To Constitute or Not to Constitute

It's reported in today's news that the Dutch electorate have joined their French counterparts in rejecting the proposed European Union constitution.

Given the way our "news" is reported, it's not clear what this might mean. We are told that the candidate constitution is lengthy, and that it provides for a single "foreign minister." How much these may have had to do with its electoral rejections, or what other provisions may be present in the document, we're not told. We should be understanding of our newsreaders' problems, though; after all, there's only so much broadcast time, and of course the Runaway Bride news can't be slighted -- to say nothing of the endless vaporizing over the marvel of finding out who Deep Throat is. But that's a rant for another time.

On balance, the rejection of the EU constitution is, I think, a modestly cheerful development. The constitution is a part of a centripetal process in Europe that bears some analogizing to the process by which these united states became The United States (or, as one of my heroes at The Last Ditch often calls it, "the United State" -- singular). Now, I'm too cynical to believe that most of the Dutch electorate, or the French, were motivated by a jealous desire to preserve their remaining liberties; I suppose it probably had much more to do with a perception that EU expansion might well result in more consumers of the shrinking European social-"services" pie. Still ... regardless of the motives, I have to like the result. A little bit, anyway. For the time being, that is.