Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

States' rights under a federated system still mean something – except when they mean nothing to the reigning power. Britain, by withdrawing from the European Union (EU), has just provided to the free world’s democratic remnant a valuable lesson in sovereignty. Among other reasons the “Leave” party in Britain was anxious to dissever the ties that bound it to the EU was a loss of decision-making power, the leeching of sovereignty from Britain to Brussels, where matters of national import were decided by EU bureaucrats fortified against a democratic voting process to which the government of Britain had since the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, which led through Britain’s  1689 Bill of Rights  to a Parliamentary ascendancy, willingly bent its knees.

Around the time Vladmir Putin was off shooting tigers – and not paper ones – he offered this sunburst on the West, which he considers a paper tiger. After the Russian invasion of Georga, Mr. Putain said he saw no “practical steps which indicate a cooling in relations,” between Moscow and the Europen Union. “If any of the European countries wants to serve someone’s narrow political interests, then go ahead. We cannot stop them. But we think, as they say in such cases, ‘You have to look out for No1,’ “I think that many of our partners, and first of all our European partners, will be guided by this fairly crude but very descriptive saying,” he added. Analysis, the TimesOnLine notes, “say that Russia’s role as a supplier of more than a quarter of Europe’s gas makes tough EU action unlikely at the summit.”