E.U. Flag Day

Both the E.U. and U.S. have their respective flag days during the month of June—on the 29^th and 14^th, respectively. This isn’t the only thing that the flags have in common, and what sets both off from the flags of the states. I contend that these similarities and difference regarding political symbols can function as markers for what both unions are as complex polities of polities even as ideologies seek to obfuscate and dissimilate, even dismissing or ignoring the history of both unions. In other words, flags don’t lie; people do.

The first flags of the E.U. and U.S. were both used by their predecessors, rather than being created in 1993 and 1789, respectively. These dates mark when the states gave some of their governmental sovereignty to the union-level judicial, legislative, and executive branches. The first E.U. flag had been used by the European Communities since 1986, and the first U.S. flag had been used beginning in 1777 by the alliance’s Second Continental Congress, and, moreover, under the Articles of Confederation, under which each of the 13 member countries was sovereign after having been colonies in the British Empire until 1776. Crucially, the Declaration of Independence declared the independence each of the 13 colonies, which even while colonies had been in a military alliance like modern-day NATO.

The original E.U. and U.S. flags. The sheer paralellism is astonding, especially given how differently the two unions are perceived today by the general public on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The E.U. flag contains stars representing its 12 original states and the U.S. flag contains stars representing its 13 original states because all of those states had been sovereign countries and still retained some governmental sovereignty. In fact, in 1993 and 1789, respectively, the states still held most of the governmental sovereignty, with the federal governmental institutions, or branches, being much restricted in their respective exclusive competencies and enumerated powers.

The parallelism itself is astounding, especially given the tendency in Europe to perceive the E.U. incorrectly as a “bloc” or international organization like NATO and NAFTA, and in America to perceive the U.S. like France with a large back-yard rather than an empire-scale union of semi-sovereign polities. This is precisely why the history of the two flags is so important to know, for treating the U.S. as if it would be a state in the E.U. rather than on the same level and scale as the E.U., and treating the E.U. as if it were a temporary “bloc” of sovereign countries for a single purpose like trade or defense as if a trade agreement of military alliance incur rather basic yet invisible category mistakes.

The basic, or qualitative difference between the unions and their respective states can be grasped by the fact that the E.U. flag’s twelve golden stars, “explicitly, and in contrast to” the flags of the states, represent the states and “the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony,”[1] which are especially important at the union, empire-level because empires are inherently heterogenous (i.e., interstate differences in culture, norms, and values as well as dominant ideologies) whereas the states themselves are relatively homogenous. Rather than a difference in degree, the difference is that of a leap, given that there is a leap in geographical scale between that of a state and a union of many such states. 

That the stars in the E.U. flag are in a circle better stands for unity than does the arrangement of the 13 stars in the original Star-Spangled U.S. flag, but the circle configuration was in the Betsy Ross version, which although not the official flag, was consistent with the specifications in the Flag Act of 1777. The parallelism between the stars in the Ross flag and in the E.U. flag is very strong.

The Betsy Ross Flag, a close up of part of that flag, and the E.U. flag. The close up and the E.U. flag are directly parallel, with only the color of the stars differing. The stars on both flags stand for states.

The value being placed on unity and solidarity at the federal level is more crucial than at the state level, and this is reflected in the fact that the state flags not only do not have stars representing sovereign and then semi-sovereign polities therein, but also do not symbolically highlight unity or solidarity. 

In short, unity and solidarity, which by the way are put at risk by relying too much on the principle of unanimity in having state vetos at the union level, are more valuable at the federal level in an empire-scale union of states than at the state level. Therefore, empire-scale governance contains, or should contain, dynamics that do not exist at the state, or (early-modern, rather than medieval) “kingdom” level, such as in managing diversity of state preferences at the union level.  Interstate differences are more salient in union-level governance than regional differences are in state-level governance, and early-modern federalism, as distinct from confederalism, treats the two levels as qualitiatively different as a result. To conflate them is thus one hell of a category mistake, and yet people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean do it much too often, given the reasoning potential of the human brain. Yes, ouch! Just for added fun, let's put corrective braces on the crooked teeth of "Brexit" and add some disinfectant mouth-wash to extirpate the bad odor from former British Prime Minister David Cameron's erroneous statement that the E.U. was just one of the international networks that Britain had been in. 

