Steyn: This Is To Americans On France 'NON' Vote

[Annie]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn29.html

EU just won't take 'no' for an answer

May 29, 2005

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Following Sunday's vote in France, on Wednesday Dutch voters get to express their opinion on the proposed ''European Constitution.'' Heartening to see democracy in action, notwithstanding the European elite's hysterical warnings that, without the constitution, the continent will be set back on the path to Auschwitz. I haven't seen the official ballot, but the choice seems to be: "Check Box A to support the new constitution; check Box B for genocide and conflagration."

Alas, this tactic doesn't seem to have worked. So, a couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

Juncker is a man from Luxembourg, a country two-thirds the size of your rec room, and, under the agreeably clubby EU arrangements, he gets to serve as "president" without anything so tiresome as having to be voted into the job by "ordinary people." His remarks capture precisely the difference between the new Europe and the American republic.

Sick in bed a couple of months back, I started reading A Declaration of Interdependence: Why America Should Join the World by Will Hutton, and found it such a laugh I was soon hurling my medication away and doing cartwheels round the room. Hutton was a sort of eminence grise to Tony Blair, at least in his pre-warmongering pre-Bush-poodle phase. Hutton is the master of the dead language of statism that distinguishes the complacent Europhile from a good percentage of Americans, not all of them Republicans.

That said, even as a fully paid-up Eurobore, Hutton's at pains to establish how much he loves America: "I enjoy Sheryl Crow and Clint Eastwood alike, delight in Woody Allen . . .''

I'd wager he's faking at least two of these enthusiasms. As for the third, Woody Allen is the man the French government turned to for assistance with a commercial intended to restore their nation's image in America after anger at post-9/11 Gallic obstructionism began to have commercial implications for France. In the advertisement, Woody said he disliked the notion of renaming French fries ''freedom fries.'' What next, he wondered. Freedom kissing?

Despite the queasy mental image of Woody French-kissing, I'm with him on that one: If you don't like the phrase ''French fries,'' there's a perfectly good British word: ''chip.'' It conveniently covers both the menu item, and what the French have on their shoulder. That the French government could think that an endorsement by Woody Allen would improve their standing with the American people is itself a sad testament to the ever-widening Atlantic chasm. And that Will Hutton could think his appreciation of Woody is proof of his own pro-Americanism only widens the gap by another half-mile.

But, having brandished his credentials, Hutton says that it's his ''affection for the best of America that makes me so angry that it has fallen so far from the standards it expects of itself.'' The great Euro-thinker is not arguing that America is betraying the Founding Fathers, but that the Founding Fathers themselves got it hopelessly wrong. He compares the American and French Revolutions, and decides the latter was better because instead of the radical individualism of the 13 colonies the French promoted ''a new social contract.''

Well, you never know. It may be the defects of America's Founders that help explain why the United States has lagged so far behind France in technological innovation, economic growth, military performance, standard of living, etc. Entranced by his Europhilia, Hutton insists that "all western democracies subscribe to a broad family of ideas that are liberal or leftist."

Given that New Hampshire has been a continuous democracy for two centuries longer than Germany, this seems a doubtful proposition. It would be more accurate to say that almost all European nations subscribe to a broad family of ideas that are statist. Or, as Hutton has it, "the European tradition is much more mindful that men and women are social animals and that individual liberty is only one of a spectrum of values that generate a good society."

Precisely. And it's the willingness to subordinate individual liberty to what Hutton calls "the primacy of society" that has blighted the continent for over a century: Statism -- or "the primacy of society" -- is what fascism, Nazism, communism and now European Union all have in common. In fairness, after the first three, European Union seems a comparatively benign strain of the disease -- not a Blitzkrieg, just a Bitzkrieg, an accumulation of fluffy trivial pan-European laws that nevertheless takes for granted that the natural order is a world in which every itsy-bitsy activity is licensed and regulated and constitutionally defined by government.

That's why Will Hutton feels almost physically insecure when he's in one of the spots on the planet where the virtues of the state religion are questioned.

"In a world that is wholly private," he says of America, "we lose our bearings; deprived of any public anchor, all we have are our individual subjective values to guide us." He deplores the First Amendment and misses government-regulated media, which in the EU ensures that all public expression is within approved parameters (left to center-left). "Europe," he explains, "acts to ensure that television and radio conform to public interest criteria."

