Posted on 06/01/2006 4:51:01 AM PDT by Tolik
In Europe, instead of utopia, unintended consequences ensue
ROME - The European countryside is as beautiful as ever. Hotels in the cities are as packed as they are high-priced. Tourists fill Rome. The same bustle is evident from Lisbon to Frankfurt. Everywhere European stewards welcome in millions of sightseers to enjoy the treasures of Western civilization. Never has life seemed so good.
Despite a public anti-Americanism, individual Europeans extend the old warmth and friendship to American visitors. Yet beneath the veneer of the good life, there is also a detectable air of uncertainty in Europe this summer, one perhaps similar to that of 1914 or the late 1930s.
The unease is apparent in newspapers and conversations on the streets that echo the view that voters and politicians want nothing to do with the European Union constitution. Perhaps the general European discomfort could be summed up best as the following: Why hasn't the good life turned out the way we wanted it to?
England, France and Germany are upping their retirement ages and/or planning pension cuts. They have given up the dream that workers in the future can quit at 55 - or even 65!
The Iranians irk Europe. European governments sold them precision tools necessary for nuclear reactors. Many Europeans assured Tehran that dialogue, not rowdy Americans, alone can solve the "misunderstanding" over nuclear proliferation. But as thanks, Iran's pesky president talks down to these postmodern Europeans as if they were George Bush. Meanwhile, Iran presses ahead - hoping to top off with nukes three-stage rockets that could reach the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower or the Brandenburg Gate.
Frontline Spain clamors impatiently for the European Union to clamp down on illegal immigrants streaming across the Mediterranean. The utopian vision of a continent with porous borders is, for the time being, on hold - at least as it pertains to Africa.
The Dutch, the French and the Danes are petrified about unassimilated Muslim radicals in their countries who have killed or threatened the most liberal of Europeans. Churches are almost empty. Mosques are being built; Italians wrangle over plans for one of the largest in Italy - to be plopped amid the vineyards and olive groves of Tuscany.
A majority of polled Germans now believe that the pacifist Europeans are in a "clash of civilizations" with the Islamic world.
What is going on?
Good intentions that have gone sour.
The enemies of Europe's past - responsible for everything from Verdun and Dresden to a constant threat of mutually assured destruction - were identified as nationalism and militarism. Meanwhile, at home, Europeans cited cutthroat competition and unbridled individualism as additional contributory causes of the prior strife and unhappiness.
So in response to the errors of the past, Europeans systematically expanded the welfare state. They welcomed in immigrants. Politicians slashed defense spending, lowered the retirement age and cut the workweek. Voters demanded trade barriers to protect the public from the ravages of globalization. Either to enjoy the good life or to save the planet, couples forswore children.
But instead of utopia, unintended consequences ensued. Unemployment soared. Dismal economic growth, shrinking populations and a scarier world outside their borders followed.
Abroad, even the much-heralded "soft power" of a disarmed Europe could only bring attention to, not stop, the killing in Darfur. Meanwhile, China and India are no longer inefficient socialists but breakneck capitalist competitors. Indeed, they have thrown down the gauntlet to the Europeans: "Beware! Workers of the world who labor harder, longer and smarter deserve the greater material rewards!" In this new heartless global arena, apparently few will abide by the niceties of the European Union.
Publicly, Europe's frustrations are fobbed off on "crass Americans" - and particularly George Bush. The Iraq war has poisoned the alliance, the Europeans insist. They contend that America's greedy consumers warm the planet, siphon off its oil and trample foreign cultures.
But in private, some Europeans will confess that the problem lies with Europeans, not us. Some brave soul soon is going to have to inform the European public: Work much harder and longer for less money; defend the continent on your own; move out of mama's house and start changing diapers - and from now on expect far less from the state.
Who knows what the reaction will be to that splash of cold water? In response, what European populist will soon appear on the streets in Rome, Berlin or Madrid once again to deceive the public that it was someone else who caused these disappointments?
We in America should take note of the looming end of this once seemingly endless summer. We've been there, done that with this beloved continent all too many times before.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Welcome to a New World Disorder....
Who knows what the reaction will be to that splash of cold water? In response, what European populist will soon appear on the streets in Rome, Berlin or Madrid once again to deceive the public that it was someone else who caused these disappointments?
We in America should take note of the looming end of this once seemingly endless summer. We've been there, done that with this beloved continent all too many times before.
Luckily (or unluckily), this time Europe so militarily inferior that they will be little threat to us. It would take them at least a decade to arm themselves. Our biggest danger is that they lose control of their nukes to someone with an army.