Before the United Kingdom seceded from the E.U., it could be said that the ideological and cultural differences throughout the empire-scale union bearing on political decisions needed to be managed in the European Council, the Council of the E.U., the European Parliament, and the European Commission dwarfed the differences between the four regions or provinces of the United Kingdom that had to be managed at the state level there. Put another way, whereas the original E.U. flag has stars representing the states, the state flag of the United Kingdom does not have stars representing its regions. Nor, for that matter, does the flag of Germany have stars representing its 15 regions. 

The governmental dynamics at the scale of former and existing E.U. states are in crucial respects qualitatively different than the unique dynamics that empire-scale unions of such states must have in order not to fall apart due to pressure from state differences seeking their own expressions yet while there is unity at the union level. This is the balance that renders federalism itself an unstable form of government, yet the best suited form to empire-scale unions of states. Contrasting union from state flags warns us not to conflate state with union-level governance, and thus states with unions of such states.

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1. Andreas Rogal, “European Flag Celebrates 40 Years as Symbol for EU and Predecessor,” Euronews.com, June 29, 2025.

The E.U. Stance on Tariffs: Pressure from the States

After the U.S. took the decision to impose reciprocal and car tariffs on the E.U., it did not take long for several of the E.U. states to pressure the federal executive branch, the European Commission, to punch holes in the E.U.’s counter-tariffs so favored industries in the E.U. would not face higher prices on supplies from the United States. As in U.S. states, E.U. states have their own dominant industries, whose financial interests it is only natural for government to protect, as jobs translate into votes. But pressuring the E.U.’s federal government to carve out exceptions for imports desired by favored industries at the state level, such as automobiles in the E.U. state of Germany, would deny the E.U. the full benefit of a united front that federalism can provide against other countries. For maximum leverage in trade negotiations, unilaterally removing counter-tariffs is not wise; it is like a person intentionally tripping over himself while trying to get to the grocery store. Given the regional pressures, trade is rightfully one of the enumerated powers, or exclusive competencies, of the E.U. rather than a shared competency or a power retained by the states.

At a basic level, first of all, to pretend that the E.U. is merely a confederation, in which governmental sovereignty still resides exclusively with the state governments, is a much more subtle way of enervating the E.U., whether out of denial or a desire by federal officials to appease purblind Euroskeptic governors, such as Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary. Fortunately, though for some people regretfully antagonistically, transparency is valued by truth-tellers. Both qualified majority voting and the exclusive and even shared competencies enjoyed by the E.U. government are incompatible with a confederation, not to mention a mere “bloc” or economic treaty like NAFTA. Correctly “mapping” the E.U. is a prerequisite to being able to get “maximum bang for the buck” (an American expression, wherein “buck” strangely means “dollar”) in terms of collective action at the federal level.

On the summer solstice, 2025, which by the way is not the first day of climate summer as some American meteorologists were claiming as if they were deer in headlights or cows chewing cud, the E.U.’s Commission warned state governments that some of their “sensitive goods” would not be shielded “from planned retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods” because the E.U. was “weary of undermining its negotiating hand in high-stakes trade talks with President Donald Trump, three E.U. diplomats and officials” said.[1] Not to resist the pressure would unilaterally weaken the E.U.’s negotiating leverage even before sitting down to negotiate with the Americans. In a confidential meeting at the Commission, it was determined that acceding to all of the state requests would mean that the E.U. “would only target €25 billion worth of U.S. exports . . . instead of the €95 billion” that the E.U. “initially targeted as a response”.[2] The sheer difference between €25 billion and €95billion attests to the leverage that collective action at a federal level has over the negotiating power that an aggregation of European countries would have. In other words, the dollar value lost in the shielding can point to the power that is gained by collective action from an exclusive competency residing at the federal rather than state level.

In seceding from the E.U., the former E.U. state of Britain lost any future benefits that can be gained from collective action at the federal level of an empire-scale union of states, for even a secessionist state is commensurate in scale and polity-type with the remaining states rather than the union of such states. A leap in scale from (early-modern) kingdom and empire, and a qualitative difference in polity-type between a state and federal union of such states are why Britain is not equivalent to the European Union. In other words, the United Kingdom is not a small E.U.

