Patterico's Pontifications

6/26/2016

Steven Hayward: Brexit to be the Euro-Left’s Citizens United

Filed under: General — JVW @ 2:00 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Writing today in Powerline, Steven Hayward makes an interesting and apt comparison between the whinging of the left establishment in Britain over the divisive Brexit vote and the ongoing whining of the establishment left in America over the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision by a divided Supreme Court. Hayward actually immediately pivots his post to a discussion of the Brexit vote in relation to the vote on Proposition 13 to limit property tax increases in California in 1978, a vote which the left establishment of the Golden State still blames for the alleged inability to “properly” fund “necessary” government programs nearly 40 years later.

But I want to tease out a bit more on Hayward’s initial comparison of Brexit to Citizens United. From the moment that the Court held that the government may not restrict individuals, corporations (both for-profit and non-profit), labor unions, or other affiliated groups from independently (i.e., not coordinated with campaigns or parties) spending their money on political advocacy, the establishment left (along with certain members of the establishment right) have complained that this decision is a Pandora’s Box that has unleashed all of today’s evils. We certainly remember President Obama’s petulant remonstration of the Court majority at his State of the Union Address one week after the decision was announced, but six-plus years later the kvetching remains unabated. From insinuations that the ruling opened the door to foreign meddling in our election to claims that the ruling was the cause of Republican down-ballot success in subsequent years, it seems that there is little the left won’t attribute to the baneful aftermath of the ruling.

As if all this gross overreaction wasn’t embarrassing enough, the California State Senator who represent both Patterico and me (a man for whom we both reluctantly voted) has collaborated with a insufferable leftwing San Francisco colleague to demand a public advisory vote on a measure to instruct California’s Congressional delegation to overturn Citizens United, a ballot measure which will add yet more fluff to a November ballot already chock full of candidates, judges, propositions, and referenda. And of course, this outcome is staunchly supported by my preening, ambitious Congressman who never misses an opportunity to pander to the progressive elite to enhance his career. Frankly, clearing out the corruption and sleaze of the state’s Democrat elected officials ought to be a higher priority than these fatuous antics, but that’s actual meaningful work rather than the kind of grandstanding so popular with the elected class.

But allow me here to get out of the weeds and back to the main point that Hayward proposed: the Brexit vote is soon to become the Euro-elite’s (especially the left Euro-elite, since much of the right Euro-elite seems resigned to their fate) version of Citizens United, the catch-all for any ill that befalls Britain. England manages to lose to Iceland tomorrow in the European Soccer Championships? The fault of Brexit. Emma Watson’s next movie is a dud at the box office? Backlash against Brexit among American movie-goers. Flea beetles attack the sugar beet crop? Wouldn’t have happened before Brexit. To read the overwrought melodramatic opinion-writers in publications of the British left like the Guardian, the New Statesman, and Tribune is to understand the sheer terror felt by the credentialed and opinionated class that an albeit-slight majority of their countrymen no longer want to be part of the Grand European Project. Expect this shrill and alarmist tone to carry on now that the complicated task of extracating the U.K. from the EU is set to begin.

– JVW

46 Responses to “Steven Hayward: Brexit to be the Euro-Left’s Citizens United”

  1. It’s interesting how the British “whinge” while here in the U.S. we “whine.” I looked it up, and the claim that “whine” is supposed to represent a high-pitched cry seems to run counter to the general American use of it as petulant complaining. The British seem to believe that you can utter a whiny whinge, but not a whingy whine. I think I am going to continue to spell the word in the way that it has been accepted here.

    JVW (eabb2a)

  2. after food stamp’s humiliatingly impotent attempt to sway the brexit vote do food stampers really get to kvetch about “foreign meddling in our election”

    that seems wrong to me

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. they are in full edward munch territory, but brexit is more significant than citizens united, it offers the prospect of real fundamental change,

    narciso (732bc0)

  4. 5 more countries want referendums on getting out. Germans cannot be happy with their chancellor. The death knell for the eu.

    jim (4c4310)

  5. You know that headline that the UK had a petition up to hold a Brexit do over vote
    http://heatst.com/uk/exclusive-brexit-2nd-referendum-petition-a-4-chan-prank-bbc-report-it-as-real/

    That was the 4chans. That was a world class punk right there. The BBC thought they were dealing with amateurs, and they were right.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  6. Another example of the insanity.

