The European Union is going through its federal-state crisis, forced into the debate on federal vs. national power by circumstance rather than by choice, just as we were 224 years ago.  There are significant differences, to be sure, and we’ll get to those.  But what it happening now is a result of similar tensions to our own, and it’ll be very interesting to see how the Europeans resolve them.

Since the Greeks threatened to do to contemporary Germans what they did to WWII Italians – swallow up large swatches of resources in the order to stay pacified – the question of just how far the rest of Europe in general, and Germany in particular, would allow themselves to be dragooned into backstopping the finances of the EU’s weak sows, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain.

Now, the Arab Spring is forcing Europe, through Denmark, to confront the issue of border control in a way that it has not in the past.

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