What happened to the days of short, concise constitutions? I wanted to read the new draft for a EU constitution, but the damn thing is 72 pages long. I'll settle with quoting Article I-3 about the Union's objectives for now, (emphasises are mine).

1. The Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples. 2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, and a single market where competition is free and undistorted. 3. The Union shall work for a Europe of sustainable development based on balanced economic growth, a social market economy, highly competitive and aiming at full employment and social progress, and with a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance.

It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of children's rights.

It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States. The Union shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.

4. In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests. It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and protection of human rights and in particular children's rights, as well as to strict observance and development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.

5. These objectives shall be pursued by appropriate means, depending on the extent to which the relevant competences are attributed to the Union in this Constitution.

Allow me to suggest, with the intent of cutting the constitution down to readable length, a minor rewrite: "1. We're from the government, and we're here to help you." I am, to put it mildly, not relieved.

Jesus Christ! That gobbledygook is scary. It's Big Brother on steroids.

A "social market economy". Wow. That's a new one. An economic model is actually legislated for within a constitution. Forget free market trial-and-error. Forget having the state act as an uninterested referee: what we have here is the full embrace of nanny-statism.

Europe will forever plod along behind other zooming economies if this constitution is passed. Every social scientist wannabee throughout Europe will latch upon that clause as justification for ever more regulation and control.

God, you poor bastards! Bjorn, I feel sorry for you all if you get this "constitution."

You need a samizdata bumper sticker, Socialism kills, free markets feed.

You're doomed, DOOMED I tell you!

Get out while you can. Even Canada is better.

Europe has been at this for about 1000 years or so and still doesn't get it.

And we in the US are ignorant.

Sandy: Get out? We're not in yet. There's still hope.

The same Europeans who were appalled at American trampling if Iraq's sovereignty have proposed a constitution designed to erode the sovereignty of individual European states. How odd.

In practice this erosion will stop precisely at the point where it clashes with what the French see as their own national interest. Good luck to the rest of Europe until then.

God help Europe if this garbage passes as a constitution. The damned thing is so vague and nebulous it doesn't delineate any powers at all. Which means that politicians and bureaucrats will use it to justify anything they damn well please!! Europe is going to be SO screwed!!

Further contemplation of the verbiage of this document makes it seem like it was "lifted" spiritually from a hot tub session at Esalen in Big Sur during the 60's. These people can't die out soon enough for me. In a few more years they will be playing at peace and love and doing "air guitar" in convalescence homes.

Bjorn, I mean pack up and get out!

Zathras, are you really Zathras, or one of 10 brother Zathrases?

GAK! I need to buy S2 on DVD, only 6 left at Amazon!

Sheesuz, I love the reactions here. :-)

Okay, I agree that this sucks as a constitution and would be better as a political program for a single party - but hey - it's mostly touchy-feely stuff that doesn't do that much damage.

What I really love is the reaction in Bjørn's blog. :-) Sandy still seems to think that Norway is a member of the European Union (Hint: We Are Not! No need to run before we do join, or we run out of oil).

And doomed? Europe? For this? No way. Europe has more than enough natural resources, and a quite competitive market. This isn't communism, nor is it price-fixing anti-competitiveness. It will probably work out quite okay. Maybe not optimally - but quite okay.

I am sorry to see the forum fall to this. I read plenty of forums biased either way and so far the postings on this site have been entertaining. These last postings are an insult even to the flimsy pro-war postings.

I can only conclude that the right wing posters on this site have reached an introspective Nirvana and will now, having understood that the US is good above all else, exit this plane of existence to promote the US agenda as Gods right hand(s).

The fervor with which the right wing Americans and their international recruits bash anything not decidedly by-USA-for-USA is frightening.

People, this is why the world fears you. Not for your powers of reasoning, but for the complete lack of interest in reason as a tool for viewing the world.

