The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 4 of 10)

The place is well lit, but there is nobody home.

p>As I made my way along the pavement in Brighton of a Saturday evening, struggling to keep my balance on the puke-slick surface, gingerly weaving through the drunks and nose-ringed matrons, all I could do was marvel at Kubrick's prescience, for the clockwork in the orange has, indeed, stuck midnight. br> -- Paul Kotik br> Plantation, Florida /p>

In his recent article "Vague It Up" Jed Babbin alleges that the U.S. Constitution is clear and simple.

How is it, therefore, that although there are no apparent references therein to the "freedoms" to publish hard-core pornography and murder unborn children, his country's judges have nonetheless allowed these practices on constitutional grounds? "Clear and Simple"? My Arse!

The notion that entirely written constitutions are necessary or even helpful to a nation's well-being is whiggish nonsense. They only lull the people into a false sense of security, unaware that words may always be twisted by the unscrupulous to mean their opposite. That is why my country, the UK, is better off without one and will vote against the new EU constitution if the U.S.'s friend -- but the UK's enemy -- Mr. Blair ever gets round to holding the promised referendum.

p>Mr. Babbin also accuses "Europe" (a term of notoriously unclear extension) of failing to come to his country's aid at its time of need. The UK is part of Europe and, for the moment, the EU. The UK has fought on the U.S.'s side its recent Middle Eastern wars. Although crusty, Marxist and Islamist antiwar protesters made a lot of noise about this, by far the greater part of the British people have an instinctive sympathy with the U.S., despite those unfortunate events of the late eighteenth century. When will the U.S. show some reciprocal loyalty? A good start would be overcoming your country's sentimental republicanism by banning Noraid and allowing the UK to extradite suspected Provisional IRA terrorists from the U.S. as straightforwardly as the U.S. can extradite suspected al Qaeda terrorists from the UK. br> -- Tom Holbrook /p>

Boil it down and the difference between the U.S. and the EU is one of trust. In the U.S., the presumption of the Founding Fathers was to presume trust of the populace to do what was right for themselves and their fellow countrymen. The Constitution constrains what the government is permitted to do. One only need read the lead sentence of the Constitution or Article IX, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," to understand the level of trust the framers intended.

On the Continent, the Euros are still in the mental trap, even to this day, of believing in the dark side of human nature. And so they wish to contain it before it gets let loose. Their error of course is, in attempting to restrain the beasts of a few, they restrain everyone and reduce the potential of all their citizens.

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