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Samizdata quote of the day – the self-harming EU edition “President Trump appears to be annoyed that trade negotiations with the European Union are dragging along too slowly. Join the club, pal. The biggest victims of Brussels’ indecision and sloth on trade are the Europeans themselves. Even if Mr. Trump’s tariffs fall to U.S. courts, it won’t liberate the Continent from trade war. The bloc is too good at doing damage to itself.”
– Joseph C Sternberg, Wall Street Journal ($)
This, by the way, is part of why I voted for Brexit nine years ago. I saw little chance that the bloc would reform, become more accountable, and make it easier to roll back red tape, and replace one-size-fits-all with mutual recognition of standards.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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As Helen Szamueley said, the EUs only policy us political integration. It achieves thus through regulation and law making. Rolling back red tape is anathema to the EU.
Stuart Noyes – yes Helen S. was correct.
Although the national governments of most European nations are little better – they are also mostly puppets of officials and “experts”.
As Johnathan Pearce, and the rest of us, know – this certainly includes the British government. Indeed the British government is one of the worst in the Western world.
The vote for independence (not “Brexit” please – that word means nothing) in 2016 gave us the legal chance to roll back the state – but, tragically, this chance was thrown away.
Tragically much the same is true in the United States – yes there has been some real deregulation, especially of energy production, and that is a good thing which President Trump deserves credit for – but he also deserves blame for the lack of urgency in controlling government spending.
Congress, left to its own antics, will never control government spending – it is institutionally unable to do so. Only a President who was fanatically committed to reducing government spending could have any impact on the Congress. And President Trump, in spite of his many virtues (as with many New Yorkers his bad language and manner hides a kind heart and great personal courage), is NOT that person.
So the question becomes, can everyone slow-walk Trump’s influence for three more years? He cannot run again.
Our Democrat side seems to be taking this up as its strategy. It would not surprise me if communication from them to the EU led the EU to the same path.
Bobby
When using the term “Our democrat side” presumably you are including the dozens of judicial flying monkeys stepping up to the plate with the ink barely dry on their nationwide injunctions.
As a mere Brit would I be correct in expanding that analogy and say that they are mainly focused on hitting endless foul balls to extend the innings and eventually see off the starter? I believe that a ten or twelve pitch at-bat by a lesser player drawing a walk is invariably described in glowing terms.
bobby b and John.
Over the years I have become more and more convinced that the dissenting opinions in the Gold Clause cases of 1935 were correct – NOT just on the specific issue (of course the government has no right to take all monetary gold and to violate all contracts public and private – even George III and Lord North would never have taken such a criminally insane position), but on the more general point that a government that would do such things, and courts that would uphold such things, had abandoned any real concept of limited government and of the Rule of Law (as opposed to the rule of judges pushing fashionable political and cultural fashions).
Yes it is 90 years ago – but the point is more valid than ever.
The establishment, including the judges, have nothing but contempt for ordinary citizens – and nothing but contempt for traditional society.
And this is not just true in the United States – it is true in most countries.
The European Union is nothing special – indeed it is almost the norm for the international establishment. Perhaps a bit more extreme – but not by much.
And the people? They are confused – indeed baffled. After all AFTER Franklin Roosevelt had robbed them, they re-elected him with some 60% of the vote.
It is much the same in Britain – most people, at the same time, understand that the state is useless and (AND) want it to do everything. To solve all problems, and provide all basic needs.
I voted for Brexit because no one other than the British people have the right to govern the uk.
Stuart Noyes – I agree with you.
That is why I say INDEPENDENCE – not “Brexit” as the latter word can mean anything, which means that it means nothing.
I have a similar hatred for the term “gold STANDARD” – either gold is the money, in which case the word “standard” is not needed, or the gold is NOT the money, in which case “gold standard” means FRAUD. Deception.
@bobby b
So the question becomes, can everyone slow-walk Trump’s influence for three more years? He cannot run again.
So, I’d say two things about this, one good and one bad.
