I recall the irony of an anti-EU UK minister carrying around in his pocket a copy of the US Constitution to make precisely the point that you do – short, concise, readable, understandable.

I love your note about the ultimate guardian of the Constitution being the people’s confidence that they understand it – and can use that understanding to select and control their politicians. The EU’s refusal to take the points made by such as the UK minister may speak to concerns about that. On the one hand, Lisbon Agreement supporters complain about critics distorting its contents and misleading Irish voters. But on the other hand, they never launched a serious campaign to debate and explain it.

There were plenty of critics of our Constitution, and the Federalists papers were a vigorous and effective counter by key authors of the document. Where were the champions of the agreement?

I agree with your assessment of what would be best for the success of the EU project – at least, from the perspective of the sovereignty of its several peoples/nations. Its the progressive agenda of the project – and the way that plays out in the political process of expanding and deepening the experiment – that fascinates me.

Thanks so much for your visit and, as always, for your incisive commentary!

Without its amendments (particularly the Bill of Rights), the bulk of the U.S. Constitution deals with the limits and scope of government. The EU Charter spends the bulk of its energy focusing on the boundaries of rights the people retain, which is, on its own, inherently dangerous.

Second, the size of the two documents is vastly different. The U.S. Constitution was written to be read and understood by common people, not only lawyers. This is not only preferred, but necessary if the people, not the lawyers, are to remain sovereign over the government. In fact, esoteric interpretations by the courts of allegedly hidden meanings of the text represents possibly at least as great a threat to our sovereignty (though probably greater) than any foreign power ever did. For if the people cannot read and interpret the Constitution on their own (and elect representatives who are at least coequal to the judiciary), then it is not a government of, by, and for the people, but rather a government of and by the judges and lawyers.

Perhaps that’s why France rejected it. I don’t know.

It’s clear that the intent of the charter is to institute a sort of shared sovereignty between each of the independent governments and the collective whole to reap the benefits of shared resources and streamlined trade.

However, in any case, to share sovereignty that was previously wholly owned by a single entity requires giving up a portion of that sovereignty to an outside party. The history of European relations (not to mention the decrees of the EU as it exists now) provides plenty of examples of why the different people would be suspicious of any such attempts.

Based on this analysis, I think the EU should be defined by its limited powers only and should not attempt to calculate the litany of rights that are too numerous to define anyway.