Slate Article Shows What’s Wrong With the EU!

Most National Pols Favor the Union Over their Own Nation

I do not cite Slate magazine very often; I can barely read the political articles (especially by Dahlia Lithwick – here’s one post here by her) but this article by Liam Hoare raises some disturbing issues and great potential:

The potential: I have long said to my self about each article predicting or fearing the end of the European Union:

Give me a no later than date!

The EU is trying to become both a superstate and a prison house of nations (as Lenin called Czarist Russia before taking the helm as warden) without the consent of the people. By contrast, the ratification of the US Constitution was done with the assent of the elected representatives of the people in accordance with the democratic rules of the day. That is why I am against it.

Here’s the latest cause: the coronavirus:

The coronavirus has exposed all the EU’s underlying weaknesses. Nowhere is this clearer than Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has not only restricted entry to tourists and other nonessential travelers.

Now I won’t give a blanket endorsement of any leader but I do admire the Hungarian leader Victor Orban. From a minor role as a dissident against the old Communist Hungarian regime to head of his nation, President Orban has put his nation and its people first and sought to remind Europe of its Christian heritage while standing up to Brussels.

Now to the disturbing issues: By contrast, the Slate writer laments:

Scenes such as this [the closing of the Hungarian border as a response to the virus] represent an existential threat to the European Union. Amid a global pandemic, there are few Europeans to be found. Containing the coronavirus has resulted in a return to nation-level politics and closed borders inside the 26-nation Schengen Area, within which border checks are supposed to be nonexistent.

Let’s start here:

“…there are few Europeans to be found.”

To the extent the writer means where are the pols that put Europe before their own nation – that’s the precise problem with most politicians in the EU nations: Their first loyalty seems to be to Europe, not their own nation. There is a “T” word for this but let’s be nice – let’s call them DISLOYAL to their own nation.

And in so many nations there are tough choices: Communist or racist parties versus the mainstream parties who put Europe first. I would have to apply the William Lloyd Garrison solution: Not voting, thank you. Thankfully, this situation is better than when I blogged on it in 2013.

The writer also laments the lack of open borders in spite of a pandemic. So the Eurocrats are supposed to renounce their own people to support the Union.

” Containing the coronavirus has resulted in a return to nation-level politics and closed borders…”

So the Eurocrats are supposed to renounce their own people to support the Union even if their people are at risk.

I decline. So should the people of Europe. Support your nation. I do think there is a place for a union of sovereign nations with experts coming up with uniform laws and have advisory rulings of courts upon request. Also free trade. If power can be devolved to the nations and to local/regional governments in each nation with written human rights at national levels would be desirable.

Let’s be thankful we have a leader like President Trump who closed the travel border with China on January 31 and recently closed travel to most of the EU nations. He puts the US and its people first. It’s about time.

So I hope Liam Hoare is right. Consign the European Union to, with apologies to Ronaldus Magnus I (Reagan) the trash heap of history. Could be the one blessing of the coronavirus.