In conclusion, subtly letting air out of the tire by insisting that the E.U. does not have a federal system or intentionally allowing states to shield certain imports from America at the expense of the federal stance is not exactly putting the best foot forward in arriving at the negotiation table. Given the sheer amount of benefit that would be lost were the Commission to acquiesce to every state request on carve-outs, proposals to expand the federal competencies subject to qualified majority vote instead of unanimity should be considered with greater urgency, and additional enumerated domains of power federalized from the states. Fears of a leviathan “central state” can be allayed by realizing that the E.U. has a federal system of divided sovereignty and that the state governments have significant access to policy-making at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. even though the executive branch, the European Parliament and the E.U.’s supreme court provide less access and thus can protect federal prerogatives and thus the benefits obtainable from collective rather than associative action. Unity need not mean uniformity; collective action is possible at the federal level while states can retain the ability to reflect their own interests and cultures as long at the benefits from collective action are not unduly compromised.

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1. Camile Gus and Ari Hawkins, “Brussels Resists Pressure from E.U. [State] Capitals to Shield Exports in U.S. Trade Fight,” Politico.com, June 20, 2025.

2. Ibid.

Brexit as a Contribution to Political Development

Britain’s secession from the E.U. was, I submit, based on a reaction within the state against it having given up some of its sovereignty to the European Union. The American states too were originally (i.e., from 1776) fully sovereign until they gave up some limited (i.e., enumerated) sovereignty to the federal level in 1789. In 1861, South Carolina, like Britain, also sought to secede based on the view that too much sovereignty had been transferred. Unlike the UK, however, SC (and then the other seceding states) resorted to force. Although the process of Britain’s secession was arduous, I submit that South Carolina and federal officials had been excessively rigid. Even though the “dual sovereignty” of the European and American federal systems is perpetual, only the E.U. allows for peaceful secession. This evinces a step forward in the political development of federalism. Both a federal union and a strongly anti-federalist state are better off with secession being possible, especially if the process is peaceful. Europe deserves to be congratulated, and America would do well in taking a lesson in order to benefit from the advance. Peaceful secession can be done in a federal system of dual (i.e., federal and state) sovereignty.

Although several possible rationales were put forward both for South Carolina (and the other confederate states) and the United Kingdom seceding from their respective empire-level unions, I contend that in both cases the enormous distance and thus tension between confederalism (i.e., the states retaining sovereignty) and modern federalism (i.e., dual sovereignty was the root cause. In both cases, the belief that the federal level had too much governmental sovereignty at the expense of that of the states was in play. In both cases, moreover, the respective unions were seen as confederations. In the case of SC, this belief supported the argument that a state could justifiably secede. In the case of the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron referred to the E.U. to an association and Britain as a member. This view is utterly incompatible with the E.U.s basic law due to the feature of dual sovereignty. Joining an international organization as a member does not involve any transfer of the member’s governmental sovereignty.

Not even the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the E.U., was an international organization because sovereignty was split. In Flaminio v. E.N.E.L. (1964), the European Court of Justice stated, “By contrast with ordinary international treaties, the EEC treaty has created its own legal system which, on the entry into force of the treaty, became an integral part of the legal systems of the member states and which their courts are bound to apply.”[1] Even the superiority of the ECJ over state supreme courts involves a transfer of sovereignty because a state cannot overrule the ECJ; the state is bound rather than at liberty in this respect and has thus lost some sovereignty. Interestingly, the Court nonetheless refers to the EEC as founded by an international treaty, though not an “ordinary” one. Dual sovereignty characterizes modern federalism, which began with the American constitution, so not even confederalism, wherein the states retain full sovereignty, is sufficient to characterize the EEC (not to mention the E.U.)! The reference to a EEC non-ordinary treaty is thus problematic.

I suspect that the gravitas of nationalism may explain the Court’s odd legal invention of a non-ordinary international treaty wherein sovereignty is split within an overarching legal system (i.e., modern federalism). I am reminded of a line from The Euthyphro, a Socratic dialogue. Euthyphro suddenly remembers that he has an appointment as soon as he realizes that he has lost the debate. Socrates quips, “Oh Euthyphro, you are a rascal!” Rather than own up to the fact that international treaties do not split sovereignty within an overarching legal system, the Court stated that the EEC international treaty was not ordinary, and yet the ruling explicitly affirms: The transfer by the states from their domestic legal system to the Community legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights.[2] In fact, the EEC could exercise direct effect in obligating the residents of a state without the state’s involvement.

