Why they went Non, and will go Nee

Fire of Liberty

While looking over the news about the recent rejection of the EU Constitution in France, I keep bumping into various reports that keep pointing out that the French opposition to the treaty is completely different from the Dutch or British arguments. After reading Tuesday's edition of The Daily Telegraph (registration required), I came across a wonderful opinion piece by Mark Steyn which rocked this whole argument to the core. Just seize your eyes on these two paragraphs to see Steyn at his finest:

But so what? Britain's naysayers don't have to reject the constitution for the same reason as France's commies, fascists, racists, eco-nutters, anachronistic unionists, featherbedded farmers, middle-aged "students", Trot professors and welfare queens, bless 'em all. If they want to go down the Eurinal of history clinging to their unaffordable welfare state, their 30-hour work weeks, 10-month work years and seven-year work decades, that's up to them. If Britain doesn't, that should be up to Britain.

For decades, some of us have argued that "Europe" is too diverse to form a single polity, that the British and French are in fact foreign to each other. Sir Edward Heath and his ilk scoff at such crude language: why, today's young cosmopolitan Britons are perfectly comfortable drinking Beaujolais and eating croissants and flaunting their wedding tackle on the Côte d'Azur. True, and irrelevant. What Sunday's vote underlined is profound differences in political culture. Britain's anti-Europeans and France's lunatic fringe are united only in their reluctance to be bossed around by a regulatory regime that insists a one-size-fits-all rulebook can be applied from Ballymena to the Baltics. It can't. The alleged incompatibility of our dissatisfactions makes the point: all politics is local; despite the assiduous promotion of the term, electorally speaking there is no such thing as a "European".

Steyn seems to be able to plow throw the blubber and paup that the EU and its political elite have thrown before the citizenry and gotten to the bone of the matter, which is the people of France, Holland, Britian and various other nations in Europe prefer to have their own say in matters that affect them rather than allow elites from Brussels ordering them to a fro. No matter how you slice, dice, boil or grill it, the argument always is the same, which is it's all about a nation's sovereignty. When you push a Constitution that continues to knock down the walls of the various borders on the countries and imposes its will on these nations without the consent of the people or their elected parliaments, nine times out ten you will get the results that France gave the EU this past Sunday. Hopefully, the Dutch will continue this tide of rejecting the EU Constitution and put a stake in this monster's heart come tomorrow. From the looks of this article, I can assure you that this "Nee" is pretty much on the agenda of the voters of Holland when theytreke to the polls.

Along with Steyn's accurate assessment of why the French and Dutch are opposed to the EU Constitution, Tim Hames has penned a great article in The Times. According to his great article, Hames notes that the EU political elites generated this phonebook document filled with its confusing legaleses that benefit the self interest of the elites without thinking about the individual liberties of the people of these nations. Hames put the whole Constitution in perspective when he noted:

Which, in a sense, it was meant to be. This is a constitution that the citizens of Europe were meant to salute and not to scrutinise. It is laced with the assumption that all that those who live in the EU need to know about this institution is that it is "“a good thing." To have proceeded with this enterprise despite rising popular antipathy towards Brussels everywhere (even in Belgium) was the height of arrogance. At last, this elite has been held accountable by an electorate.

In some ways, I can imagine John Stewart Mill and F.A. Hayek looking down on the people of France and are smiling because they saw fit to practice their right to freely choose the direction of their nation. Had the people of France not stood up and shouted stop to this this absurd treaty, they would have cede their nation away to the weenies in Brussels. I can imagine that a lot of the French voters were aghast with the thought of being under the sole EU banner and not the tri-color French flag.

All in all, the folks of France and Holland have become the saviors of their own nation and its cultural heritage by standing up to the folks in Brussels and rejecting their horrific three volumn novel known as a Constitution.

If you survive reading my post and the pieces by Steyn and Hames, feel free to read these pieces as well. First, check out William Kristol's piece in The Weekly Standard. Secondly here's a piece from The Sunday Times by Minette Marin which inquires what is Europe for. Thirdly, check out this one by Bill Murchinson, which gives a toast to the French pulling the "Non" lever. Finally, read this piece by W. James Antle III over at Enter Stage Right which notes the stand for sovereignty that the French took in voting "non." If you get through all of these, you'll have a better understanding on why the French and the Dutch are so much against the EU treaty and bossy Brussels.