The European Union has already institutionalized a litmus test that cuts to the core of the differences that separate the new European view of shared risks and vulnerabilities from the older American view of unlimited personal opportunities and individual prowess. It’s called “the precautionary principle,” and it has become the
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CuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: The Feudal Power of Britain’s Justices of the Peace
Justice of the Peace, with folded hands Rural England, which was then three-fourths of England, was governed by the absolute patriarchal sway of the Justices of the Peace. Of county self-government there was none, till the establishment of County Councils in 1888… The Justices of the Peace absorbed more and
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: China’s leaders could have ruled the waves, but blew it
Decisions made can impact centuries, as China found out when its leaders made a shortsighted decision in the early 1400’s: In Nanjing today you can see a full-size replica of the treasure ship of Admiral Zhen He, the most famous sailor in Chinese history. It is 400 feet long –
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: The German Juggernaut in search of a Hedgehog
About Jose Maria Aznar, Prime Minister of Spain, at the Amsterdam Treaty negotiation in May 1997: But not with Aznar. They waited until everyone had settled into their roles at the negotiations, including me, and then offered him a compromise, not a bad one but not a good one. He
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: What comes first in the USA
The Texas delegation up front cheered. Put a big man in a big uniform, let him recite big figures, and they would take the word of no priest or pope. In America the uniform always finished first, the production expert second, and Christ was welcome to come in third. Norman
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard – High stakes Russian politics
A game played for the highest stakes also entails high risks … In 1647, Alexis himself, at the age of eighteen, had chosen Euphemia Vsevolozhska to be his first wife. But when she was being dressed, a group of court ladies twisted her hair so tightly that in Alexis’ presence
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard – China’s social threat
The real social threat to China’s stability is demographic. As a result of the One-Child policy introduced in 1979, China by 2030 will have a significantly more elderly population than its comparably large neighbour India. The share of the population aged sixty-five and over will be 16 per sent, compared
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: Tony Blair on Labour’s problem
Labour just did not have a large enough constituency to govern: From early on, even before my election to Parliament in 1983, I had realised the Labour problem was self-made and self-induced. We were not in touch with the modern world. We could basically attract two types of people: those
Continue readingCuriosityCat: My Quotes Cupboard: Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick
He never tires of reminding people that his famous aphorism “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick” proceeds according to civilized priorities. Persuasion comes before force. In any case it is the availability of raw power, not the use of it, that makes for effective diplomacy. The Rise of Theodore
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: “I have to have a murder!”
The needs of a newspaper editor: … the body of a Paris magistrate involved in the shady business of keeping Stavisky out of jail was later found mangled on the tracks of the Paris-Dijon railway. Apparently he had been tied to the rails after having been drugged… When three famed
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: European foreign policy
What then does a European foreign and security policy look like? For beginners, it’s so utterly different from anything that came before it in human history that it requires a leap of human imagination to even entertain it. European foreign policy is built on spreading peace rather than amassing power…
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: The American Dream versus the European Dream
[T]he European Dream is the mirror opposite of the American Dream. The American and European dreams are, at their core, about two diametrically opposed ideas of freedom and security. Americans hold a negative definition of what it means to be free and, thus, secure. For us, freedom has long been
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: Cat Battering for Sport in Medieval Times
In village games, players with hands tied behind them competed to kill a cat nailed to a post by battering it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal’s claws… Accustomed in their own lives to physical hardship
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: Evangelicals and the Deity
It [today’s American Evangelicals] also makes remarkably few demands on believers. On the contrary, they get to make demands on God, so that prayer … often consists of an extended series of requests for the deity to solve personal problems. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost has
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard – the 14th Century and one noble
In this favored land of the Western world [France], the Coucy inheritance in 1335 was as rich as it was ancient … Everything that had formed the fief … was symbolized in the great lion platform in stone in front of the castle gate where vassals came to present rents
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Blog Cupboard: Tony Blair & Prince Charles
About Prince Charles: Shortly after their first meeting, I bumped into Prince Charles. “I had a meeting with Mr. [John] Prescott recently,” he said. “Ah,” I said, “how did it go?” “Fine, fine,” Prince Charles replied with a somewhat distracted air, “except …” “Yes?” I said encouragingly, knowing some Johnism
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard – Krupp
Maddened, Alfred struck back with a plan to silence all his enemies. At first they were indeed speechless. Had he gone through with it, he too would have been silenced – forever. He proposed that he himself would sit behind his armor while cannon of increasing calibers pounded away at
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From my Quotes Cupboard – Russia
Mecklenburg was small and weak and needed a powerful protector; marriage to a Russian princess would bring the Tsar’s support. Knowing that the two daughters of Tsar Ivan V were available, not caring which he received, [Duke Karl Leopold] sent a betrothal ring to St. Petersburg with a letter of
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard – Teddy Roosevelt
Old Joe Cannon, Speaker of the House, has reservations about Roosevelts methods: “Roosevelt’s all right,” Cannon tells a friend, “but he’s got no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license.” The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris, New York: Ballantine 1979.
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