The E.U. shifted even more sovereignty from the states to the federal level and continued direct effect, and expanded the federal governmental institutions to include a parliament and an executive branch (with a president), so the case that the E.U. federal system includes dual or split governmental sovereignty is even stronger. Even so, David Cameron referred to the Union as one of the international organizations to which Britain happens to belong. Even the Court ruling about the EEC would challenge such a characterization, albeit in a vague way.

I submit that enough of the residents of the E.U. state of Britain viewed the E.U. as an international organization and thus as having an illegitimate claim to any sovereignty that secession was good both for the state and the Union. Put another way, the state’s predominant notion of what the E.U. was conflicted violently with what the E.U. actually was at the time: a federal system characterized by dual sovereignty (i.e., modern federalism—not even confederalism!). A real difference of opinion on something is can be understood as a deep fault-line, and thus as destabilizing at best. A house divided so fundamentally does not stand much of chance in the long term. Therefore, it was to tremendous benefit both to the E.U. and its most wayward state that the secession was not only allowed, but also accomplished peacefully. The arduous process, in other words, was well worth all the headaches. The American case demonstrates that resorting to force can go terribly wrong.

1. Flaminio Costa v. E.N.E.L., Summary, Case 6-64, 15 July 1964.

2. Ibid.

National Absurditas

Words can be stretched, or even abused, in the service of a self-serving ideology that is utterly unfair to other people as well as stubborn facts. Nietzsche theorized that ideas are the stuff of instinctual urges tussling for supremacy in the human mind. Against Kant’s love of the fixed laws of reason for their own sake, I submit that Nietzsche’s tussle of ideas can bend even the laws of reason, like the gravity of large masses can bend space (and thus light) and time. The basic framework of the universe is not static. Neither, I believe, are the rules of reason, and reasoning itself. Intense power, such as that of an ideology, can warp both the basic framework and process of reason. This can explain why ideologues can be seen by others to suffer from cognitive dissidence: holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. A defense mechanism of ideology can block awareness of one of the two. Self-serving applications of the word, national, is a case in point.

An article touting small towns in the U.S. as worthy tourist attractions stresses the importance of “small towns and communities that have long formed the backbone of the nation.”[1] The article features the best small town in every U.S. state, though the importance of small towns is in terms of the nation. The gravity of so much consolidated power at the level of the Union may be behind the bending of the spotlight from the state to the federal level. The towns were selected on the state level and yet they form the backbone of the nation. Cognitive dissidence is present in the tension here. Indeed, the term national can apply to the states, as the U.S., like the E.U., sports a federal system of dual sovereignty. In both empire-level unions[2], the member-states have retained some governmental sovereignty as well as any residual not delegated to the federal level. Also in both unions, cultural and even political-ideological differences exist from state to state. The U.S. state of Vermont differs significantly from the state of Kansas, for example. The E.U. state of Denmark differs significantly from the state of Spain. An empire must have many culturally distinct states (or kingdoms, historically).

It follows that the United Kingdom is not itself an empire. Formerly an empire and later a state in the E.U., the UK post-secession (not post-divorce, as the UK and the E.U. are not equivalent because the UK was a state in the E.U.). Culturally, the Scottish, Welsh, and English regions (and Northern Ireland, whose residents tend to identify themselves as English culturally) are much more similar than are the E.U. states of Greece and Sweden. In fact, were the regions of the UK really nations, they would have been separate E.U. states. Those regions only have delegated power in the UK, and are thus not semi-sovereign, so the regions are not nations. Indeed, the British Parliament could stop the Scottish region, for example, from even applying for E.U. statehood, whether before or after the secession.

