A starting point for the major European nations today could be found by looking at the fifth century AD, with the Migration Period and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Soon enough, we see the Anglo-Saxons taking over Roman Britain, and the Franks under Clovis I (from which the name Louis is derived) taking over Roman Gaul.

Is the EU a distant reflection of the Roman Empire, coming about because of desires for unity, prosperity, and security? And after all, an empire is a political organization of multiple nations.

I would note that the Republican candidate for President in the show was played somewhat sympathetically by Alan Alda. He was a strong conservative, but a respectable opponent — hard, but fair.

I don’t think Democrats and Hollywood are going to find their way back to that level of collegiality for a generation. And they see that as our fault.

Good catch on the part I missed. I see that the Schengen exemption for “target shooters” is perhaps a type of training requirement. Shoot at least once a year to maintain proficiency.

The other question is whether the Swiss can depend on these exemptions indefinitely into the future.

Dalrymple deserves reading in full, but this is the bottom line:

It is obvious to all—except perhaps the demonstrators—that Parliament has conducted a long rearguard action against putting into effect the vote that it, led by former prime minister David Cameron, called. The majority of Members of Parliament were opposed to Brexit: but instead of coming straight out with it, they prevaricated so long and so efficiently that they almost scuppered the whole process.

In normal circumstances, Members of Parliament are not obliged to vote according to what the population wants. They are representatives, not delegates with a clearly laid-down mandate to fulfill, and governments have to make hundreds of decisions without reference to the electorate’s wishes, except in a general way. But, having canvassed public opinion in a supposedly binding referendum on a vital subject, to ignore the result can only strengthen the impression that the political class is a law unto itself.

The demonstrators have thus got everything exactly the wrong way round: it is they who are the enemies of democracy.

September 10, 2019
The best speech on Brexit — from a shocking source
By Thomas Lifson
Keep in mind that, according to most of our media (and even more so the European media), we are supposed to regard with fear the German “ultra-right-wing” political party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Also, keep in mind that we are supposed to believe that the Brexit battle pits Brits against a united Europe that is horrified at their effort to shatter the European Union.

But, in fact, the arrogant, unaccountable transnational organizations, of which the E.U. is a leading example, have served global elites better than ordinary citizens of their constituent countries.

Watch this speech in Germany’as parliament, the Bundestag, by AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel, and start to realize that populism is a global force in the highly industrialized world and that the complaints we Americans feel against our elites, and the complaints Brits have against ceding control to the E.U., are all of a piece. She does not hesitate to point her finger at France, which is leading the resistance to a negotiated Brexit.

Brilliantly delivered snark, as only the German language can do it.
However, keeping in mind that one of the ostensible reasons for the EU was to tamp down German aggression, inquiring tin-foil-hatters want to know if the AfD has an ulterior motive for breaking up the EU?
I don’t have a brief either way, but it has to be considered.

LOL – I suspect he was thinking of the Declaration; people seem to get that confused with the Constitution quite often.
Looking back at my quotes from Caldwell, this seems to be a good thread for comparisons.
Of course, Jefferson & Madison bear absolutely no resemblance to d’Estaing & the Remainers, except in their own minds.

From Hannan’s “The New Road to Serfdom:” (2010)
* * *
Great article; I hadn’t seen it before.
Thanks.
“The US Constitution concerns itself with broad principles, such as the balance between state and federal authorities. The EU Constitution busies itself with such details as, space exploration, the rights of disabled people, and the status of asylum seekers.”

The urge to legislate everything at the primal level is always with us. See this objection to the Declaration of Independence from “1776” the musical:
“Mr. Jefferson, nowhere do you mention deep sea fishing rights.”

Swiss gun culture has emerged from a long tradition of shooting (tirs), which served as a formative element of national identity in the post-Napoleonic Restoration of the Confederacy,[7] and the long-standing practice of a militia organization of the Swiss Army in which soldiers’ service rifles are stored privately at their homes. In addition to this, many cantons (notably the alpine cantons of Grisons and Valais) have strong traditions of hunting, accounting for a large but unknown number of privately held hunting rifles, as only weapons acquired since 2008 are registered.[8] However, in a 2019 referendum voters opted to conform with European Union regulations which restrict the acquisition of semi-automatic firearms with high-capacity magazines.[9] An exemption permit for high-capacity magazines is issued to members in a shooting club, a citizen who shoots at least once a year which needs to be proven after five years, or a weapons collector.[10]

The bit about registering weapons is bad, but the Swiss have always known who has guns at home, since that includes just about everybody.
I suspect there will be a massive increase in shooting club memberships and gun collections. There would be in America. And how hard is it to go shooting once a year?