- RJ

RJ: Don't confuse an emotional response with a "complete lack of interest in reason". If I tell you the grizzly details of a murder case, and you reply "Jesus Christ, that's awful!", does that mean there's no rational basis to your disapproval of murder?

I'm sure that if you explain why the examples I listed really do belong in the EU constitution, or at least why they can't do no harm, you will get equally reasoned replies.

Well, frankly, I don't see what the fuss is about. All those statements are feel-good slogans and sufficiently vague to cover all opinions having any chance of being elected in any EU or wannabe-EU country.

Fact is, EU countries are social-democratic. Norway is social-democratic, and there isn't a single party represented in our parliament that isn't supporting the basic principle of our welfare state. That certainly includes the Progress Party, which sometimes borrows rhetoric from the far right.

Political debates here are bitfiddling over details; the principles are founded on near-unanimity among Norwegians.

I think the success of a system should be measured by its effects on the wellbeing of its citizens. Obviously, the US system is one most Americans are happy about. Good for them. But the Norwegian system (and that goes for other EU systems to some degree) has also accomplished some remarkable results, even though the system is different. We have a system with both capitalist economy and a high degree of state control and an extensive social security net.

Any party proposing abolishing our welfare state and "go Republican" would probably get less votes than the Stalinist NKP or the neo-nazis of "Hvit valgallianse".

Americans are often, justifiably in my opinion, complaining that Europeans know too little about the US and still complains about it. I think this is a case of "back'atcha".

Bjorn: good reply to RJ's post. We'll await his display of reason as a tool for viewing the world.

But I must say that if the world fears the US, well, that's good. You better fear the US. "We will never forget".

As to right-wing Americans posting on this sight: I was pro-Clinton, pro-Gore, myself. I also have a degree in Art from Brown University, and did post-graduate study in French Marxist deconstruction theory and feminism at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. It is only through a total immersion in European left-wing theory that one can understand how bankrupt it truly is.

Most Europeans, though, have not explored the ideologies that have been drummed into their heads since kindergarten as extensively as I have.

Rune: Europe might not be doomed, but this constitution will forever make European welfare states dependent on the whims of the American worker-consumer, because the welfare states can only survive through exports to societies that have freer-markets. European natural resources are no guarantee for a vibrant internal market, because the European worker is taxed at such a higher rate.

But you will also see more controls placed on personal freedom within Europe. For example, there is already talk of "controlling" the internet within Brussels.

The internet will never be controlled through Brussels, because of freedom of speech guarantees in the American Constitution. But I'm sure that Europeans will look to regulate that with some new-fangled "international" treaty designed to rein in American "excesses".

Jan: "We have a system with both capitalist economy and a high degree of state control and an extensive social security net."

But you have to add: and it is a system that survives because of worker-consumers in (American) export markets with more disposable personal income.

In other words, a system that is wholly exploitative, considering that the workers in those markets don't have the same social security benefits as Europe has.

But Americans don't care about that, as long as there is economic growth all across the board, especially in hi-tech and bio-engineering. Growth makes it possible for Americans to BUY all those benefits on the open market. Thus, the European desire to regulate American growth is directly threatening to American social security and well-being.

Europe has a responsibility to the free world. The free world of free markets. You pull the world down when you pull down the robust and alive economies of the world such as the U. S. ecomony. Your cowardly, afraid-of-change, slothful welfare states do nothing for freedom and growth and (not a small point) the defense of liberty against the ever-present forces of tyranny on this planet waiting always for any opportunity to make its move and take over. Americans look down on you for this reason. We want you to be fellow warriors with us, but you seem to want to be cowards that will justify any evil and any tyranny just so long as you don't have to move your butt off your welfare couch. It's difficult to respect Europeans these days when you are looking at Europe from the point-of-view of America and the fight to keep life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness alive in this world.

I won't mention the apostosy that has overtaken Europe. That's another disappointment, but it may be Biblically ordained...

