Say No to the EU-treaty

Certainly the founders [of the US constitution] thought they were in fact appealing to enduring principles. They did not make this claim casually. Only after they had studied the basic principles of human organization as articulated by such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu, and as manifested in history, did they affirm what they regarded as lasting ideas and ideals. These they regarded as derived from our basic human nature, which doesn’t change from year to year and place to place. A human individual was Aristotle's "rational animal" 2000 years ago, and this is still so today. Thus writes philosopher Tibor Machan.

But do the same considerations about our basic human nature apply to the recent EU-treaty that is an offspring of the attempt to make a constitution for the EU, and that has so far been agreed upon by the 27 heads of state and government in the European Union?

Surely this is not the case. For a long time now it has been evident, that the documents coming from the political establishment and the bureaucracy in the EU institutions are inspired by socialist notions concerned with forced redistribution and a blatant disrespect for property rights combined with the quite obvious “non-ideological” inclination to buy clients within business and labor with the same taxpayers money, - with absolutely no limits imposed upon them by any document whatsoever. The previous treaty may simply be described as an entire novel with hundreds of pages of promises of taxpayer’s money to be spent on almost any conceivable need and project that has already been accepted as “valid” targets for confiscation and redistribution in the member states.

Returning to the introduction above, this behavior is the diametrically opposite of what is needed politically in order to construct a viable political order, that respects and accommodates to our rational human nature. The behavior of the EU-politicians are in this way more to be likened to savages who tears away whatever piece of cloth or stump of metal that one of their fellow beings has gathered on his or hers own accord.

The documents are obviously not to be seen as the establishment of limitations on political power, but are in fact expressions of the exact opposite: The European documents are basically to be described as listings of promises to new clients that the EU-establishment wants to create - in order to increase their sphere of “power and pull” even more than is the case today. The result of acknowledging these documents is therefore, that more taxes will be raised and taken from the EU-citizen and distributed to the growing amount of EU-“welfare-receivers”; - and that more regulation - that lifts up some producers while pushing other companies down - will be implemented. This is so since any acceptance of these documents will be seen as recognition of the current policies of redistribution and favoritism.

The behavior of the current brand of politicians are therefore the opposite of the founders of the US constitution, who in their codification of the respect for property rights and of every individuals right to pursue his own happiness did the important thing that such documents must do: and that is to delimit the realms of governmental power - in order to secure the freedom of the citizens to behave in a rational, productive and civilized manner. So if you get the opportunity: vote No to the EU-treaty.

Tibor Machan (October 16): America’s Lasting Principles.