Even so, the British refer to their regions as nations. For example, the Church of Scotland “is a Presbyterian church and recognizes only Jesus Christ as ‘King and Head of the Church’,” according to the Royal Family’s website.[3] If this sounds familiar, this may be because Israel before the kings recognized Yahweh as its sole ruler (assuming this is a historical fact used in the faith narrative). Yet someone had to interpret Yahweh’s will. Similarly, according to CNN, the Scottish Church is “entirely self-governing, represented at the local level by ‘kirk sessions’ and at a national level by the General Assembly.”[4] The Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is a human being. The Queen annually appoints someone to “maintain the relationship between the State and the Church,” according to the Royal website in early 2020.[5] Although occupants have been from the Scottish region, members of the royal family have also been appointed. In January 2020, the Queen appointed her grandson, William. Hence the Crown is over the Church of Scotland, albeit not as explicitly as in the case of the Church of England. This contradicts the self-governing plank of the Scottish Church, and, more to the point, the claim that the General Assembly is on “a national level,” meaning that Scotland is a nation.

Here, cognitive dissidence and a warping not only of the word national, but also of reasoning itself, can be seen. In the relation between Church and State, the latter refers here to the UK rather than Scotland, and yet the latter is “a national level.” The warping of reasoning itself and the law of reason that mandates that equivalents are equivalent are evident in the further contention that the semi-sovereign U.S. states are not nations while Scotland is. Two contradictory uses of the same word violate the logic of equivalence and invoke cognitive dissidence. In short, the British should not apply national to both Scotland and the United States. That this is done suggests the underlying presence of a questionable motive.  

Moreover, Europeans and even Americans typically treat an E.U. state as equivalent to the entire American union rather than to a member-state therein.[6] I suspect that few Americans even realize how the language is being used, and why. In the case of the Europeans, the ideology seems to involve a self-serving overstatement of the importance of a former or current E.U. state and a diminishment of an empire-level union elsewhere. Power can fuel both the self-aggrandizement and passive aggression. In fact, the latter is definitely present in angry reactions against the few people who try to restore the application of equivalence as if doing so is irrational and haughty! Such is the power of ideological defense-mechanisms manifesting in the political domain.

Although I resist the linguistic reductionism in 20^th century analytical philosophy (e.g., Wittgenstein’s claim that no awareness of an object can precede a word being given to that object), I readily admit that human beings can use language in order to get pleasure from having more power. The fixity of the rules of grammar and of the definitions of words can be mere parchment constraints up against the instinctual urge for power.

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[1] Lissa Poirot, “Every U.S. State’s Best Small Town,” Far & Wide, January 10, 2020 (accessed January 26, 2020).

[2] Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire (2017).

[3] Amir Vera, “Queen Appoints Prince William to New Role amid Royal Shakeup,” CNN.Com, January 25, 2020.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015).

Behind Cameron's Referendum on Britain's Secession from the E.U.

Governors of other E.U. states reacted quickly to David Cameron’s announcement that if his party would be re-elected to lead the House of Commons, he would give his state’s residents a chance to vote yes or no on seceding from the European Union. The result would be decisive, rather than readily replaced by a later referendum. Cameron said the referendum would also be contingent on him not being able to renegotiate his state’s place in the Union. This renegotiation in particular prompted some particularly acute reactions from the governments of other “big states.” Behind these reactions was a sense that the British government was being too selfish. This was not fair, I submit, because the ground of the dispute was on the nature of the E.U. itself as a federal system. 