Hello, Jan, I think that Americans are clearly aware that Europe is basically social-democratic. That is essentially one of the divisive issues here in the US. Some want a more European style state. I am glad we are tending away from that or at least slowing down in that direction for now. It seems that Americans are reviled by many in Europe for our supposed lack of social support and our individualism (which is not true). This is something most of us like (cowboy is a positive). We like minimal government. In the long run more freedom and less government control makes for a more dynamic economy and society. The world is highly competitive and becomming more so. It is frightening in a way. Americans are not as arrogant as some think, most of us know we have to adapt to rapid economic change and we are clear that government is not going to protect us from the exigencies of the world. Government oftern does not have a clue. Looking at the problems of Germany and France makes some of us think hard about a nanny state. Here in California, the totally left wing government has led to severe economic problems. Many jobs are going to other states. If this type of government works for Europeans great, godspeed.

Markku
"But you have to add: and it is a system that survives because of worker-consumers in (American) export markets with more disposable personal income."

High grades for low cunning. Sorry, but that statement is not only false, it is nonsensical.

I have homework for you: compare how much the US and the Norwegian *state* uses on social and health programmes (per capita) and come back and report the result.

Jan, whatever you're getting at Markku could have also mentioned the fact that European welfare statism only survives if America is your national and continental defense. When a state (or group of states like Europe) lose their ability to defend themselves they cease being even states. Right now it is not a bizarre statement to say that Europe is an American territory with currently TOO MUCH sovereignty and freedom to do as it wishes (and Europe currently wishes unhealthy things). You are America's territory by default, and America should be administering some strong medicine to you currently.

Jan: you are comparing apples and oranges, i.e. your comparison is not comparable.

First, Norway is an anomaly within the European social democratic welfare community as a whole, as it has its oil wealth. The stupendous amount of wealth (supported by oil prices sustained by American consumer demand, by the way) has enabled it to reach efficiencies in social services not matched by, say, Sweden or Finland. A more proper comparison would be America and Europe, or Norway and Utah (Utah having the advantage of a society bound by a fair amount of idealist religious cohesion, as in Norway).

Second, the argument has little to do with how much is spent on social services, but how much money is left for consumers to spend after taxation. And the facts speak clearly: Americans have more disposable income than Europeans do. That American buying power is what Europeans depend on to sustain their economies. Remember: there is a trade surplus vis-a-vis Europe and the US. Europeans need American markets to sustain their welfare states.

Perhaps it's hard for Europeans to understand how much market penetration European products have in America: BMW, Porsche, Daimler Benz, Erickson, Nokia, Philips, Louis Vuitton, Benetton, L'Oreal, Volvo, Saab, Ikea.... The big profits for these corporations come from America, as the European consumer is less inclined to pay a premium for these brands, given the levels of taxation that they have to live with.

That is why financial markets in London and Frankfurt await with trepidation any news that could portend swings in US consumer demand. Because they know that domestic demand is simply not there to carry the weight of their welfare societies alone.

There are some more thoughts on the subject at the link above. Posts from the last week or so...

There are always justifiable reasons why the state should restrain liberties (e.g. to protect us dumb proles from ourselves). There are always reasons for property or income confiscation (enforced solidarity). But it is a one-way street, and in the end democracy becomes meaningless. The measure of a constitution should be how it protects the individual from the erosion of political and economic liberties.

THIS constitution will fail that test. And that matters, because it will spawn hundreds of laws and thousands of pages of regulation, and probably lots of subsidies.

Social justice? Social progress? Does anybody know what exactly that means? Terrorists usually make sure that their job is never finished by making unsatisfiable demands. Our political caste uses much the same tactic.

PS. We are dealing with people who have had years to think up a name for the common currency - and they came up with 'Euro'. This soviet lack of imagination is deeply worrying. If they could get control of the internet, they would undoubtedly call it 'Euronet'. I guess that´s why we call them 'Eurocrats'. The future sucks.

I agree that Europe has failed on defence, arguably except the UK and France (which also are social-democracies). Germany has done so for historical reasons; we are pretty happy about that all things considered. However, Europe even without the US would be strong enough to *defend* itself, if not pose a signbificant strategic threat everywhere.

I just know that I'd not like to live under a system that denies children proper healthcare because their parents are in the lower middle class (not poor enough for medicare, nor rich enough for proper insurance).

So are you convinced the median disposable income in the US is higher than Norway? Remember you have to take medical and pension insurance into account, and see what you have left.

Prices are overall much lower in the US, true, but that is no surprise given the difference in scale. 280 million people can be supplied more effectively than 4.5 million people clinging to some rocks in the ocean.

What IS a surprise is that there are no scale effiency bonus for the US healthcare. The pharmeceutical companies have effective lobbying, as always.

There are different philsophies at play between Europe and the US. Right-wing slogans may be very persuasive for those already in the club, but don't prove anything. You can't put forth a decisive answer to what a state *ought* and *ought not* to do, it depends on what the people want. Europeans want a society where access to the necessities in life and healthcare does not depend on the size of your wallet.

Re. Norway's access to the US markets. Oil & gas aside, Norway exported to the US for 1 451.4M NOK in Januray 2003. We imported from the US for 1 300.2M NOK in the same month. One year earlier, we imported more than we exported; it has a lot to do with exchange rates. I suspect similar figures applies across the EU.

See http://www-open.ssb.no/muh/arkiv/tab-2003-02-17-03.html

The facts do not support your bizarre economic theories.

Jan: It is true that Western Europeans were freeloading off of the Americans when it came to defense spending during the Cold War. But those are bygones. I would only say that the fact that America was forced to spend so much on its armed forces back then is one definite reason it enjoys such armed superiority today. Western Europeans only have themselves to blame for not keeping up when they had a chance.

However, the question is not can Europe defend itself. The question is whether Europe will take armed, decisive action when it is needed today. Military preparedness is necessary for that, and Europe let that slide. The Yugoslavian crises of the nineties definitely caught Europe with its pants down. If not for the Americans, there could have been another holocaust, right in the middle of Europe...

I share your concern on health care for lower middle income families in America. I definitely think that something should be done here in the US about that. But numerous discussions with economists and other people in Finland have convinced me that state-supported medical coverage is not the answer. Finland and Sweden, for example, are rife with stories of people dying while waiting in line to get critical surgery - all because hospitals are full and there's a waiting list. Last summer, Sweden "exported" patients to Finland and Germany because it could not handle the backlog. Imagine how much that cost the Swedish taxpayer! Let's see, there's the ambulance to the airplane, airfare for patient and attendants, ambulance from the airport, foreign hospital, ambulance back to the airplane....

Stories like these get little coverage in Scandinavian media and, of course, never get picked up by Reuters or AP. Gee, I wonder why?

What I would like to see in the US is some way private enterprise can be harnessed to take care of the 40 million or so who are now without health coverage. Perhaps tax break incentives might be the answer... but that predicates economic growth, of course. Whatever the US does, the European model is not the way to go, since that is the model for economic stagnancy, and bureaucratic befuddlement.

Norway definitely has the highest per capita income in Europe (outside of the tiny principalities), that is true. And Norway has higher per capita income than the US - because of its oil wealth. Norway is an anomaly. But taxation to support health coverage and pensions - vs.- buying insurance on the open market and investing non-taxed individual retirement accounts (IRA's) personally (rather than have the state do it for you) cannot be compared. The US economy is a powerhouse because these activities are handled by the private sector, not by the state. You also overlook the fact that, while the American health-care industry costs more than the European one, it is the American biomed corps - funded by capital markets besotted with private pension funds - that wind up producing the greatest medical breakthroughs in the world.

Of course, after US corporations make those medical breakthroughs and develop patented products from them, it is only fitting that those that want to benefit from them should pay for them. For the US consumer, that has proven not to be too serious a problem: the US consumer has a certain tolerancy level on the open market for these products, and that tolerancy level is known by the sellers. But these prices could be significantly brought down for everyone if foreign export markets were factored in. Why is that a problem for Europe and the rest of the world, though? Why don't they want to pay for something that never would have been developed, if not for the US? Perhaps that has to do with the lack of morality in Europe and the rest of the world.... Or perhaps it has to do with freeloading. Same thing, really.

Furthermore, don't assume that just because Norway does not directly export much oil to the US that US consumer demand has nothing to do with setting oil prices. Again, this kind of thinking is faulty, akin to the assumption that oil fields must actually be controlled for a country to benefit from the use of oil (a common misconception amongst those who still claim that the US invaded Iraq for the oil fields). What matters is not who controls oil fields, nor who exports to whom, - but the price of oil on the open market.

And the price of oil is directly influenced by the biggest consumer of oil in the world: the American worker-consumer.

The price of oil artificially spiked high, however, during the Iraqi War, due to the jitters in the market: that definitely hurt the American worker-consumer. Norway, however, as well as every other oil-producing country in the world, enjoyed a big windfall. Norwegians should, in fact, be very, very thankful... to President Bush. But the ungrateful freeloaders that you are, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting to hear the thanks.

Markku,

You make some good points. I have no interest in dictating what the US should do with their troubled healthcare; and I expect the same courtesy from Americans on ours. You don't get any free lunch; the extreme market liberalism of the US (well, except for farmers, apparently. They get their handouts always!) has come with a cost, as well as enormous benefits. You can easily argue both sides and not reach the absolute "truth" about how a society should be run.

I am much of a pragmatist. If it works, don't fix it. And when it doesn't work perfectly, as it never does, don't fix more than you have to. Utopianism and revolutionism is the enemy of any decent society.

It is of course true that Bush's policies have benefitted Norwegian oil revenue, at least in the short term. Of course, that we benefitted from it was unintended rom Mr Bush's side. If we should thank him, we would have to thank Saddam Hussein even more.

It would be in Norway's national interest to keep the Middle East in a constant state of turmoil. Maybe we should sponsor Hamas and Hizbollah? If you were conspiracy-minded, you could perhaps argue that the Oslo accords were all part of the plan to further destablise the Middle East. It's a secret, but Norwegians really rule the world. *insert evil laughter here*

Markku: You write that there are talks about 'controlling the internet' in brussels. Yes, there are - unfortunately.

However, the worst offender in this category is the US - mainly backed by the RIAA and MPAA (recording industry and motion picture association). These US entities tries to push, lobby, and so forth laws regulating the Internet.

You already have the dreaded DMCA - and your industries have pushed the EU to adopt similiar regulations (yuck!). Now sweden are pushing for ban on crypto research, p2p networks, and so forth - because of both the EU directives, political pressure from the US - and economic pressure from american lobby groups such as RIAA/MPAA .

The worst offender when it comes to trying to destroy freedoms on the Internet is - unfortunately - the US.

You're confusing the demands of private commercial companies with U.S. government policy. It is the inevitable sausage-making that goes on in free societies when new technologies come on the scene. Enforcement of copyright law, and interpretation of copyright law is messy and that's not a bad thing. Copyright itself is not bad thing. Anyway, remember, the U.S. government gave you the internet (the American spirit of technological advance and experiementation and etc.). The U.S. also provides for more (and makes more secure) freedom of speech than anywhere else in the world and has led the world in that since the American Revolution.

ct: The Communications Decency Act _was_ government policy - I'm not sure if there were private interests involved. Thankfully it didn't pass Supreme Court, which actually underlines an important point about constitutions. It can be taken for granted that politicians will, over time, expand their powers as far as legally possible, and in practice the best legal check of a politicians power is a good constitution. An example: In Norway, broadcasting and cinema has traditionally been regulated and/or censored by the state, because our 1814 founding fathers, though inspired by the French and American constitutions, only saw fit to protect the freedom of the _press_, the only form of controversial speech there was any point in protecting at the time. The American first amendment protects the press _and_ speech in general. Foresight or luck?