    When the EU was founded, places like New Zealand went from trade partners with the UK (we were basically Britain’s farm) to being “outsiders”. We had to find new trading partners, it was really bad for us.

    But now, when the reverse is happening we’re told this will *also* be bad for us. The reporter they have in the UK has barey contained her scorn of the Brexit movement, and we’re told this will be so, so bad for us. Yet in actual fact it’ll probably restore our top trading partner!

    scrubone (c3104f)

  7. scrubone (c3104f) — 6/26/2016 @ 3:06 pm

    When the EU was founded, places like New Zealand went from trade partners with the UK (we were basically Britain’s farm) to being “outsiders”. We had to find new trading partners, it was really bad for us.

    This was the biggest objection at the time to Great Britain joining the Common Market. The Common Market was found circa 1958 maybe. In the 1960s Charles de Gaulle kept Britain out. Britain joined what was then called the European Economic Community, I think, in 1973.

    It became the European Union in 1993. It started putting into force all sorts of commercial labeling and even legal and illegal to sell regulations. It also started =, maybe because of some other treaties, putting into place judicial limitatipns, including abolishing the death penalty. They had had a central bank currecncy “Special Drawing Rights” since the 1979. It was worth about $1,17. This became the Euro and accounts could be kept in it, I think as of 1999 aand it became currency in 2002. There as also freedom of movement within the EU. Some members stayed out of the Euro and some stayed out the passport free zone.

    The only two entities to leave the EU so far are Algeria, in 1962 (Algeria had been treated as part of Metropolitan France before) and Greenland in 1985 (which is under Denmark)

    Sammy Finkelman (c41e9f)

  8. we spend lots of money protecting these trashy soft soap totalitarians

    hopefully our new friend Mr. brexit will help clarify how ree ree this is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  9. the IMF tranny is the worst though

    nightmarishly creepy dude

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. Another twist I heard this morning.
    The devolution legislation which created the parliaments in Edinburgh and Belfast gives them the job of passing at least some of the laws which will implement Brexit, or even possibly allow them veto power.
    The Scots are already making noises about using whatever power they can to stop Brexit.
    This does raise the possibility of Scotland being fully subject to the EU yet not a part of it, whether as part of the UK or independent but not admitted.

    kishnevi (55d84d)

  11. having missed the boat, they try to capsize the ship,

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/06/on_brexit_just_call_me_cassandra.html

    narciso (732bc0)

  12. You Yanks are so parochial, with so little sense of history and no wonder since you hardly have none. Brexit is not analogous to your Citizens United. It is our Mini Carta.

    nigel kornholingsworthington (dbc370)

  13. anti trumpeters take note. it did pm cameron no good to side with elitists, banksters and liberal media vermon.

    david cameron (d988b3)

  14. The Left has, as usual, taken off in the wrong direction after the Citizens United rulings.
    Instead of trying to return to the old “status quo” by suppressing free speech, the proper reaction to Citizens United is “non-profit” reform.
    Of course, with so many on all sides of the spectrum committed to the entire NGO/non-profit industrial complex, this won’t be their first choice.

    Neo (d1c681)

  15. …From the moment that the Court held that the government may not restrict individuals, corporations (both for-profit and non-profit), labor unions, or other affiliated groups from independently (i.e., not coordinated with campaigns or parties) spending their money on political advocacy, the establishment left (along with certain members of the establishment right) have complained that this decision is a Pandora’s Box that has unleashed all of today’s evils…

    When the SCOTUS struck down McCain/Feingold as overly broad and a clear violation of the above named entities’ First Amendment rights, it’s important to know why the LHMFM was right up there with their fellow leftists screaming how the Citizens United decision was an outrage.

    Because McCain/Feingold exempted one and only one kind of corporation from these restrictions.

