Europe to be "Gone With the Wind?"

Back in the 1990s, I was heavily active in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and I did a good bit of speaking and writing regarding the principles of self-government and the rights of states to secede from federal unions as not only a right under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also part of the human rights articulated by Jefferson in the Declaration and, oddly enough by a Congressman from Illinois named Lincoln.

I remember many times expressing the hope that the Europeans - who were creating a Union of their own - would explicitly include the right to secede from the Union as part of any Union of states. They should not assume that their status of being sovereign states would guarantee their right to withdraw from the EU. I was genuinely concerned that they would repeat the mistakes of our own history, and create a Leviathan that would hold them hostage at bayonet point.

It is interesting to see the way things are playing out: the heavy-handed and fascistic approach of the EU leadership as they use every means of contorted political rhetoric and parliamentary shenanigans to suck the nations of Europe into a superstate that they can never get back out of.

The unification of Europe was rolling along like a freight train until Ireland put on the brakes by virtue of a referendum in which the people of Ireland said "No" to surrendering their sovereignty to a bunch of bureaucrats hundreds of miles away - thus overturning the proposed constitution (which must be unanimously accepted by all member states). Most of the member states that have ratified the treaty did so by parliamentary votes - even though in many cases, the people of the member states are firmly opposed to a European superstate. But Ireland's vote by referendum ended the dream of a ratified Lisbon Treaty.

Instead of regrouping and returning to its principles of a loose confederation focused on a common market, the Eurocrats continued the ratification process, and are basically ignoring the fact that the Irish killed the treaty!

This evil and illegal action has been protested by many members of the European Parliament across national lines. In fact, in this clip, you see Englishmen actually wearing green and calling for Ireland's sovereignty to be respected. You see another British diplomat (Mr. Hannan) calling for a referendum in Latin, just as Cato the Elder ended every one of his speeches in calling for the destruction of Carthage in the days of the Roman Republic. You also see the "states rights" members of parliament being called "fascists" by the centralizers (the real fascists) who want to strip the states of their sovereignty and turn a union into a consolidated nation.

Isn't that rich? And history indeed repeats itself. I'm with MEP Daniel Hannan: "The Lisbon Treaty must be put to a vote" (Pactio Olisipiensis censenda est). Ironically, in the name of democracy, the bureaucratic heads of Europe fear nothing more than allowing the member states to vote on the treaty.

Even the rules of the Parliament were ignored as the president was given the power to censor remarks of members of those in parliament who oppose the Lisbon Treaty! If left unchecked, this new nation will be yet another monstrous tyranny like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

If the Eurocrats get their way, there will most certainly be a secession crisis and a so-called civil war in Europe at some point in the future (and probably not that far distant, either) - the very thing a union is supposed to prevent.