House of Eratosthenes

That’s from my list of twenty-five questions…that, uh…well, I never did come up with a good name for that list. It’s a list of questions that, if I know how you’re going to answer one, I know with something approaching perfect certainty how you’re going to answer all of the others.

Cylarz is unequivocal:

No. What kind of stupid question is that? Before they were the continent of socialism and immorality, they were the continent of tyranny and petty grievances among one another. Our forebears came here to get away from all of the nonsense going on there.

There is something about the way European political leaders talk that just sets my teeth on edge. And it isn’t the sound of their voices (although there is that, too). There’s something in their consonant-punctuated resonance that produces a sharp pain…whereas when His Holiness President Soetoro drones on with His uhs and His ers and His “let me be clear” and His “make no mistake” and His “for far too long we have”…all I can report is a dull ache. The euro-pansy produces a special agony where Chairman Zero brings only monotony.

I think it is this: They seem to deliberately confuse the objective with the subjective. They speak of priorities as if the priorities have some timeless quality to them, as if it has always been this way and shall always be this way as long as the rivers flow and the rocks sit around; but what they really mean is “while I am in office.” And it is to be implicitly understood that the latter of those is what they really mean. It is as if they are trapped in that revolving door of proving what wonderful decent people they are, and then thirty second later, proving it all over again. European or not, that has always bugged me.

And not without reason. It leads to bad policy. Their crime is perpetuating it, ours is refusing to pay attention:

You might think that Europe’s economic turmoil would inject a note of urgency into America’s budget debate. After all, high government deficits and debt are the roots of Europe’s problems, and these same problems afflict the United States. But no. Most Americans, starting with the nation’s political leaders, dismiss what’s happening in Europe as a continental drama with little relevance to them.

What Americans resolutely avoid is a realistic debate about the desirable role of government. How big should it be? Should it favor the old or the young? Will social spending crowd out defense spending? Will larger government dampen economic growth through higher deficits or taxes? No one engages this debate, because if rigorously conducted, it would disappoint both liberals and conservatives.

Victor Davis Hanson writes of “The Other European Volcano” that has resulted from Europeans failing to rigorously conduct this debate…and we still enjoy the luxury of choosing to pay attention, or wallow in ignorance.

Over here, we were often lectured by “progressives” that almost everything Europe did was better — subsidized mass transit, free college tuition, extended maternity leave, early retirement, and “soft-power” diplomacy. Indeed, Obama’s presidential campaign was in some senses a stealthy referendum on Europeanization. And once he was elected, his moves to raise taxes, expand government, expropriate some private industries, run up exponentially increasing deficits, subsidize environmentalism, and triangulate with enemies and allies abroad were European Union to the core.

Few wanted to listen when it was pointed out — well before the Greek meltdown — that on key questions of demography and immigration, the future ofthe European Union was bleak. The very idea that, in historical terms, socialism , agnosticism, pacifism, and hedonism were not only interrelated and synergistic, but also suicidal for civilization, was considered crackpot.

Want a eulogy? One that pulls no punches? One that really lowers the boom on all the nonsense, shedding every last scintilla of diplomacy? Look no further than George Will:

“The coining of money,” said William Blackstone more than two centuries ago, “is in all states the act of the sovereign power.”

But the EU is neither a state nor sovereign enough to enforce its rules: No eurozone nation is complying with the EU requirement that deficits not exceed 3 percent of GDP.

The EU has a flag no one salutes, an anthem no one sings, a president no one can name, a parliament no one other than its members wants to have power, a capital of coagulated bureaucracy no one admires or controls, a currency that presupposes what neither does nor should nor soon will exist, and rules of fiscal behavior that no member has been penalized for ignoring. The euro currency both presupposes and promotes a fiction — that “Europe” has somehow become, against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression.

The designs of the paper euros, introduced in 2002, proclaim a utopian aspiration. Gone are the colorful bills of particular nations, featuring pictures of national heroes of statecraft, culture and the arts, pictures celebrating unique national narratives. With the euro, 16 nations have said goodbye to all that. The bills depict nonexistent windows, gateways and bridges. They are from … nowhere, which is what “utopia” means.