Another good reason Great Britain would be well out of the EU, assuming their own government will grow a spine on gun rights.

In “The West Wing” alternate universe, …
… this is who Democrats think they are — people who play hard but fair and have a liberal appreciation for everyone, whatever race, creed or political affiliation. It’s sad how badly we have disappointed them.
* * *
I watched some of the “West Wing” later seasons, and enjoyed the politics and witty persiflage (although some of the main characters were, IMHO, kind of creepy instead of sympathetic protagonists).
One episode, however, encapsulated for me at the time how totally out of touch the Dems were with the rest of America. Two years before, Bush fils had won the real election, with a supposed major contribution from what we used to call the “moral majority”*; the Dem carried their fake one.**

“The episode opens late at night on the day before election day. Josh finally relaxes long enough to see various campaign staff hooking up, and he and Donna sleep together – twice.” – Wikipedia
The couples are hetero and same-sex, have been inviting everyone into their bedrooms all year, and no one on (or off) screen bats an eye.

I recalled that episode & its public reception on several later occasions: when the Democrats tried to throw dirt at McCain (retracted, because untrue), threw everything BUT that at Romney, and then staggered around clutching their pearls when Trump entered the race.
The only use the Democratic Party leadership has for moral values is beating conservatives over the head with them; that’s one reason I started being sceptical of their other public stances, such as fairness and tolerance.
I’ve moved on from sceptical to confirmed: they got so deep into hypocrisy they came out the other side, and now can’t even recognize how warped their view is.
* * *
*My recollection of the 2004 election is from the publication of the exit polls, which were later questioned in Public Opinion Quarterly, but I never saw any debunking at the time.
I consider myself less than persuaded by this attempt to shove moral values out of the equation.
https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/69/5/744/1920108

“Moral values” led the list of top issues cited by voters in the 2004 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, leading to widespread reports that a rise in moral concerns, particularly among conservative Christians, was the driving factor in George W. Bush’s reelection. This conclusion, the combined result of a poorly constructed survey question and incomplete data analysis, is misplaced.
Voting behavior depends on a panoply of influences—attitudes and emotions, issues and attributes alike (Miller and Shanks 1996). Values—and for some voters, morals—are important elements of some such influences. But our analysis of the exit poll data shows that “moral values,” when controlling for other variables, ranked only as high as fourth of seven competing items in predicting vote choices, behind terrorism, the economy, and Iraq and tied with health care.1 Nor were conservative Christians responsible for Bush’s improvement over the 2000 election; neither their share of the electorate nor their support for Bush increased.2
…
This was not the message delivered by many news outlets in their election coverage. “Voters who care about moral values delivered the election to President Bush,” the Washington Times declared in an editorial. It was “an election that . . . amounted to a referendum on moral values,” reported USA Today. On CNN’s Crossfire, cohost Tucker Carlson said, “Three days after the election, it is clear that it was not the war on terror, but the issue of what we’re calling moral values that drove President Bush and other Republicans to victory this week.”3
…
Controlling for partisan self-identification, race, ideology, religion, and church attendance, moral values has less predictive power than terrorism, the economy, and Iraq; it is tied with health care for fourth in terms of predictive probability. In the Bush model, moral values has less than half the predictive power of the terrorism item.16 (The single biggest predictor of Bush votes, not surprisingly, is self-identifying as a Republican.)

**I read later that the writers had intended the Republican to win, so they could spend a season poking spears at him, but in the end couldn’t stomach it, explaining that they were changing the outcome out of respect to the sudden death of the long-time actor who was “running” as Dem VP — both reasons probably contributed to the decision.
The question became moot anyway, as that was the final season and the last episodes were all denoument.
https://25yearslatersite.com/2018/11/01/art-of-the-finale-the-west-wing-tomorrow/

Leo McGarry’s (John Spencer) heart attack at the start of Season 6 led to a lot of shakeups, as CJ moved from Press Secretary to Chief of Staff, but as Season 7 wrapped up and John Spencer himself suffered a fatal heart attack, his character’s death had to be written into the show as well. It changed the trajectory of the election campaign that McGarry had been thrust into as Matt Santos’ Vice Presidential running mate—the story goes that the original plan was for the Republican candidate Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) to win the election, but that the choice to have Santos win instead was purely decided by the dramatic death of one of the show’s regular cast members and his on screen character./blockquote>