Article

2005-01-13 Europe

EU Parliament endorses first constitution

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Posted by Fred 2005-01-13 00:00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Congratulations. In one sense, this attention to internal affairs on the part of Europe is a good thing. Think how much more mischief they could get into if their attention was turned wholly outward. And, while the EU's elitist, bureaucracy-oriented style of governance is not to American taste, it seems they will not be able to move beyond it until they've had a bellyfull -- just as happened here in the Colonies in the latter part of the 18th century.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-13 6:13:44 AM|| 2005-01-13 6:13:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 "Think how much more mischief they could get into if their attention was turned wholly outward."

My mother once told me that when I was an infant and being especially pesky, she had a way of getting a few moments of peace and quiet: she'd stick a piece of Scotch tape on one of my hands, then go about her business while I tried to rid myself of the tape, passing it back and forth from one hand to the other over and over again. She said it would usually work for at least fifteen minutes before I got frustrated and cranky.

If we're really lucky this "constitution" will serve as Europe's piece of Scotch tape, keeping the continentals occupied for several decades while they try to figure out what it means and how to live with it, until they give up and move on to something better.

Or worse. Again.

Posted by Dave D. 2005-01-13 7:02:13 AM|| 2005-01-13 7:02:13 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Or who knows? They might even get it right. It took us a couple of passes, after all, almost a century if you count our Civil War. During which time we left Europe in peace, for which they were no doubt grateful, when they had the time to think about it amidst their own absorbing affairs. (Lessee, there was that whole French Revolution thingy, then the Napoleonic Wars, which encompassed the entire continent, Restoration and the democracy craze that ended with mass migration to the Americas in 1848... they were pretty occupied on their side of the pond.)

Tape, huh! I really wish I'd know about that when my girls were young :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2005-01-13 7:17:38 AM|| 2005-01-13 7:17:38 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 "Tape, huh! I really wish I'd know about that when my girls were young :-)"

Alas, I tried it on my two kids and no dice. Either their attention spans were a LOT shorter than mine must have been, or I was a LOT easier to fool: with them, it never worked for more than about 30 seconds.

As for Europe "getting it right", let's hope so.

Posted by Dave D. 2005-01-13 7:41:10 AM|| 2005-01-13 7:41:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Dave - It's understandable that you had a longer attention span than your kids, they're the new, ahem, improved microwavable models.

Stim junkies. As in "stimulate me, now, or I'll flick the channel changer and make you disappear." ala Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardener in Being There...

Posted by .com 2005-01-13 8:01:47 AM|| 2005-01-13 8:01:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 moms used tissue dipped in ether

Posted by half 2005-01-13 8:46:56 AM|| 2005-01-13 8:46:56 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 If we're really lucky this "constitution" will serve as Europe's piece of Scotch tape, keeping the continentals occupied for several decades while they try to figure out what it means and how to live with it, until they give up and move on to something better.

Several decades? The typical duration of a EU treaty before its next amendment has been five years actually (Single European Act - 1987. Maastricht Treaty - 1992. Treaty of Amsterdam - 1997. Treaty of Nice - 2002. European Constitution - late 2006 or 2007 (if it passes))

And Europeans generally don't discuss so much what our constitutions *mean*, as what we want them to say. Then we change them to have them say it.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-01-13 9:35:35 AM|| [http://www.livejournal.com/~katsaris/] 2005-01-13 9:35:35 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 If you do it right the first time, you don't need to change it.

Posted by 2b 2005-01-13 9:38:30 AM|| 2005-01-13 9:38:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Which might explain why the latest consitution bears more resemblance to an American party platform written into law than anything we'd recognize on this side of the pond as constitutional law, Aris. Full of platitudes and pious hopes, light on checks-and-balances.

Posted by Mitch H. 2005-01-13 12:13:24 PM|| [http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2005-01-13 12:13:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 The European countries have never (and never will) get along with one another. For the EU, constitutions are meant to be broken again and again, particularly when the ailing French and German economies are involved.

Posted by Captain America 2005-01-13 12:26:06 PM|| 2005-01-13 12:26:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 You gotta admit, though: this European approach gives a certain... whimsical quality to governance that is lacking in our system.

Posted by Dave D. 2005-01-13 1:06:58 PM|| 2005-01-13 1:06:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 And Europeans generally don't discuss so much what our constitutions *mean*, as what we want them to say. Then we change them to have them say it.

So we change 'playing with scotch tape' to 'playing with clay'.

Posted by Pappy 2005-01-13 1:25:15 PM|| 2005-01-13 1:25:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 If you do it right the first time, you don't need to change it.

If that had been the case, then you wouldn't need to reinterpret it either, as you'd know what it means, given how its words would be clear enough for all to understand.

You gotta admit, though: this European approach gives a certain... whimsical quality to governance that is lacking in our system.

I'd say it gives a more *direct* and honest approach. Instead of having the courts give imaginative reinterpretations to what each article means, we don't pretend it had always been that way and we just now discover its meaning (as if it'd been some prophecy of Nostradamus, or some revelation of God, or as if it'd been written in ancient cuniform).

Instead we recognize it was saying something different, and we recognize we now want it to say something else. Even constitutions are nothing more than sets of laws, you know.

A set of laws that is a bit harder to modify than usual, but a set of laws nonetheless. Constitutions are man-made and even Thomas Jefferson wasn't a prophet.

Posted by Aris Katsaris 2005-01-13 3:51:28 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:51:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Wrong again, Aris:
http://www.hisremnant.org/hennessy/jefferson1.html

Posted by Tom 2005-01-13 3:57:37 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:57:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Europe-Congratulations. Best wishes with your endeavor. I think the US-"Old Europe" relationship is greatly compromised and don't know that it can be healed, but with an eye to the history of Europe and the strife between nations, it would be really something to see a unified body of nations that lives in peace with each other. I hope that something of value comes out of this effort.

Posted by Jules 187 2005-01-13 3:59:29 PM|| 2005-01-13 3:59:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Just kidding! Lighten up. Haven't you guys heard of the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution? And how concise would you expect the French to be!?!

Posted by Tom 2005-01-13 4:02:40 PM|| 2005-01-13 4:02:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 "And how concise would you expect the French to be!?!"

Good point. At two hundred and sixty-five pages, the EU Constitution is only one-fourth as long as my copy of Anna Karenina. Not long at all. Really.

Posted by Dave D. 2005-01-13 4:56:42 PM|| 2005-01-13 4:56:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 I did my daily constitution just this morning.

Posted by Captain America 2005-01-13 9:52:50 PM|| 2005-01-13 9:52:50 PM|| Front Page Top

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