It was a rather historic moment for Great Britain last
Thursday, with the vote of the people favoring leaving the European Union about
52-48.
One of dozens of photos I took of Big Ben during my trip to London in May |
It’s interesting, because they are our longtime friends; we
share language and a fair amount of culture. And I think we can learn from what
they’re going through.
The European Union was originally called the European
Economic Community. It was meant to unite separate sovereign nations
economically, for purposes of money and trade. And it was meant to make it
easier for Europeans to travel from state (nation) to state.
In the US, that sounds familiar. We were sovereign states
(nations) that united to increase our economic power as well. And also to
increase our strength against invasion and takeover. So our union was actually
intended to have the central government do more than the European Union was
intended to do. But we had our Constitution to strictly limit the federal
powers, which is probably why the experiment has extended beyond two centuries,
rather than just four decades.
When the European countries signed on to this agreement, it
was not supposed to give a central government power over day-to-day decisions
of people in these sovereign nations. It wasn’t supposed to set rules on their
immigration, or limit them in trade—or take wealth from the successful
countries to bail out the profligate ones.
Maybe it’s too much central planning when your economic
union decides what your imported bananas must look like, or how much power your
vacuum is allowed to have, or how to label your jams, or that you can no longer
use incandescent lightbulbs, or that bottled water is not allowed to claim that
it helps avoid dehydration. Maybe those kinds of decisions are
NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.
Some of those might seem like trivial annoyances compared to
the bailout requirements that drain resources, and the forced
immigration-without-assimilation that has been going on.
And, of course, the argument against leaving has been the
expected, “Only bigots and xenophobes are in favor of Brexit.” So now, 52% of
the UK—one of the most cosmopolitan places on earth, where immigrants have long
been welcome and fit into the culture fairly seamlessly until the recent mostly
Muslim influxes—can’t possibly have a reason than hatred and fear of
foreigners? That seems unlikely.
I don’t know what the economic fallout will be. Since Great
Britain kept its own money—the euro was accepted, but the pound remained the
usual currency—that will require less transition than some other countries
might face. Still, it may take some time, especially in a world economy
struggling with debt and recession.
But here’s what we know, based on the Spherical Model: when the government is as local as
possible, that always works better than government from a higher level than
necessary. Because the European Union was leftist, socialist, and generally
anti-freedom, the British people at least have a better chance for freedom
without that layer of tyranny hanging over them.
And because the EU was economically controlling, the British
people have a better chance at prosperity without the EU’s interference and
misuse of earned wealth. There may be some rocky times while things readjust,
but the closer you get to earners deciding how their own money is spent, the
more prosperity you get.
Various people have been commenting on the outcome. Nile Gardiner at the Daily Signal said,
Britain will no longer be subject to European legislation,
with Britain’s Parliament retaking control. British judges will no longer be
overruled by the European Court of Justice, and British businesses will be
liberated from mountains of EU regulations, which have undermined economic
liberty.
Indeed, Brexit will result in a bonfire of red tape, freeing
the city of London and enterprises across the nation from European Union
diktat. And at last, Britain is free again to negotiate its own free trade
deals, a huge boost to the world’s fifth largest economy.
All of those things look appealing.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has been thinking
about it as well. He said on Facebook,
What were the issues in the election? The people of the U.K.
feel they are losing their country. They are being swamped by illegal and legal
immigrants and refugees. Wages are flat, immigrants are not assimilating to
their new nation, taxes are high and the cost of living has increased. Seniors
can't earn a reasonable rate on their savings, and they see a world where
terrorism is the new normal. On top of that, they were buried in regulations,
put in place not by their elected representatives, but E.U. officials who are
elected by no one and accountable to no one. The people are angry and afraid
for themselves and their children and grandchildren.
Those were the issues. And it’s not much of a stretch to say
we face similar issues here. Patrick added,
As victory was announced in the U.K., media and opponents
pronounced the leaders of the Brexit charge divisive, hateful, and dangerous.
