The Flinchum File

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Meandering Toward Brexit

I understand patriotism.  I feel it from my toes to my nose.  I love our national identity, warts and all!  Britain also has a strong national identity, with minimal warts.  Of course, they feel pride in their national identity, and they should!

My inner Republican imagines the damage to their pride when they had to surrender so much of their sovereignty to the bureaucrats in Brussels, in order to join the European Union.  To add pain to their shame, the Brits then had to endure the contemptuous inefficiency of Brussels.  The EU never saw a regulation they didn’t like.  Nimble, the EU is not!

My inner Democrat is appalled at the half-measures employed to deal with immigration problems, which are likely to become quarter-measures after Brexit.  Immigration is a threat to the national identity of each country, but railing against the wind is nonsensical.  Deal with it, expensive though it will be.  Ghettos produce only more problems, not solutions.

However, my inner economist is appalled that the Principle of Comparative Advantage was hogtied by Brussels and conflated with immigration.  It has not been a failed experiment but an experiment denied.  Given a chance, globalism will work!

Britain will exit the European Union in six months, with or without a deal.  Don’t I recall a statement by Winston Churchill that Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing but only after exhausting all other options?  Maybe, we learned that from our English ancestors?