The good thing? After Trump is Vance. Vance is quite spectacular. He is almost more MAGA than Trump. Plus he comes without all of Trump’s insane baggage and undisciplined communication. He is not at all the negotiator that Trump is, but he is in the middle of a very intense internship, and he is smart as fuck and will learn what he needs (and no doubt Trump will help him out post his presidency.)
The bad thing? The fundamental problem for Trump, the west and Trump like people in other countries is the financial state of western economies. And for that it might be too late. Desantis recently said “Doge fought the swamp and the swamp won.” I’m not sure it is quite as total as this statement would indicate but the past four months were the best chance we have had for a radical realignment of government spending in the USA lead by one of the most remarkable groups of people ever assembled, supported by a large majority of the people and a President who is riding at the peak of his popularity, strength and influence. And what did we get? Less than two hundred billion dollars. Of course in every other situation in the world 200 billion dollars is a gigantic amount of money, but it the federal government, it is a piss in the ocean. Moreover, even that miniscule amount is proving almost impossible to push through with a tangle of legal cases and pussy republicans who promise 1.5 trillion dollars in spending reductions over ten years, most of which are phantoms. One of our greatest expenses is the military, because we are constantly fighting wars that we have no business fighting, and yet, now we pull back our defense budget goes up A LOT not down. I do some work for a small college her in the USA and I can assure you that, despite reports to the contrary, the Department of Education is operating at full steam, sticking its nose in everywhere, and burying everyone in piles and piles of forms and red tape.
I don’t want these to be the facts, but facts they are. The Trump administration is still fairly new and fresh and has a number of years ahead of it, but they have lost the best chance, and I don’t see how there will ever be more favorable circumstances than this to fix it.
There are a lot of good things coming out of Trump, but they are all secondary questions to the fundamental one, can we reduce spending and get the debt under control. The answer to this, the most important question of all, seems to be self evidently no.
And so back to the EU, I think in a sense the trade deal there might help a bit, and it will happen eventually, but I don’t think it will avert the downfall of either the US or the EU. One think to hope though is that some good trade deals will help the economy enough that he might win the midterms and so that MIGHT be another opportunity to DOGE the government. It is a faint, flickering hope, but at least something.
And as regards to Starmer and the EU, it seems that his negotiation style is to demand that the UK get all of the disadvantages of being in the EU and none of the advantages. And they call Trump an idiot.
TO make matters more hilarious than Greenland, and or Canada becoming the 51st State, President Trump should reform NATO to NATO 2.0.
Mutual defence and mutual free trade or no Article 5 for you (ie France, Germany, and the tedious little bureaucrat tits in Belgium.
The other countries party to both EU and NATO 1.0, will need to choose, NATO2.0 and leave the EU, or stay in the EU and have no USA backed article 5 protection.
We are well past that stage anyway as “US protection” is not longer provides politically credible deterrence. Europe technically has no need of the USA to defend itself against any of the threats it faces (neither the internals ones nor Russia) as the problems are political will, not technical capability to build up. So, forcing Europe to confront the reality USA no longer wishes to be the leader of the West does have its upside.
Only if Europe not only confronts that reality, but moves to deal with it realistically and effectively. Lot cheaper not to.
I am less pessimistic than Fraser Orr. It takes miles to turn a battleship.
Let’s all remember that before Trump could take a wrecking ball to the Deep State – he had to shatter the consensus driven by media and academia. He had to outrun their attempts at (character and literal) assassination. He had to crack open many minds.
This process is still ongoing… many are still afraid to speak out, or admit what is before their eyes. Especially among the college educated “elites”… Trump is still lifting the stones and revealing the creepy crawlers that lurk beneath. He is simultaneously targeting the major vectors of government sponsored indoctrination. Had anyone ever heard of USAID before? The MAGAs did their homework – without that money, the phony “grass roots” protests have all dried up… outside the Beltway, the True Believers are now revealed as a small group of ex-hippies.
