A European exchange student recently told my wife: (Paraphrased) The big difference I see in people is the American's willingness to fight each other. In Europe most political debate is focused on finding points of agreement. In the US, most political discussions are bitter and mean and focus on disagreement. by Jahfre Fire Eater
(libertarian)
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Now it comes full turn. The EU is a higher power. Appeals to higher power (ANY higher power) serve to remove issues from local control and give individual decisions ever broader applicability. (Inverted cone power structure) So, issues that could be cordially resolved amongst neighbors become emotion-laden crusades to control the decision makers concentrated in that higher authority. (Congress)
Our political system should have been more like the European model if the advocates of strong States and a weak Federal government had won out over those who preferred elitist-controlled collectivism and/or monarchy.
The appeal to higher authority is a political tool to "make a federal case" out of issues. This ensures they are no longer decided in our community but instead, decisions made at the higher authority are pushed down upon every community regardless of the diversity and culture of the local populations.
This decreases the power for an individual to shape his community and for communities to compete based on their relative differences rather than to be cookie cutter communities from coast-to-coast. This increases the sense of futility and apathy in the voting population. Less political participation at the local level makes it easier for crusaders to push issues to the higher authority...this is a vicious cycle that is quickly approaching its climactic and inevitable consequences.
Europe is doing things in a different order. They skipped the strong Federal government and went straight to where we are now...with unelected Federal Reserve members controlling our government by controlling its finances. Central bankers of today are the royalty of the pre-Magna Carta Europe.
The bitterness will come to Europe just as certainly as it must once the appeal to high power begins to spread local futility.
-Jahfre Fire Eater
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