David Cameron, PM of Britain

With the basic or underlying difference still intact, it should be no surprise that the renegotiation did not go well. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said at the time that Britain should not be allowed to “cherry pick” from among the E.U. competencies only those that the state likes. What then should we make of the opt-outs at the time—provisions in which states other than Britain benefitted? Surely one size does not fit all in such a diverse federal union (that goes for the U.S. as well). Westerwelle was saying that Cameron had abused the practice that was meant as an exception rather than the rule. Britain was exploiting this means of flexibility in the Union because that people in that state tended to view the E.U. as a confederation or, worse, a trade "bloc" even though the E.U. and its states each had some governmental sovereignty. 
The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said the approach of the British government would lead to the detriment of the Union. Specifically, he warned of “piecemeal legislation, disintegration and potentially the breakup of the union” if Britain was allowed to be bound only to the E.U. competencies that the party in power in the House of Commons liked. A player joining a baseball team undermine the game even in demanding that he will only bat because that’s the only part that is fun. In higher education, the education itself could only be incomplete if students could limit their classes to what interests them. Such a player or student would essentially have a different view of the sport and education, respectively. The view itself of the nature of the thing was so at odds with the fundamentals of the thing that it would be undercut severely. This is what had been going on in the case of Britain navigating in the E.U. 
Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, also touched on the detriment to the whole from what he erroneously took to be the selfishness of a part. He said that Cameron’s notion of a flexible arrangement for his own state would lead to there being “no Europe at all. Just a mess.” French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said that “Europe a la carte” would introduce dangerous risks for Britain itself. So if the British government was being selfish, it could have been at the state's detriment, though of course I contend that selfishness does not go far enough. 
In short, the visceral reactions in other states to Cameron’s announcement manifested recognition of selfishness of one part at the expense of the whole. Those reactions were rash and, even more importantly, lacking in recognition of the underlying fault-line in the Union erupting between Britain and the Union out somewhere in the Channel. Cameron and plenty of other Brits viewed the E.U. simply a series of multilateral treaties in which sovereign states could pursue their respective interests. “What he wants, above all,” according to Deutsche Welle, “is a single market.” Therefore, he “wants to take powers back from Brussels” to return the E.U. to a network of sovereign states. It followed according to this view that each state, being fundamentally sovereign, “should be able to negotiate its level of integration in the EU.” Such would indeed be the case were the E.U. merely a bundle of multilateral international treaties, or a network to which Britain was a party, rather than a federal union of semi-sovereign states and a semi-sovereign federal level. Herein lies the real conflict of ideas within the E.U. Cameron’s strategy is selfish only from the assumption that the E.U. is something more than a network to which Britain happens to belong.
Ultimately the problem was the uneasy co-existence of the two contending conceptions of what the union was in its very essence. The real question was whether the E.U. could long exist with both conceptions being represented by different states. The negative reaction from state officials of other states who held the “modern federal” conception (i.e., dual sovereignty) of the E.U. suggests that ultimately Cameron’s conception of the E.U. was utterly incompatible with the union’s continued viability, given what it actually was at the time. 

Sources:

“EU Leaders Hit Out Over Cameron Referendum Pledge,” Deutche Welle, 23 January 2013.

“Cameron Wants Another EU,” Deutsche Welle, 24 January 2013.

Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

Essays on the E.U. Political Economy, available at Amazon.

Britain at a Crossroads?

The prime minister of the state of Britain faced a “rebellion” in his own party on October 24, 2011 as eighty conservatives backed a nonbinding referendum on whether the state should secede from the union. “I don’t vote against the government lightly, but I think when there is a matter of principle then that must come first,” Nick de Bois said. “We have a considerably changing dynamic [in the E.U.] and given that . . . and the fact that anybody under 54 has not had a chance to vote on [whether Britain should secede from the E.U.], it is appropriate to set in motion that opportunity,” he said.[1] De Bois’ sentiment mirrors that of Thomas Jefferson, who argued that each generation should have the opportunity to affirm or cancel the social contract of the generation before.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

1. Alistair MacDonald, “Tories Split on Role in Europe,” The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2011.

Social Media in the UK: Protests and Criminal Activity

Officials from the E.U. state of the United Kingdom met with representatives of Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry on August 26, 2011 “to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest.”[1] Theresa May, the state’s Home Minister, said the aim of the meeting was to “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.”[2] However, reducing the protests, rioting, and looting to such behavior ignores the point that civil unrest can include political protest. So it may be disturbing to some that the discussion, according to some who were present, “was still aimed at reeling in social media and strengthening the hand of law enforcement in gathering information.”[3] What would stop the police from gathering information on people taking part in a political protest against police brutality, for example? It would be convenient for a police department to classify a march as “criminial behavior” in breaching the peace, or simply collect information without any subterfuge.

Jo Glanville, the editor of Index on Censorship, observed, “You do not want to be on a list with the countries that have cracked down on social media during the Arab Spring.”[4] Indeed, Iran sent a human rights delegation to Britain to study human rights violations.” It is worth pointing out that the E.U., of which Britain is a state, has a charter of human rights. Yet as Gordon Scobbie, a senior police employee pointed out, the police’s duty to protect people from being harmed by others should be balanced with human rights rather than simply disregarded. Innocent people in Britain were afraid for their housing and lives during the riots, and it would surely be moral for the police to have protected them. The decisive question is perhaps whether officials’ special access to social media could effectively be limited to this moral purpose, which is delimited by criminal rather than political behavior.

