Tag Archives: politics

British Sovereignty and British Exit from the EU

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Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, has a paper out claiming that Great Britain’s perceived need to go out from the EU in order to preserve its sovereignty is “misguided.”

It’s possible to see the misguided perception of Chatham House from the Executive Summary of its paper.

  • The question of sovereignty lies at the heart of the UK’s upcoming EU referendum. …
  • This ignores the fact that successive British governments have chosen to pool aspects of the country’s sovereign power in the EU in order to achieve national objectives that they could not have achieved on their own, such as creating the single market, enlarging the EU, constraining Iran’s nuclear programme, and helping to design an ambitious EU climate change strategy.

And yet creating a (European) single market or enlarging the EU have nothing at all to do with British sovereignty, even were these things on the whole useful to Great Britain.  In many respects the former would be, but it can be accomplished as well with the Brits outside.  And, of course, joining an extra-national organization and one that is granted authority over (some of) a nation’s domestic affairs can only come at the expense of the nation’s sovereignty.

Then, too, the EU has done nothing to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, weapons or peaceful.  The “agreement” that President Barack Obama (D) got with Iran—over France’s strong objections and over Great Britain’s tepid objections—has instead formalized Iran’s ability to develop and field nuclear weapons.

The EU’s climate change strategy, ambitious or not, can only work to the detriment of Great Britain, damaging as that strategy is to the national economies of the EU constituents, especially given that there is very little human involvement in climate change, for all the economic benefits accruing to climate change pseudo-scientists.

  • Apart from EU immigration, the British government still determines the vast majority of policy over every issue of greatest concern to British voters—including health, education, pensions, welfare, monetary policy, defence and border security. The arguments for leaving also ignore the fact that the UK controls more than 98 per cent of its public expenditure.

Apart from EU immigration….  No sovereignty question here.  Mm, mm.  Nor is that 2% of public expenditure dictated by that extra-national body.  Nossir.

  • The British economy has prospered in the EU. The UK boasts higher economic growth and lower unemployment than most major developed economies. …

Carefully elided in this is that Great Britain is not in the eurozone.  How much better could the Brits’ economy be were they completely gone from the EU?  Hopefully, we’ll find out.

  • [T]he UK would be excluded from the process of EU rule-writing, making it a less attractive location for foreign investment.

This doesn’t follow at all.  Great Britain also would be free to write its own rules, making it a far more attractive location, absent the EU’s heavily bureaucratized system, a system that’s also heavily anti-competitive.

And so on.  But RTWT.

FDA and Funding

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Moves in Congress to link billions of dollars in new medical research funding to revised standards for drug and medical-device approvals are troubling some public-health experts, who say the combination makes it too easy for lawmakers to support lower patient-safety standards.

This is a cynical distortion of the situation.  With the FDA’s suppression of Sarepta, a drug that has helped—a lot—boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and that, so far, has shown no deleterious side effects standing as a shining example, of course it’s necessary for Congress to exercise its power and authority of the purse string to bring an out of control, scleroticlly bureaucratic agency to heel.

Maryland’s Anti-Gun Law

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…is back before the 4th Circuit, this time for an en banc hearing, after an earlier 3-judge panel had vacated the prior trial court’s ruling upholding the law.  At issue is Maryland’s

Firearm Safety Act of 2013 banned possession of firearms designated as “assault weapons,” a broad category that includes dozens of types of high-capacity weapons, including the popular AR-15 rifle.  Maryland also banned sales and purchases of ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds among other provisions.

The Maryland Attorney General, Douglas Gansler (D), is arguing

…AK-47s, the state argues, are “suited, for military-style assaults,” not sport shooting or self-defense….

This is an utterly disingenuous argument that only the Left and its anti-gun nuts could make.  The government has no legitimate interest in the purpose for which an American citizen might choose to keep and bear Arms, only that that right shall not be infringed.

Full stop.

National Security and Economic Relations with the PRC

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The Fiscal Times had a thought.

There is an emerging danger that rivalry for strategic influence in the western Pacific will damage trade and investment relations.

As if this is a bad thing.  “rivalry for strategic influence in the Western Pacific” is a euphemism for the PRC’s seizure and occupation of the South China Sea and the islands in it, and the PRC’s terraforming of many of those islands and subsequent construction of military bases on them.

The only reason for the grab and the military build up is to intimidate the other nations rimming the Sea, nations who are, variously, our trading partners, our friends, and potentially our allies—and friends.  The PRC’s goal is to drive us out of the Sea, which can only damage our trade and investment relations with the region as a whole.

Our economic relations with the PRC do not need to come at the expense of any of that.

The Racism of the Left

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Now Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s (D) National Security Advisor, is at it.

Too often, our national security workforce has been what former Florida Senator Bob Graham called “white, male, and Yale.”

And

By now, we should all know the dangers of “groupthink,” where folks who are alike often think alike.

And

Without tapping into America’s full range of races, religions, ethnicities, language skills, and social and economic experiences, we’re leading in a complex world with one hand tied behind our back.

She’s right on those last two.  However, Rice needs to look into her Left mirror.  The Left only sees diversity as skin color and claimed religious and sexual orientation.  What Rice wants—since she’s an enormously intelligent woman and has, of course, looked into that mirror and reflected on the matter—is Proper groupthink.

It’s only necessary to recall the way the Left treats uppity women who think differently from the Left—conservatively—they’re sluts who should be held down and forced to pull a train. It’s only necessary to recall the way the Left treats uppity blacks of either gender who think differently from the Left—conservatively—they’re traitors to their race.

It’s only necessary to recall the Black Lives Matter movement, for whom only black lives matter and who assault those who mistakenly suggest that all lives matter.

It is necessary to have a range of skills in our government.  But that range must be based on skill set, not superficial favored-group surface characteristics.  If I have to choose, though, I’ll take conservative groupthink over the Progressive or Socialist—or the outright racist and sexist–groupthink the Left has on offer.