Sound familiar? Democrats here in the U.S. and their allies in the media, and
sadly some establishment Republicans, frequently call those of us who simply
want secure borders, lower taxes, increased wages through economic growth, a
military that is given the freedom to crush terrorists and protection of our
traditional values, liberties and the Constitution, divisive, mean spirited and
dangerous.
In our last post, we talked about that as the secular progressive religion—and it
isn’t a religion of invitation or peace, but one of coercion and hate.
We can continue to show them the good outcomes of living the
rules of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. And they will ignore evidence
and obvious facts, and then demagogue.
But the Brexit example may be starting something. There
comes a time when it is appropriate to stop submitting to the tyranny and take
back the rights God has given us.
On Friday, while I was talking over the Brexit vote with son
Political Sphere, we both almost simultaneously came up with the idea of Texit—for
a Texas exit. Not that we want a split to happen; we want our US Constitution
to be the law of the land—and have government abide by it. But the name is a
natural. And apparently it’s so natural, I learned later that day it was a top trending
hashtag on Twitter—so plenty of others thought of it as well.
There are already murmurs of possible other exits from the
EU. For those of us that remember the dissolution of the USSR, we’re not so
surprised at that kind of thing.
We’re a week away from the celebration of the US Declaration
of Independence. Some of the words feel so current:
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for
one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal
Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent
Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the Separation.
That’s a beautiful way of saying, sometimes there needs to be a
dis-union, and since that is such a weighty thing, honor requires giving a full
explanation. The Declaration of Independence goes on to enumerate many of the
despotic usurpations, “all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States,” which had been committed by the king.
We, the people of the United States, have been infinitely
better off than we would have been under tyranny.
And we became strong and loyal friends to the British
people—which we could not have been if kept in submission for
any longer, let alone an additional couple of centuries.
But when the US government becomes the tyranny we fought
independence from, how long can that continue?
Just this morning we got another ruling from the Supreme
Court, overruling a just, duly legislated law in Texas: Justice Kennedy leaned
to the pro-abortion side (the coercive religion side) and refused to allow
Texas to require abortion clinics to meet the health standards of other similar
medical facilities. No woman would have been prevented from getting an abortion
through the law, but women seeking abortions will now have no health
protections against clinics with grisly, unsafe Gosnell-type practices. No
abortion clinic was forced to close, but they were simply required to meet the
same standard other types of clinics meet.
But unelected members of the Supreme Court threw out the
Fifth Circuit ruling, and came up with their own law, not based on the
Constitution, but based on their preference for abortions to continue unhindered
in as many places as possible. The ruling is so broad as to make it difficult
for any state to have any law related to women’s health and safety concerning
abortion clinics.
Is this a line too far? Combine it with forcing the state to
accept unvetted Muslim refugees in large numbers. Combine it with forcing
states to adopt policies for bathrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms that
give advantage to sexual predators while taking away the right to bodily safety
for women and children. Combine it with high taxes, high debt, Obamacare,
Common Core, failure of care for veterans—the list of grievances begins to look
as substantial as the founders’ list in the Declaration of Independence. And it
looks every bit as substantial as the reasons Britain voted to exit the EU.
The Declaration also points out,
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble Terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated Injury….We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by
their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have
reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We
have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which
would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have
been deaf to the Voice of Justice…
Here in America—and particularly here in Texas—we are at the
“petitioning for redress” stage. Texas won one battle last week, proclaiming
that the president did not have authority to change immigration law by edict. Other battles continue.
We are currently John Adams, in the 1770s, situated in Great
Britain, petitioning for justice again and again. We are not yet Thomas
Jefferson penning the Declaration of Independence. But, as Britain has just
shown us, in the course of human events, there may come a time.
It is not “crazy right-wingers” or "bigots and xenophobes" that bring an exit closer. Despotic
usurpations bring it closer. Big-government oppressors around the world should
take heed.
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