That’s a-gonna leave a mark.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering which of those you should pop open and read top-to-bottom, I would recommend the last of the three, followed by the second-to-last. Messrs. Will and Hanson are writing about a grave subject, perhaps the surest destroyer of civilizations in all of human history, which is the relaxation of fiscal discipline. Europe, now several centuries into the old sport of confusing the subjective with the objective, is banishing failure, eliminating real-world consequences from the sustenance of red ink. “No nation will be allowed to sink beneath the weight of its recklessness” is how Mr. Will puts it.

But without consequences, what arresting force is there? Has any living thinking organism, be it a nation or an individual, ever called a stop to the writing of more and more checks without sparing a thought for the checkbook register? It’s just like any other measurement in mathematical theory: Without a meaningful zero point, it’s all relative. And there will always be some items dangled in front of the check-writer, begging to be bought. They’ll always be there; and we’ll always “need” every single last one of ’em.

The zero point has been banished to oblivion. And so the money will have to freely flow. It would be something tantamount to treason to suggest anything else; and without a doubt, it would place the speaker’s wonderfulness in serious question.

Failure. Universally available, and free. No person, enterprise or industry is “Too Big To Fail” — ever. Failure is regarded as something that is always possible, to be avoided at all costs, but never to be ignored or sidestepped once it is earned. Depriving a man of the failure he has justly earned, is rightfully seen as just as deplorable as depriving him of wages he has justly earned.

Item #4 on my list of 42 definitions of a strong society.

This is the problem with Europe. They are trying to eradicate failure, and in so doing, jeopardizing whatever ability they might’ve once had, to be strong.

You’re the chattiest man I’ve ever met, Morgan.
- Daphne | 05/18/2010 @ 18:37
What Daphne said. Oh, and thanks for the quote. I love it when you quote my comments.

I might add that I’ve often observed that Europe is simply the United States twenty years into the future. By this I usually meant this as a commentary on social and cultural changes – that what’s acceptable in Europe today will be precisely that which will be condoned and tolerated in America a generation from now. We are where they’ve been, they are where we are going. And I think a cursory glance at that continent bears this out – whatever comments might wish to make about America being ashamed of its past and culturally suicidal, Europe is clearly much further down that path than we are. It long ago lost the will to defend itself from waves of unassimilated immigrants and its nations appear to have little sense of pride in their history and identity anymore. I will not even delve into the topic of its anemic military forces, or inability to defend itself without American help.

But Morgan, you have not only expanded on this point, you have taken it to a whole ‘nother level by speaking economically, not culturally or socially. And you’re right. It’s got all the same problems we do, times two: Unsustainable budget entitlements, an aging population demanding more benefits than younger workers can pay for, hordes of immigrants pouring in from the Third World who’ve no intention of assimilating, sky-high taxes, public-subsidized everything, and double-digit unemployment amidst it all. Take a look at France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Sweden, or the UK. Yeah, that’s where we’ll be after another couple decades of Obamunism, if not sooner.

Palin 2012.
- cylarz | 05/19/2010 @ 01:44
Ah, Morgan. Always on the Dark Side. There are good things about Europe…

good food,

better beer (don’t you favor a certain German brew with that luscious woman on the label?),

magnificent architecture,

women who aren’t afraid to flaunt their sexuality and do it both stylishly and shamelessly,

the BEST fucking bread in the world (there’s a reason we have a “white bread” euphemism; breakfast with a couple of hot croissants on nearly any Parisian street corner is not to be underestimated, nor is a fresh baguette with each meal) ,

the Autobahn and Autostrada (ever driven 125 mph just for the fucking FUN of it, without fear of going to jail?),

Porsches (see above)

Amsterdam,

the Isle of Man TT (Daytona is the Harlem/Watts of the mo’sickle world, by comparison),

and I could go on but I won’t.

You should go. Life ain’t ALL about fucking politics and social decline. Smell the roses, m’friend. 😉
- bpenni | 05/19/2010 @ 13:49

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