cut more Iranian oil imports
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-usa-iran-sanctions-turkey-idUSBRE85B13L20120612
Wretchard:
You may have enjoyed the meal your friend bought with a Groupon coupon the other day, but a new start up in Houston will eclipse Groupon in a couple of years. It’s a free internet advertising concept called Gobza. Take a look.
http://www.gobza.com/3950
Leo’s not the only one in Houston with good ideas.
#20 Brilliant summary of a great film Wrechard. Thanks
The alternative to the Westphalian state is not something larger but more smaller units with increased friction at the borders. That combines with the increased likelihood of external intervention that wretchard described. As the body count piles up the true believers will lament that the noble experiment was not pushed hard enough. The will blame Bush. He is now like Mad Baggins who disappears with a flash and a bang.
What is needed is a restoration of the world order that was destroyed by the first intrusion of Wilsonian Progressivism. Viable sovereigns deserve respect and exercise sovereignty within their borders. Non-viable polities are relegated to a dependent status. Abusive misconduct by a government costs in reduced trade and productivity and out migration of talented people. Eventually if you follow the course of failure then you will decline so as to lose your seat at the table of sovereign powers.
#33 “The Secret Service rounded up the forks to keep anybody from checking to see if 0bama was done yet.”
stoicheion, if that was original, congratulations. That’s a keeper.
@33, lol
I’m afraid I have to agree with Morton (#6). The cancer has metastasized and settled in to the liver, there’s a slight tinge of yellow in her eyes. Lady liberty is a dead wo(man) walking. She just doesn’t know it yet. It might take another 50 years for the Constitution to be officially laid to rest but the cancer of leftism has done its work.
“stoicheion, if that was original, congratulations. That’s a keeper.”
I thought about “have fork, will travel” also but that goes back farther then most of the BC posters.
What country? The country that has and is willing to use Drones to keep itself in power. The country that will kill it’s own citizens for their own good.
The treaty of westphalia did not stop the European countries from conquering and colonizing Africa, SE Asia, Australia, North America, South America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.
Regime change is well within the spirit of this tradition. The locals don’t have a proper government and its up to Europeans to set them straight.
As for Europe, everyone since Julius Caesar has tried to unite it. Why stop now?