Euronoia

I stumbled across a very interesting article about the EU swallowing up Britain: "The death of British sovereignty" by James Lewis over at The American Thinker. I think it overstates its case, but still raises some good points. This gist of the article is that a sovereign, pro-American, relatively conservative Britain is being voluntarily swallowed up by a European Union which more resembles the USSR than the US. Lewis writes:

First, the highest priority of EU foreign policy is to split the Anglo-American alliance. If Britain becomes just another province of the EU, Tony Blair will be the last Prime Minister to have the freedom to ally himself with us. When Jacques Chirac recently visited London, he very plainly told the press that once it fully enters the EU, Britain would not be able to be an “honest broker” between Europe and the United States. Chirac was telling Britain, “it’s my way or the highway.”

The EU is a deadly serious effort at world domination, or, in Eurospeak, at “countering American hegemony.” Nothing is more important, as its politicians keep telling the world.

This statement raises two questions: (1) What is "American Hegemony"? and (2) How does the EU intend to counter it? Will the EU counter American military hegemony by stopping us from overthrowing dictatorial regimes and conducting humanitarian missions in Haiti, Liberia, and the Indian Ocean? Will it build a budget-busting armed forces which would crowd out any money for its welfare state?

Perhaps, then, it will counter our economic hegemony. But how? Will the EU cut off trade with NAFTA and wreck its economy, while putting only a dent in ours? They've already overvalued their currency, the result being a European run on American goods, like a giant Kmart Blue Light Special. On our end, there've been no negative effects, except for some over-hyped variations in oil/gas prices.

"America Hegemony" is nothing more than American greatness, and our attempts to become better. Our relations take only three forms: (1) trade for goods and services we want, (2) the elimination of people who pose a direct threat to us, and (3) charity to those we deem worthy of it. We are not proselytizing or conquering anybody, except inasmuch as it furthers goal #2.

Lewis points out a weapon they may use against us:

Third, the Gulliver strategy. Jorge Castaneda, former Foreign Minister of Mexico, has advocated a “Gulliver diplomacy” toward the United States

“I like very much the metaphor of Gulliver, of ensnarling the giant, tying it up, with nails, with thread, with 20,000 nets that bog it down; these nets being norms, principles, resolutions, agreements, and bilateral, regional, and international covenants.”

Under our consititution, treaties like the ones they're proposing are hard to ratify and even harder to enforce. A treaty is not usually "self-enacting", it does not give anyone any legal rights or duties in and of itself. Treaties must be accompanied by domestic laws. If not, the thing is nothing more than a list of good intentions.

And that is what the European constitution is shaping up to be. They're counting on their "Europeaness" to make successful economic over-regulation which has failed every time it has been tried. Whoever is in charge their is still going to have to maintain conditions which foster a good economy and domestic security. If the powers that be try to stay in power without providing those, the result will be a breakup or diminishment of the pan-European structure.

Also interesting is how the new inter-national struggle is not between democracy and totalitarianism, but between capitalist democracy and socialist democracy, inasmuch as the latter is not a contradiction.