*** Leave it to the Irish. When they voted "No" on the Lisbon Treaty, they threw a monkey wrench into the whole European Union project. Now, they are being asked to vote again. And if they don't approve it this time, they may be expelled from the EU.
For the Irish, the Lisbon Treaty vote was a little like James Joyce's Ulysses. Almost no one had read it. Those that had read it didn't understand it. But they were proud of it anyway.
This is what we like about Europe. It is a collection of member states that speak different languages, have different cultures, drive on different sides of the road, and can't even get together on their fundamental documents. It is as if the American states now had to ratify the Constitution...and Rhode Island voted it down. America would be a better place for it, in our opinion. Because nothing leads to trouble like a strong central government.
Erin go bragh...whatever that means.
*** The big news today: Zimbabwe's opposition party decided that voting wasn't worth dying for. A wise decision, in our opinion.
Meanwhile, the British press is making fun of Pillsbury, North Dakota. The reason for the ridicule is simple enough. The town held a municipal election and not a single voter turned up at the polling station – not even the candidates themselves. The town has only 11 people in it, so we can presume there was not much tax honey worth fighting over. If there was influence being peddled, in other words, the price was so low that even the current mayor said he was too busy on the farm to cast a ballot.
That's the sort of politician we'd like to have running the whole country, one with better things to do than to meddle in other peoples' business.
Democracy is greatly overrated. No more entertaining form of government has ever been invented. But it is only entertaining if you don't take it seriously. When you begin to be earnest about it, the whole thing dissolves into a dark puddle of it humbug, claptrap and bunkum.
The founders of the United States of America distrusted democracy so much they designed a whole government to prevent it. Not once does the word 'democracy' appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is basically an elaborate restriction on what the voters can do. There are different branches of the federal government, expected to offset each other's power. And there's the Bill of Rights itself, limiting the power of the central government – no matter how many people vote.
Of course, all that has been swept away by a long series of subterfuges and scams. Now, the country not only suffers the full plague of democracy itself, it spends hundreds of billions trying to inflict it on the rest of the world.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by Brian Wheatley on 24 June 2008:
You are so right Bill. I believe it was George Washington who said that we should trade with everyone and make alliances with no one.
Now all we hear around the world is the word democracy as if it was a panacea for every ill the world suffers from, without mentioning the words "tyranny of the majority"
Government is meant to govern for all at the expense of none. That is not what we have in the West today.
Government robs from the successful to benefit the unsuccessful, without consideration of the origins of the poverty stricken unsuccessful. The only basis for benefits paid for by the taxpayer is "need". I need it, or my children 'need' it, so someone must supply it. IE The taxpayer. So now we spend billions each year to benefit the 'needs' of others,and the politicians bid for our votes.
Given the trend of elections, it will not be very long before we will be living in an updated Russian workers paradise.
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