California and Florida: Different Political Cultures in the U.S.

As evinced by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney likening a planned referendum on whether Alberta should vote to separate from the rest of Canada to “Brexit,” in which Britain seceded from the E.U., as if the UK in the European Union were equivalent to Alberta in Canada, political category mistakes can run rampant without being detected as such. Referring to the referendum in the province, Carney said, “That is a very dangerous bluff.” He was “pointing to the turmoil that followed the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union.”[1] The implied false equivalence of Canada and the E.U., as if the former too had been formed out of countries, is as incorrect as that which Carney was more directly assuming between Alberta and Britain. A region of a country, even if the latter has a federal system, is not equivalent to a country that joins a political union such as the E.U. and U.S. That Britain was once the host kingdom in the British Empire, and thus equivalent to other members of the empire, including Ireland and Virginia, does not mean that the UK as a state in the E.U. was equivalent to the latter, or to other political unions consisting of early-modern-scale countries.

The full essay is at "California and Florida."

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1. Mike Blanchfield and Sue Allan, “Carney Warms Alberta Not to Pull a “Brexit,” Politico, May 25, 2026.

Accountability for the Rich and Famous: A Soft Landing for an Ex-Prince

In ancient Greek tragedy, it was not uncommon for a god or goddess to perform the function of a Greek (i.e., conscience) chorus at the end of a play while being pulled by pullies high above the stage. Deus ex machina is the Latin phrase, which meant, a deity out from pullies. We get machine, mechanism, and even engine from the Latin word, machina. A movie entitled Ex Machina is on an AI android that seems full of life, even miraculous, from “pullies” inside it’s “body.” Ex-Prince Andrew of the (seceded) sovereign state of UK, or “Britain” informally, seemed to fly about the other actors in being able to land, rent-free, fittingly around Christmas, 2025, at the monarch’s Sandringham estate in eastern Britain, still rent-free, and with King Charles funding his brother. Considering that Andrew Windsor should arguably been sent to prison for having sex with a 17 year-old prostitute in the employ of the infamous Epstein, and that a large settlement paid by Queen Elizabeth II made Giuffre’s charges go away, as if magically, Andrew not only landed on his feet, but without touching the ground where us mere mortals make our way through life to survive and perhaps prosper.

The full essay is at "Accountability for the Rich and Famous."

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 full essay is at "E.U. Flag Day."

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.

The full essay is at The E.U. Stance. "

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.

The full essay is at "Congratulations to Europe!"

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.

The full essay is at "National Absurdity."

The British Pound Reacts to Secession

When the E.U. state of Britain held a vote in 2016 on whether to secede from the union, the British currency plummeted. On the day of the December 2019 statewide election in the U.K., that currency initially jumped and held on the day after as official results confirmed that the conservatives had won a majority and thus would be able to see the secession through. I submit that uncertainty itself was a major factor in both swings, and that the market put too much emphasis on the matter of uncertainty at the expense of the substantive economic effects of secession.

The full essay is at "The British Pound and Secession."

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, A former PM of Britain

The full essay is at "Britain in a Confederation?"

Obama Mimics Cameron's View of the E.U.

President Obama has said he “wants a strong UK in a strong EU.” In his joint news conference with David Cameron of the EU state of Great Britain on May 13, 2013, the president elaborated on his earlier statement in a way that reveals his view of the EU as an entity. In short, he shares Cameron’s view that the EU is essentially a number of economic relationships rather than a political union of states.

The full essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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.

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. 

The full essay is at "Word Games."

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.