NWO creating a monster
That "brave soul" won't be from among those elected to office, that is for certain.
Should any pompous pol say anything remotely resembling the truth, he/she will be immediately removed from office and there will be a car shortage in Europe.
Good column, but I fear the Euroweenies are not going to give up on socialism easily.
I expect that this will be the likely outcome and would not be surprised to see some charismatic leader unite the EU in the brotherhood of socialism and "necessary" totalitarianism. At least then the trains may run on time. ;-)
You know what they say about the Road to Hell....
"What is going on?"
War is at Europe's doorstep, again. The muslim invaders will soon make the Paris Riots seem tame and commonplace. Their anti-Americanism will soon turn to "Save Us Again, America!"
Socialism's gonna give up on them. Always happens.
Isn't that usually when the killing fields open for business?
Thanks, Tolik.
I've had many conversations with some of my lib friends who travel to Europe and envy the Europeans so much. They, like the Euros, will never admit the failure of the systems.
These people are looking for Eutopia funded by the evil corporations and the money-hungry Republicans who are stupid enough to start their own businesses and work 50+ hours a week.
And Hanson is that brave soul...
Thanks for the ping. Riots are happening in Paris again:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641613/posts
New riots erupt in suburbs of Paris
The Scotsman ^ | June 1, 2006 | SUSAN BELL
Posted on 06/01/2006 12:02:39 AM PDT by MadIvan
THE sole survivor of last autumn's accidental electrocution of three youths, which triggered the worst rioting in France for more than 40 years, was arrested on Tuesday as fresh riots broke out in Parisian suburbs for the second night running.
Muhittin Altun, 18, was arrested on the eve of a judicial reconstruction of the controversial incident in which his two friends, also youths of African origin, were killed last October after taking refuge in an electricity sub-station in the deprived suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, ten miles east of central Paris.
Mr Altun, who was seriously injured in the incident, said he and his friends, Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, scrambled up the high-security fence around the sub-station because they were being chased by police, a version of events which has been denied by the authorities.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, opened a judicial investigation into the incident, which provoked three weeks of unrest across France as youths, many of African origin, clashed with police and burned cars and buildings in the country's deprived suburbs to show their anger over alleged discrimination and police harassment.
Mr Altun had been due to participate in yesterday's judicial reconstruction of the events surrounding the electrocution incident when he was arrested along with 12 others during rioting in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil.
His lawyer, Jean-Pierre Mignard, contested police claims that Mr Altun had been involved in Tuesday night's unrest.
"He was downstairs in front of his home ... he wasn't where the violence was taking place," Mr Mignard told Europe 1 radio yesterday. "Why, on the day before an important judicial meeting ... was he arrested? I see a miraculous coincidence there," he added.
In two nights of rioting, nine police officers were injured, five vehicles were set alight and three people were arrested. According to police, the new wave of riots were triggered by the arrest of a youth suspected of assaulting a bus driver.
Mr Sarkozy condemned the violence. He has called for a change in the law to make it easier to clamp down on juvenile offenders.
The opposition leader, Socialist party secretary François Hollande, blamed Mr Sarkozy for the renewed outbreak of urban unrest. "He comes to the suburbs and he announces commitments from the state which never arrive. He encourages ... the police. But he stigmatises a number of young people. He does nothing to calm the situation," he said.
Why don't they just hang the sumbitch??!?
"what European populist will soon appear on the streets in Rome, Berlin or Madrid once again to deceive the public that it was someone else who caused these disappointments?"
Thanks, Tolik, for posting this. It is so strange to me, this blindness to the real problem of giving people who are essentially squatters, with no investment in, or desire to preserve the host culture,the rights and freedoms denied to them in their own culture and countries of origin.
The Scotsman article promotes the fiction that the only problem is that these troublesome suburbs are "deprived." The author uses "deprived suburbs" twice in the article.
Of what are they deprived? Schools? Youth centers? Clinics? autos? They burn them to the ground. They have a standard of living higher than any they could expect in their countries of origin, all paid for by a citizenry they despise.
"Of what are they deprived? Schools? Youth centers? Clinics? autos? They burn them to the ground. They have a standard of living higher than any they could expect in their countries of origin, all paid for by a citizenry they despise."
Your comments above should be the beginning and end paragraph any article of those burning stores/cars/whatever in Europe or here.
"Their anti-Americanism will soon turn to "Save Us Again, America."You may be right about that.Rhetorical question:What if we say "get lost" this time?
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