The college educated people who passively drifted into Left-leaning positions due to continued indoctrination are now, slowly, waking up. Large numbers of them are realizing that home ownership and other expected aspects of middle-class life are now no longer obvious – due to left-wing mismanagement. They and their children are now obviously endangered by Left-wing policies. (Of course those policies are achieving exactly what the hard-core Marxists intended – they are destroying the social fabric – but the bien-pensant followers of fashion are not in it for La Revolution…)
We have discussed Trump’s improvisational style on other threads here – in this connection, he is brilliantly forcing the Left into untenable, immoral, extreme positions that isolate them.
Supporting welfare for drug cartel thugs.
Supporting the violent elements that are destroying personal safety.
Supporting DEI preferences that endanger middle-class kids’ chances of success.
Supporting teachers who deceive parents to promote the LBGTQ agenda.
Supporting Muslim extremists abroad – and now, suddenly, at home.
The recent brouhahas at Harvard and other campuses have brought home to college educated bien-pensants that their fancy revolutionary rhetoric has now come home to roost – and the Dems will do nothing to protect the “correct” white people…
Remember the meme where the California Leftie said “burn it down” during the Floyd riots – until the rioters showed up in his neighborhood?
Trump and the MAGA administration’s common-sense reforms continue to reality check almost every fashionable pose and pet issue.
As more and more people understand that this isn’t about being “Nice” – that it is a full-blown culture war – the MAGA side will grow in numbers and power.
Many many fence-sitters have already been changed by these past few months.
Having changed the political climate, Trump’s team is now about to apply political pressure to the RINO squishes in Congress. So whatever the outcome of the next Congressional election, the process of cleansing the Republican party and aligning it with limited government is well underway.
The changes are political – but also deeply cultural. A lot of this obviously takes time. This is a massive realignment taking place in (tens of) millions of minds, in the courts, in Congress and over several election cycles. It is obvious that these changes will play out over more than one administration.
I would not give too much credence to the wishful thinking of Lefties who thought THEY were the voice of the people, and hope that vulgar nasty man will just fade away.
The MAGA snowball is just beginning to roll downhill.
I hope and pray that the 2nd Amendment prevents attempts by the Left at violent insurrection… If Trump succeeds in checking the overreach of both the FBI and leftie judges, the existing laws of self-defence should limit the violence to a few instructive incidents.
I don’t know if Europe can be saved. What is happening with the farmer’s revolt? Food should be a sufficiently primal issue to rally around…
At this point I will repeat my assertion that America’s prospects of renewal are better than Europe’s because it is still a Judeo-Christian country. Personal faith of the citizens in Jewish monotheism is essential to Western democracy.
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
So, forcing Europe to confront the reality USA no longer wishes to be the leader of the West does have its upside.
If you are a parent and have your college graduate son living in the basement eating your food and playing video games all day with no job, then a sharp kick in the ass and demanding that they get a job and turning off their phone account till they do is just as beneficial to the kid as it is to the parent.
And just to be clear, in this age of America supposedly withdrawing to its borders and Elon waving a chainsaw all over Washington, somehow the defense department’s budget went UP by 20%?
Fraser Orr – yes indeed the United States is spending as much as it can on the military (some would say far more than it can afford – although other parts of the budget are far MORE out of control).
President Trump has pointed out that the Defense Department budget is now one TRILLION Dollars – that is a number the human mind can not really grasp, but it is horribly real.
The idea that “the spending does not matter because it mostly goes to American companies” was refuted by J.B. Say and F. Bastiat – two centuries ago.
The United States, with a 37 Trillion Dollar Debt and a Two Trillion Dollar Deficit certainly can not afford a major war with another power thousands of miles away.
The days of such things as the Afghan War, a 20 year long DEFEAT, and the Iraq War (a fruitless “victory”) are over. Not with this level of debt and deficit.
Nor did the American people ever want to be a world wide empire – that is not what the United States is supposed to be. Most certainly America must ally with other nations to contain such powers as the People’s Republic of China (because a world dominated by the PRC would not be a world the United States could survive in) – but those allies must take up their fair share of the burden.
And rebuilding American manufacturing is vital – as Mark Steyn (and many others) have pointed out – to try and contain the PRC whilst, at the same time, being dependent on imports from the PRC is utterly insane.