As Lord Acton said, absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the state gains too much control over individual citizens, that alone can act as a pressure-cooker that could explode in political violence and even revolution. What would stop a government from using its inroads in social media to defend itself from the political opposition? Furthermore, to the extent that social interaction and liberty are things that should be valued in a society (and republic), might decreased privacy, such as is already the case on Facebook, be counterproductive in the long run? Might even the potential invasiveness lead people to feel less secure, and thus more susceptible to joining efforts to topple the regime itself? In other words, too much institutional control of individuals can backfire and give rise to a self-fulfilling prophesy.

1. Ravi Somaiya, “In Britain, A Meeting on Limiting Social Media,” The New York Times, August 26, 2011. 

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

European Banks Ignoring the E.U.

As banks based in the empire-scale E.U.'s state of the United Kingdom decided to pull back their operations around the world in mid 2011, the bankers may have overlooked key distinctions between their banks’ operations within the E.U. and internationally. Besides ignoring the converging impact of E.U. financial regulation within the E.U., the bankers were discounting the proposal of European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet for a European rating agency. The proposal implies that certain advantages can be had for the E.U. as a whole—benefits that Lloyds, for example, implicitly discounted to the extent that the bank treated pulling back in the states of Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain similar to pulling back in Dubai, which is not an E.U. state.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

British Banking Regulation in the E.U.

Before the financial crisis of 2008, the British government was light on banking regulation compared to other E.U. state governments. Oddly, some Europeans imagined an “Anglo-American” connection or likeness, as the American states had been on a deregulation kick since Carter’s airline and thrift deregulatory laws in the late 1970s. Reagan and the second Bush in particular extenuated the movement, which applied to the entire U.S. common market. After the crisis, however, even as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is commensurate to the E.U. Parliament, were still voicing support for still more deregulation as though 2008 had not happened, the regulatory tussle in the E.U. reflected the greater involvement of the state governments (i.e., the stronger federalism than the lop-sided variety in the U.S.), with the British government in particular pushing for stronger banking regulation—if not at the E.U. level, then in the state of Britain. “British officials are waging an increasingly aggressive fight to impose banking regulations as they see fit, even if they go further than rules elsewhere in the European Union,” according to The Wall Street Journal. From this quote, we can unpack two distinct though interrelating strains: a desire for tougher banking regulation and an anti-federalism wherein the state governments of the E.U. can go beyond the federal government in terms of the regulation. Both of these points are significant.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Word-Games Obfuscating Britain Losing a Region: Too Many Bagpipes

Following the Scottish National Party’s victory in the Scottish region's elections in the United Kingdom) the question of whether the E.U. state of Britain would or should be partitioned received a lot of press. Plenty of word-games were in the mix. “Scottish National Party” alone is problematic, as Scotland has not been recognized as a country, nation or a nation-state since the beginning of the eighteenth century because Scotland is in the UK and is thus not an independent political unit. If a specific cultural identity alone were sufficient to connote national, then the word would be applicable at virtually any scale of territory from a town on up. Even Britain, being a semi-sovereign state in the E.U., is only a country (and nation) if Virginia and California are so as well, as they are also semi-sovereign states in a union and thus not independent political units. 

Furthermore, it is also misleading for union to pertain to Britain and the Netherlands, and even Deutschland (i.e., Bundes) because they are states in a union that treats them as unitary members of the European Council. The root of the problem here is that the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany had each been formed out of medieval kingdoms that were once sovereign. Even if they the three E.U. states are decentralized or federal in governance, they are equivalent to other E.U. states.

So to refer to the E.U. state of Britain as a union of countries is incorrect and utterly misleading in the modern world in which "union" refers to empire-scale federal polities.  To refer to a state in one modern empire-scale (and level) union as somehow commensurate with another modern empire-scale (and level) union evinces not only pretention, but an illogical category mistake as well, and to think that Britain is somehow equivalent to the E.U. is logically contradictory because the United Kingdom is a state in the E.U. 

To be sure, U.S. Government officials enable this category mistake by refusing to correspond to their counterparts in the federal executive and legislative branches of E.U. So we should not blame just the Europeans for being able to get away with playing word-games in discussing whether a region of the United Kingdom should break off. 