    Media corporations. Because they are all leftists themselves. Free speech for me, but not for thee, is the motto of the LHMFM. That way they can better control the narrative which, as we see in the case of Brexit, is that conservatives whether in the US and or Europe are stupid, uneducated, fearful, racist homophobic xenophobes.

    It’s what the very progressive Swedes call call the asiktskorridor; the “opinion corridor.” Allowable opinion is what is inside the corridor. Only opinion within the permitted corridor can be discussed. Anyone who has an opinion outside the corridor must be called the above names to shut them up lest they start making sense and disturb the groupthink. For instance, in Sweden it’s illegal to point out that probably all the gang rapes in Stockholm or Malmo or really nationwide are committed by Muslim immigrants and refugees. You can only discuss gang rape as a Swedish problem, as if a type of crime that was virtually unknown in modern times until the Swedes started allowing mass Muslim immigration is all of a sudden a product of Swedish culture. The perpetrators are always “Swedes” even when they are not. Such as when a group of Muslim refugees raped a Swedish woman on a Ferry to Finland. They were in no way Swedes; they weren’t citizens, they hadn’t been given residency status, or even refugee status. But the Swedish press called them Swedes. To do other than lie would have put them outside the asiktskorridor, and possibly outside the law.

    At least one Swedish politician, a Swedish Democrat named Michael Hess from Karlskrona, has been convicted of “hate speech” for connecting Islam with rape. He was on Facebook and made some comments about rape and Islam when, commenting on an article about the rapes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, he started discussing rape statistics in Sweden. Stockholm being the rape capitol of Europe.

    He was convicted and fined 32,000 kronar, and the court rejected his defense when he presented statistics to back up his statements. Apparently had he been participating in some mythical officially authorized discussion (such discussions are never authorized in Sweden) the truth might matter, but since he made the comments on Facebook it didn’t matter if the statements were true or not. The asiktskorridor, the narrative, or more accurately Sharia blasphemy laws are enforced by the courts.

    In Sweden, and now increasingly in Norway, Germany, Austria, etc., women are raped twice. First by the Muslim rapists whose religion tells them that women not in a burqa are asking for it. Then, since the problem is entirely a product of leftist policies, by their governments who invited the rapists in by making it illegal to talk about it. And who also parrot the Muslim line about the girls asking for it. Look at the reaction the mayor of Cologne had to the mass sexual assaults in her city during their New Year celebration. The mayor’s reaction was that essentially, the Muslims were right, and the women shouldn’t have provoked the assaults by being out so late and dressing so immodestly. And blond women need to die their hair because that only provokes assaults, too.

    As the saying goes, I sh*t you not.

    http://www.thelocal.at/20160506/attack-victim-claims-police-told-her-to-dye-hair

    There is no reason to doubt her because Swedish cops have been telling assault victims or just blond girls and women who are harassed by Muslims non-stop the very same years, and Swedish girls in the suburbs of Stockholm are actually doing it because they’re tired of old Muslim men leering at them, younger Muslim men pulling up in their cars, honking their horns, and calling them wh&res. Apparently the Austrian pols and cops have turned to the Swedes for advice on how to deal with epidemic levels of Muslim rapes local slutty girls provoking the poor innocent Muslims into raping them.

    Basically the truth must not get out. I see that as the nexus between Citizens United. Our idiotic incompetent elites think they can hide their malevolence and incompetence by controlling the narrative. They’ll see that as their only failure in Brexit. Not that they failed when they deliver one disaster after another, but because just like here the tyrannical incompetents of the left think we ought to be thanking them for being ruled by people so much smarter than us. They just didn’t, as Barack Obama is fond of saying when asked why his fundamental transformation of the US is so unpopular, “tell a good enough story.” It’s really hard to tell a story that good when it’s completely at odds with the facts.

    So the only smart thing to do is get rid of those pesky facts. In addition to overturning Citizens United and reinstating McCain/Feingold they need to start prosecuting “hate crimes” such as providing non-state approved information on the internet, and no doubt asking the ChICOMS for advice on how to emulate their success in censoring the internet with their “Great Firewall of China.” If only we had a single government-approved source of information that is completely in the tank for unaccountable leftist governance we’d never think of Brexiting.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  16. Instead of trying to return to the old “status quo” by suppressing free speech, the proper reaction to Citizens United is “non-profit” reform.

