Both, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, have declared June 23, 2016 as Great Britain's Independence Day. One wonders how all those countries which have fought for independence FROM Great Britain in the last few hundred years have felt about that.
To only suggest similarities between July 4, 1776 and June 23, 2016 (other than having the same last digit in the number for the year) is a sham. First of all, Great Britain voted to become independent from a union which it had voluntarily joined only a few decades ago. The 13 American colonies, on the other hand, were loyal to nation from which they had emerged until that nation began treating them like subordinates.
The WSJ commentator Peggy Noonan recently wrote an article titled "A World in crisis, and no genius in sight". In it, she argues that there are times in history, typically times of crisis, where a group of leaders develop hitherto unknown gifts; where they become historic figures. Examples: Jobs, Gates, Ellison, Brin, Page; or: FDR, Churchill, de Gaulle; or: Reagan, Thatcher, Havel, Walesa; etc. etc.
The American Independence Day was the product of such a genius cluster. The names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison influence political thinking throughout the world through this date.
And the British genius cluster? David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps? A cluster it definitely is but it seems more like an egomaniac cluster.
I am a fierce critic of the EU elites who behave like self-appointed elites who, with great self-gratulation, pick up their Nobel Prize and who have lost touch with reality. But compared with EU elites, what we have seen from Great Britain of late simply defies description!
To only suggest similarities between July 4, 1776 and June 23, 2016 (other than having the same last digit in the number for the year) is a sham. First of all, Great Britain voted to become independent from a union which it had voluntarily joined only a few decades ago. The 13 American colonies, on the other hand, were loyal to nation from which they had emerged until that nation began treating them like subordinates.
The WSJ commentator Peggy Noonan recently wrote an article titled "A World in crisis, and no genius in sight". In it, she argues that there are times in history, typically times of crisis, where a group of leaders develop hitherto unknown gifts; where they become historic figures. Examples: Jobs, Gates, Ellison, Brin, Page; or: FDR, Churchill, de Gaulle; or: Reagan, Thatcher, Havel, Walesa; etc. etc.
The American Independence Day was the product of such a genius cluster. The names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison influence political thinking throughout the world through this date.
And the British genius cluster? David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn, perhaps? A cluster it definitely is but it seems more like an egomaniac cluster.
I am a fierce critic of the EU elites who behave like self-appointed elites who, with great self-gratulation, pick up their Nobel Prize and who have lost touch with reality. But compared with EU elites, what we have seen from Great Britain of late simply defies description!
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen