Posted on 02/24/2005 12:35:22 PM PST by Alex Marko
interesting read ping
Wow, that was good!
A very good piece; and I think many American liberals are also very cynical about freedom and democracy. During the Elian Gonzales affair, many liberals openly said he would be better off living under Castro's dictatorship than in America. There attitude seems to be: if you have free health care, who needs freedom, who needs democracy, who needs free speech? And if freedom means that you are less "safe" than in a dictatorship, then away with freedom.
Great read. Thanks.
Europe keeps burning the furniture in order to heat the house.
Look at what the EU is doing to the US.
The ending of the Arms Embargo will mean the end of NATO.
As Pres. Bush said in Germany, if you go ahead with this, I will not be in the way of Congress to enact retaliatory measures.
The EU (especially Germany, France and Belgium), will as usual, stand at the sidelines and act innocent. They want a conflict between China, Japan and the US. They figure that weakening those 3 willimprove their bankrupt socialist economy.
I foresee a Trade war in retaliation, disolution of NATO followed up by more intense action.
This is probably the worst situation the world has known since the height of the cold war.
Not a smart move by the EU. Indirectly they are challenging the US through their backstabbing and diatribe.
By the way, Health care in Germany isn't free. They pay 14.6% of income matched by their employer and both the health care system and their social security system (19.6% of income times 2)are broke.
Islam will bring war to Europe within twenty years. And it will take yet another passage through blood and fire before Europe can again join with the free nations of the world and pursue those democratic ideals which they have rejected.
Hits nail on head!!!
Nail-on-the-head bump!
Europeans are to Americans as lap dogs are to guards dogs.
Bttt! Good post!
Old Europe, with its endless Wars of Conquest, with its endless parade of tyrants, taught the people that Human Nature can be known in its worst and in its most powerful.
When democracy gave the "mob" a chnce to rule, the mob followed the same path of tyranny and human nature as the tyrants had followed.
This the legacy that old Europe has left to the planet. Now, their lousy habits are being repeated by Muslims, who think that tyranny is the only way. Tyranny by clerics or tyranny by despots = still tyranny.
With our trade imbalance...we too are burning the furniture to heat the house...the only country not doing so is China, but this is a fixible problem where Europe's is not.
Agreed. However, it's like deja vu all over again, vis a vis, the 1930's. Simply replace League of Nations for the European Union, and the parallels are unsettling. Replace US-Asia trade war with German expansion and false opportunities abound for those who intend to take advantage.
During the early 1930's, the Hawker Aircraft board of directors was convinced that Nazi Germany was going to be a threat to many of the Continental European countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. Hawker designed the "Hurricane" fighter and planned production for 1000 aircraft to be sold at "export", an unheard of amount in pre-war Britain and America.
The rest is history. No Hurricanes were sold overseas because the British needed them severely by 1939. It's a classic, "be careful what you wish for. Europe will suffer greatly if America and Asia go at it.
I don't trust "old europe, especially France, Belgium and Germany.
I would try to preempt the threat and create new alliances, isolating the EU. Russia, China, Australia, Japan and India do come to mind. Throw a few countries of the willing in there.
In a couple of years, buerocratic Brussels will not let any of the Eurinal countries support us anymore.
True, but if China and the US wind up in a trade war or war over Taiwan, the Chinese will need to burn the house to heat the house. The Chinese may be big, but they are not strong or wealthy. They would sink back into the Red Bog of the 1950's or plead to Japan for help.
"it will take yet another passage through blood and fire before Europe can again join with the free nations of the world"
I hope you're right. My feeling is that the cynicism and trauma and guilt run so deep (in certain countries) that there will be an Islamic dark age on the continent before the dawn comes again. If "freedom" and "democracy" are such empty words to them as the article postulates, then there is really nothing to defend. Post-modernist, relativist thought tells us that no ideology is better the another. Rule by Islamic dictatorship is the same as rule by the democratic masses - who is anyone to say that they are different? What a sad, defeatist mindset.
In every case cited, Europeans brought the trauma on themselves and are going to pay the piper. It is ironic that people who ruthlessly colonized Arabic nations would some day, in turn, be colonized by them. The question is how many American lives these European countries are worth?
And many of them think we're the provincial idiots!
Europe, notably Continental Europe, still has trouble shaking the mud of feudalism off its crudely made boots. Whether King, Duke, Fuhrer, or bureaucrat, Europeans need authority for their security.
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