    Neo (d1c681) — 6/26/2016 @ 10:32 pm

    What would non-profit reform have to do with Citizens United?

    The court ruled that people have an inalienable right to free speech as individuals, when they group together to form all kinds of corporations whether non-profit or for-profit, or as members of labor unions.

    How is non-profit reform going to “fix” the fact that people have a First Amendment right to free speech regardless of whether they express that right as individuals or as members of a group?

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  17. scrubone @6, your timeline is a bit off. The European Economic Community (EEC) was founded in Rome in 1957. It was to be a customs union, which is why it’s commonly called the common market. The original plan (at least the original plan they openly talked about to the public) was that by 1968 there would be free movement of goods within the EEC and a common EEC trade policy that all member states had to abide by with third parties, such as New Zealand.

    The EEC would set customs duties, tariffs, etc., with third parties. The member states would no longer be free to do so.

    Which was why the UK didn’t join the EEC in 1957. It wanted a free trade area, not a customs union, so that there would be the free movement of goods within Europe but each country retained the right and the power to set their own trade policies with third parties. That way the UK could continue trading with commonwealth nations (and others) as it saw fit.

    The UK didn’t join the EEC until 1973. That’s when New Zealand became the outsider. It was still long before the EU, though, which actually didn’t exist as such until 1993.

    The PM that brought the UK into the EEC in ’73, Heath, lied through his teeth to reassure the Brits that it was really no big deal and the UK would not be giving up any sovereignty. You know that’s not true, since the UK had given up all rights and powers when it came to trade policy to Brussels.

    Because the ultimate goal was to weld all the countries into one single political entity
    with under one supranational European government. A United States of Europe. Giving up
    the right and power to set trade policy was just the first incremental

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  18. was just the first bit of sovereignty the UK would have to give up. Ultimately the UK to would give up all sovereignty in all areas. The UK would no longer govern itself.

    Heath knew this, as we now know, from cabinet ministry papers from the 1960s/70s. He was fully briefed on the ultimate goal of the “European project” he had entered Britain into, but refused to tell the British people about.

    One Foreign Ministry paper titled “Sovereignty” went into enormous detail. One important detail is that essentially it was safe to lie about it because it would be the end of the century before the British people caught on to what was going on, and by then it would be too late.

    I guess Brexit proves it wasn’t too late.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  19. Mini Carta,
    That is a very nice reference, thank you.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  20. Because they wanted to wrangle the few non profits that didn’t go along, scaife then, l
    Koch now.

    narciso (732bc0)

  21. Contrary to myth, the Magna Carta granted greater privileges and immunities to the barons and the church (the “elites”) and not to the common people. In fact, it stripped the common people of some of the protections of the King and put them more at the mercy of their barons.

    Anyhow ….

    An American tourist is strolling along the Thames enjoying the sights. An Englishman passing by tells him, “Do you know, we are standing on the exact spot the Magna Carta was signed?” The American asks, “When?” The Englishman says, “1215”. The American looks at his watch and says, “Darn it! Missed it by nine minutes.”

    nk (dbc370)

  22. Pope innocent ultimately voided the agreement 10 days later.

    narciso (732bc0)

  23. Moloch sated, Mcdonnell sprung at the court.

    narciso (732bc0)

  24. I just got an email from my daughter’s new high school. It just sealed the deal for its own football field — ready to go, first game on August 26.

    nk (dbc370)

  25. Congrats nk.

    narciso (732bc0)

  26. OT, but thanks for humoring me.
    Here is an article about the travemocasham that made me believe the worst of lawyers (exceptions noted!!!!) and the legal (not justice) system:
    http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160627_Agora_Charter_parents__long_legal_fight_ends.html

    People forced to defend being sued for merely truthfully restating things in the public record,
    and lawyers willing to do the evil deed.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  27. Also, via Rush,
    http://www.mediaite.com/tag/richard-posner/

    We don’t need no Constitution!!!