Rune referenced RIAA, and that was what I was speaking to.

The American Founding Fathers were wise to the ways of the world and the ways of tyrants, and I would never underestimate them in anything that they did. They were very intentional with every word of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and had a long history of such matters in their collective blood, both from Europe and from lesser experiments and compacts and constitutions in the various colonies. They pretty much knew what they were doing...

ct: But they didn't intend the freedom of speech as broadly as it is interpreted today. As far as I know, without being an expert, it was the Sedition Act of 1799 that first pushed many of the founding fathers, (the ones who now fell victim to censorship), towards a more libertarian view. Before that, it was taken for granted that speech must be limited by common standards of decency.

Obviously mores of the times would play a role in interpretation changing, but newpapers and other political publications of the Founding Father's days were vicious (and dishonest and all that) in their partisan attacks, and the philosophy for the Founding Fathers was the classic I may not like what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. It was like that from the beginning.

Again, the Constitution and Bill of Rights didn't just spring up from nothing. Americans had a long and bloody history (Europe and colony experience) of discovering and experienting with and studying from history and defining and living with and fighting for each of those rights. They pretty much were adepts in the school of liberty and constitution-making...

It was in the air of the times as well. Adam Smith, Montesquieu, American Founding Fathers. They all had brilliant worldly understanding and were able to give master lessons in the ways of the world...

(ps- There are reasons why America is special. Read of the lives of those early Americans. They were as impressive as individuals, and their experience was as impressive as any history in the known history of mankind.)

But wasn't it precisely those kind of partisan attacks, a new experience for a newborn democracy, that lead to the Sedition Act? Surely if the libertarian interpretation had been there from the beginning, John Adams wouldn't have accepted such a violation of the freedom of the press?

You're misreading that. Those acts were the result of a young republic fighting what it considered outside hostile influence (the French, hmm) and not simply internal partisan political attacks. As the current party in power, anyway, perceived those threats of that day.

Also, the acts were not popular with the vast majority of the citizens of the young republic and ruined the party, Adams' party, that brought them about. More a sign that the foundational philosophy of free speech was alive and well. Constitutions get tested. The first test was when Washington stepped down after his term and there was a rare orderly transition of power. The second amendment got tested in the Sedition Act. American ideals and the American constitution and Bill of Rights survived the tests.

It was the inspired brilliance of the Founding Fathers in drawing up the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as the foundational instinct for supporting real liberty in the American blood and soul that enabled early tests to the new Republic and ideal philosophy of the new republic to survive.

(There is a very meaningful religious background to all these things as well, Bjorn. Religious freedom, the fight for it, the history of it, the experiences that derived from it, informed all of the poltical side of American life. Freedom is deep in the history and soul of America...)

The document comes from the EU government. It is given to the public from on high. The government is giving the people a command. In contrast, the US Constitution came from the people, with the people giving government a command.

The first paragraph says nothing about providing for the common defense, as does the US Constitution.

Many countries have had very good constitutions, with many important guaranteed rights, but then failed to live up to them. A good example is the USSR. The EU constitution, from what I've seen of it, is a bad constitution whether Europeans live up to it or not.

Norway's decision to stay out of the EU is looking better by the day.

Rune: free-speech issues are different from piracy issues. The US will always safeguard free-speech on the internet: it has to, as it's prominently in the Constitution. Unfortunately, European free-speech protections aren't as extensive.

Piracy, however, is another matter completely. I do not agree with piracy, but it doesn't surprise me that Europeans don't mind it. After all, Europeans have freeloaded off of American entrepreneurship for decades...

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