"Public interest criteria" doesn't mean criteria that the public decide is in their interest. It means that the elite -- via various appointed bodies -- decide what the public's interest is. Will Hutton is a member of the European elite, so that suits him fine. But it's never going to catch on in America -- I hope.

As European "president" Juncker spelled out to the French and Dutch electorates, a culture that subordinates the will of the people to the "primacy of society" is unlikely to take no for an answer. And, if you ignore referendum results, a frustrated citizenry turns to other outlets.

 

[Avatar4321]

But, having brandished his credentials, Hutton says that it's his ''affection for the best of America that makes me so angry that it has fallen so far from the standards it expects of itself.'' The great Euro-thinker is not arguing that America is betraying the Founding Fathers, but that the Founding Fathers themselves got it hopelessly wrong. He compares the American and French Revolutions, and decides the latter was better because instead of the radical individualism of the 13 colonies the French promoted ''a new social contract.''

So freedom to choose our own destinies is somehow more radical then slaughtering people whose political views differ than yours? We all know what became of the French Revolution's "Social contract" It was the first European effort in mass murder and genocide and ended with Napolean conquoring Europe. Yeah, French revolution was a great success.

"In a world that is wholly private," he says of America, "we lose our bearings; deprived of any public anchor, all we have are our individual subjective values to guide us." He deplores the First Amendment and misses government-regulated media, which in the EU ensures that all public expression is within approved parameters (left to center-left). "Europe," he explains, "acts to ensure that television and radio conform to public interest criteria."

"Public interest criteria" doesn't mean criteria that the public decide is in their interest. It means that the elite -- via various appointed bodies -- decide what the public's interest is. Will Hutton is a member of the European elite, so that suits him fine. But it's never going to catch on in America -- I hope.

It amazes me that these elites seem to think that they know better than every individual person what is good for them. If you are so confident in your views then let the people know them and let them decide what they want. We already know what happens to people when their rights are oppressed and when government has power to inform them "what the public interest is" We end up in mass genocide.

I am totally glad Europe hasn't simply been rolling over into the EU. If the people don't support it, then the elites shouldnt have the power to force it on them. that and I get the feeling if the EU ever did reach its full potential in "uniting" europe, it would be incredibly oppressive and we'd have to go liberate it again. which is quite annoying honestly.

 

[Adam's Apple]

As I read parts of Steyn's article , I couldn't help but think of the "real" Hillary Clinton (not the phony one she's trying to pull on us as Senator Hillary Clinton). She would fit right in among those European socialist elites.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Here's another good article from Bill Kristol on this topic.

A New Europe?
By William Kristol
June 6, 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard

IN THE FACE OF AN arrogant, out-of-touch, debate-stifling old regime, a whiff of democracy can be liberating. And not just in the Middle East.

Whatever the outcome of the French referendum on the European Union's constitution on Sunday, May 29, and the Dutch vote on Wednesday, June 1, it is already clear (as we go to press Friday, before the votes) that the public debate over the referenda, and the real possibility of a "No" vote, could prove to have been a liberating experience for Europeans.

Leave aside the dubious merits of the constitution itself. The Economist, normally pro-European and somewhat pro-establishment, has called for rejection of the constitution because "the central thrust of the document is towards more centralization," which it correctly thinks a bad idea. But the debate hasn't hinged on questions of E.U. governance. It has turned on something more fundamental--a collapse of confidence in the political and media establishment in France and the Netherlands, and in Western Europe altogether.

It's hard for Americans to appreciate just how out-of-touch the establishment (and it really is a single establishment) of Paris, Berlin, the Hague, and Brussels is. Its arrogance is almost beyond belief.

for full article
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/667eqere.asp

 

[Bullypulpit]

If you are so confident in your views then let the people know them and let them decide what they want. We already know what happens to people when their rights are oppressed and when government has power to inform them "what the public interest is" We end up in mass genocide.

Tell that to the religious right wing-nuts in this country.

 

[Avatar4321]

Tell that to the religious right wing-nuts in this country.

Why? The people have decided that they agree with us. Hence why we were voted into office. It's the left that is trying to impose its will on society. There wouldn't be such a controversy over judges otherwise.