    Cue remake of “The Wall”

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  28. Hey, government, leave us anarchists alone!!

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  29. well be fair, ‘its over a hundred year old’ double facepalm.

    narciso (732bc0)

  30. The English language is pretty old, come to think of it
    State boundaries, too.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  31. not so funny anymore,

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/237297/

    narciso (732bc0)

  32. trump wins again! media loses again. so do banksters!

    ronaldo (382dd9)

  33. The whinny sour grapes response by panicked globalist swellheads to the popular Brexit vote reminds me of similar asinine caterwauling by Cruz supporters here who shut their eyes and close their minds to the clear reality of Trump’s nomination and his impending march to victory over our elite overlords.

    Power to the People!

    ropelight (596f46)

  34. So–will the CA authorities go after the group that first engaged in an open conspiracy to commit potentially lethal violence on a group of peaceful–if admittedly vile in belief–demonstrators, then acted on it, or will they blame it on Trump/Citizens United/Brexit/squirrels and do nothing?

    M. Scott Eiland (3a0fd3)

  35. there’s a town I know where hipsters go

    they call it brexit!

    twitch twitch

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  36. Looks like you have a lot of work to perform within your “tribe”, aphrael!

    “AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES THE EARLIER, FUNNIER* ONION:

    Shot: Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years.

    —Headline, the Onion, April 25, 2001.

    Chaser: Gay Pride Parade In NYC Remembering Orlando, Carries Banner: “Republican Hate Kills.”

    —Headline, Weasel Zippers, yesterday.

    An odd slogan considering that Orlando was caused by an ISIS-supporting terrorist who, like his Congressional lobbyist father, was a registered Democrat. But never let a crisis go to waste, to coin a phrase.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/as-always-life-imitates-the-earlier-funnier-onionshot-gay-pride-parade-sets-mainstream-accept/

    Colonel Haiku (dd820b)

  37. Colonel Haiku,

    We all know that the Orlando Murderer was a conservative Christian Republican who was angry that a black man is President.
    All this stuff about the perpetrator being a Democrat Muslim who hates America is merely a distracting technique.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  38. 23. Sorry, but go Phillips! If Fenwick would move up to the CCL Blue I might reconsider.

    urbanleftbehind (fb93b6)

  39. a more accurate parallel:

    https://twitter.com/SebGorka

    narciso (732bc0)

  40. Coronello @35, another interesting development.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/even-al-qaeda-knows-loretta-lynch-is-a-dope.php

    AQ in their online magazine “Inspire” commends Omar Mateen for attacking a “homosexual nightclub,” and declares it an absolute duty for Muslims to kill gays. But since the Obama administration is insisting on calling this a hate crime they recommend that “lone jihadis” avoid such sites in the future since Obama will keep doing the same.

    They recommend instead that they pick targets frequented by whites because, as author John Hinderaker notes, if they make it glaringly obvious it’s an act of jihad this administration can’t possibly mislabel it as anything else. Hinderaker goes on to observe, “They don’t know Barack like we do. His obtuseness–or rather, his commitment to a failed ideology–runs deeper than they imagine.”

    They also observe that while it was a good effort on Mateen’s part to kill a third of the
    patrons that night if he had used bombs he could have killed more.

    But no matter what happens we know the “tribe” will still blame Republican hate and guns. Disarming Americans is apparently the proper response to everything whether it’s the Boston Marathon bombing to the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Holocaust.

    I can’t wait for Tiger Beat to lecture us about the Crusades as a reason for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.

    Steve57 (ecac13)

  41. Yep, Steve, and in other news, Putin has Obama’s number, knows he’s a pu$$y, and has his thugs harassing US diplomats in Europe… from sending agents to private social events to following their children around to breaking into their apartments, sh*tting on the carpet, rearranging furniture and killing their pets.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/russia-is-harassing-us-diplomats-all-over-europe/2016/06/26/968d1a5a-3bdf-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  42. ???

    mg (31009b)

  43. abort the supreme court

    mg (31009b)


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