Scotland is no more a nation or country than is Normandy, Holland, Flanders, or Bavaria. Although some of the American states have particular regional cultures too, such regions are also not nations. Republics like California, New York, and Illinois are so heterogeneous that they, like Britain, should perhaps consider devolution or even partition. Indeed, California and Illinois have each had more than one secession or partition movement on account of internal cultural and political differences. This doesn't mean that Northern California is somehow a nation--or, for that matter, that Scotland is one. 

The importance of a state in the E.U. or U.S. splitting into two is mitigated if the two resulting states are to be in the same union. Of course, this wouldn't hold if one of the resulting states does not stay in the union. However, as independent states like Switzerland do not enjoy much international weight precisely because they are not in a union of modern states, the partition of a state that is in a union is likely to result in two states in place of one in the same union (which the other states in that union are apt to resist as the two-for-one reduces their power in the empire-level union body wherein states are represented).

Therefore, the importance of whether the United Kingdom decentralizes further or splits into two states is less now that the E.U. has gained some governmental sovereignty that has been delegated by the states. This should sound familiar to American constitutional lawyers. Lest it be thought that Scotland enjoys any such sovereignty, the Telegraph reported that “Cameron has overruled . . . Moore's insistence that there would have to be two referendums before Scotland should break away.”[2] According to the paper, “Salmond wants to give Scots a number of options in his referendum – a choice between the status quo, more devolution or giving his administration approval to negotiate the terms of independence. The Prime Minister is deeply unhappy about this prospect, believing it to be confusing and unlikely to lead to a clear – cut verdict. Instead he wants the voters to be asked a simple question, along the following lines: ‘Do you wish Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom?’ [A source at Westminster] commented: ‘Mr Salmond must be honest and straightforward with the Scottish people in his phrasing of the question for the referendum. If he isn't we will conduct the referendum.’”[3]

However, giving voters a choice of the status quo, more decentralization, and partition is hardly confusing; to contend so is to have no respect for popular sovereignty. In other words, if citizens in a representative democracy cannot understand this simple tripartite choice, how can the elected representatives claim to have any respect for their constituents who elected them? Cameron was engaging in word-games, deliberately obscuring the issue by claiming he was avoiding an ambiguity.

I would counter that to refer to Britain as a nation even as Scotland is one, while California and Texas are not, is also inconsistent. The world is no longer in the medieval times; England and Scotland came to parts of the host kingdom (and now state) in an empire. Today, neither England nor Scotland (nor Holland or Bavaria) is a country or nation. Being a region or province in a modern-kingdom-scale state connotes a particular cultural identity within that of the state. To claim that Scotland is a nation or country while Holland is a province in a nation or country is short-sighted and presumptuous, as well as utterly self-serving. The same applies to claiming that Britain, a state in the E.U., is somehow equivalent to the E.U. or U.S. as yet another union of semi-sovereign states. Here's how I would word the referendum for the Scottish region of Britain: "Do you think Scotland should break off from the U.K.? If Scotland does break off, should it become a state in the E.U.?"

In conclusion, the problem with word-playing in the context of politics is that the resulting category-mistakes preempt useful comparisons and ensuing lessons. In regard to the Scottish region of  the E.U. state of Britain, Salmond’s referendum proposal proffering the choice of status quo, more decentralization, or breaking off seems reasonable. Salmond could even add another question, whether the United Kingdom should, like the E.U. state of Germany, be itself federal. States of federal unions being federal is in line with Althusius’ (Political Digest, 1604) theory of federalism, which is based on the Holy Roman Empire and has the province, kingdom, realm, and imperial levels each being federations. The large American states might thus want to consider adopting the federal governance system for themselves, wherein their respective regions would become semi-sovereign. Applied political theory is in great need of logic to act as a check on cultural and political ideology.

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1. Alan Cochrane, “David Cameron Might Take Scottish Independence Referendum Off Alex Salmond,” The Telegraph, June 10, 2011.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Scotland: From a Region to a New E.U. State?

In early May 2011, “the Scottish National Party (SNP) won 69 out of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, with about 45 percent of the vote, up by more than 12 percentage points. Their three main rival parties — Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats  — all lost ground."[1] Whether to shift was so the region might break off from the United Kingdom, an E.U. state, is doubtful. 

 David Cheskin (AP)

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

1. Ian MacKenzie, “Scottish Pro-Independence Party Wins Majority,” MSNBC.com, May 6, 2011.