Everyone writing on a blog will have one take or another from yesterday's vote by the UK to leave the European Union, and I don't want to be an exception.
The thing that most struck me about the backing for remaining in the EU was how much it resembled the backing in this country for undertaking sentencing reform: The "bi-partisan consensus;" nearly uniform enthusiasm from academia, think tanks and those who see themselves as better educated; overwhelming support from the mainstream press; likewise from the urban and the urbane; and the cheerleading from celebrities.
And one more thing -- the premature, and false, claim of victory. The most recent British polls showed the public favoring remaining in the EU, just as sentencing reformers claim majority public support for giving judges more discretion (at least until the unwelcome fact comes out of what happens when they use it).
Our Betters inside the capital city and in academia are not about to take any lessons, either from the Brexit vote or from the fact they can't move sentencing reform. The idea that "We Know Better than You People with Big Hair," and the silky self-righteousness behind it, are too firmly entrenched.
Those of us favoring the present national sentencing structure and the crime reduction it has helped bring about would be ill-advised to look for any congratulations. We'll have to be content -- so it would seem for the moment -- merely to win.
Except for Scotland & N. Ireland, from north to the heartland, from east to the SW,
the bulk of the people favoured independence from the EU.
The ghettos and the elites in London (read NY) and greater Manchester (read LA) failed to make the case to the “Middle/Little Englanders” –- which is how they disparage the flyover-country gits -- for EU-imposed immigration &ct.
Not so sad.
~Adamakis
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage on British vote to leave EU:
-- “You [Americans] have your Independence Day where in July you celebrate becoming your own country, governing yourself, having your own courts,
controlling your own borders, and that’s what happened to us yesterday.
-- “We have broken away from a political union where our power was being overruled, our courts were being overruled, and we had a complete open border for anybody from southern and eastern Europe, so this is a major historic step.”
German chancellor Angela Merkel reacts on British vote to leave EU:
“There is no point beating about the bush. Today represents a break in Europe’s history, a break in the process of European integration.
… challenges are too great for individual states to manage on their own. ..
[The EU] is our guarantor of peace, wealth and stability. ...
After centuries of terrible bloodshed, the founders of the European Union
found a joint path towards reconciliation and peace, culminating in the
treaties of Rome signed almost 60 years ago.”
Anonymous punter responds to Merkel:
“We in Britain did not cause the “terrible bloodshed” to which you reacted in Rome; we helped end it with the United States. As with them, we do not need to belong
to a less democratic conglomerate of Euro-states in order to have “peace,
wealth and stability”.
------------ breitbart.com, theguardian.com
~Adamakis