Eutopia, Limited ... Mark Steyn

Steyn Online ^ | 19 June 2012 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

As the advanced social-democratic Big Government state sinks under a multi-trillion-dollar debt avalanche, the conventional wisdom remains all too conventional, and disinclined even to mount an argument. So much "progressive" debate boils down to Ring Lardner's great line:

"Shut up," he explained.

It's an oft-retailed quote. But fewer people know the line that precedes it (in Lardner's novel The Young Immigrunts): a kid asking, "Are you lost, Daddy?"

As any motoring pater knows, it's not easy to give an honest answer to that question. And the hardest thing of all is to turn around and go back, retracing your steps to the point where you made the wrong turn. If you're a politician, it's even harder. Leviathan has no reverse gear: "Forward!" as the Obama campaign's 2012 slogan puts it. Yet in the end, if any of the Western world is to survive, it has to find a way to turn around, to go back.

[Rummyfan]

Take the euro. It should not exist. It should never have been invented. And, ultimately, it is necessary to find a way to disinvent it. Yet even one of the least deluded of Continental leaders cannot acknowledge the need to turn around: To Angela Merkel, the euro is not a mere currency but what she calls a "Schicksalsgemeinschaft" — or "community of destiny."

[SMARTY]

“While Eurocrats still peddle the standard line about the EU acting as a restraint on the Teutonic urge to regional domination, the British defense secretary recently demanded that it was time for Germany, as the wealthiest nation on the Continent, to step up to its responsibilities and increase military spending. I would doubt Frau Merkel would take his advice, if only because the euro seems to be doing for Berlin’s control-freak complex what neither the Kaiser nor Hitler could pull off.”

Yup!

Thatcher was right...as usual!

[SamuraiScot]

the euro is not a mere currency but what she calls a "Schicksalsgemeinschaft" — or "community of destiny."

What's German for "community of disaster"?

[Sirius Lee]

What's German for "community of disaster"?

Trittbrettfahrer.

[karnage]

Is Steyn the best political observer/commentator on the stage today?

Hard to top.

A great voice!

[C210N]

Perhaps there should be a hat-tip to Levin. Nice play on words - Europe and Utopia - reference to the Leviathon, and written a month or two after the release of Ameritopia, which undoubtedly Steyn has read by now.

[Ole Okie]

What's German for "community of disaster"?

Deutschland über alles?

[GOPJ]

....whereas the currencies of real nations display images of real buildings (the White House on the $20 bill, for example), the handsome edifices on the new euro notes do not, in fact, exist. Europe is full of impressive buildings — Versailles, the Parthenon — but they are unfortunately located in actual countries, and so the designers of the euro notes preferred to use composite, fantasy, pan-European architectural marvels prefiguring the Eutopia that the new currency would will into being.

After reading this I had the strong feeling that California should not be part of the United States...

[passionfruit]

For your Mark Steyn ping list.

[Servant of the Cross]

Great piece by Steyn. Reminds me a little of the EPIC RANT by Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party and member of the European Parliament. Part John Galt and part Monty Python.

[buffaloguy]

The euro union is nothing more than a “German Co-prosperity Sphere’.

[Moonman62]

"In the normal course of events," I wrote, "monetary union follows political union, as it did in the U.S., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. In this instance, uniquely, monetary union is in itself an act of political binding.

Steyn nailed it. Underneath their gay exteriors, Europeans still hate each other.

[Oatka]

What's German for "community of disaster"?
Trittbrettfahrer.

I was thinking "kaput!" :-)

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping and an interesting one for sure.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping passionfruit.

[Slings and Arrows]

Vereinten Nationen.

[Tunehead54]

I’ve been a bit surprised that there has been little commentary on the fact that propping up the piigs is basically income/capital redistribution as we are suffering from but with a twist.

Without a true central bank the various Euro countries can affect the Euro automatically affecting the Euro without penalty.

The only good thing, while we’re busily doing the same thing, printing our way to prosperity, is that as the reserve currency of the world, we benefit from the flight to security.

Nobody is going to put all their marbles in Rubles or Chinese script wondering if in tight times the banks might simply be closed by totalitarian edict.

That’s why I’m still in the market but with a standing order to go to cash at 11500. Not going to 6500 again.

If in cash I still can’t get anyone to agree as to the best currencies to go to and how to go about it. Right now I think I like the Swiss Franc, Canadian loonie and the aussie dollar. Anyone?

Blam - you’re included as a doom and gloomer - who has never answered my question - do you make your money shorting stocks/currencies? Just curious ... ;-)

[TheOldLady]

Thank you. And a bump.

[TheOldLady]

Hi, SA&!

[Slings and Arrows]

Howdy TOL!

[Gritty]

Steyn bump!

[Tony in Hawaii]