PrintNovember 14, 2008
Why Europe is secretly afraid of a socialist America
Suppose you've been living under the protective wings of a benevolent superpower for sixty years. And suppose you've used that big half century to take off on an endless vacation -- spending all your tax money to buy votes for the socialist Ruling Class. It's been one long, grand, drug-infested, sex-drenched, self-indulgent, tabloid party scene. Any time danger threatens you look to Washington for protection. The rest of the time you noisily abuse those Yankee imperialists, merely to boost your fragile ego. Corruption has become pervasive.
That's Europe today.
What a sweet deal.
But now you see your guardian superpower electing a guy who wants to follow your example. Whooops! Time to sober up. Fast.
Yes, you went hoarse cheering Obama's ego trip at the Berlin Victory Monument, because you love the idea that O will teach America to love Eurosocialism forever and ever. But shivers are running up and down your spine --- because if he is what you think he is, America won't be there any more to save you. It will just slide into vegetarian nihilism and leave Europe to the New Soviet Empire.
Europe would crumble like a soggy crouton without America's commitment to its defense. We saw that happen three times in the 20th century, and the bad news is that it's starting again. Real danger is at the gates; Europe's Ruling Class is in denial; and half of it is preparing to surrender to the Russians or the Muslim fascists, whichever gets there first.
The Archbishop of Canterbury welcomes a future of Sharia for Britain. Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to cannibalize your dead body for parts for the National Health Service without your prior consent. Two years ago the European Union solemnly promised to supply six helicopters to save endangered Africans in Chad -- and they haven't been able to get those choppers going yet. Those African civilians are long dead, and the Eurocrats are still dithering.
Shakespeare had it in Henry VIII, "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!" Except that Europe always dreams of its own greatness. While we were having the most mendacious election in history, Europe chose Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Choral Movement, to be its new national anthem. But Europe's latest imperial illusion is Obama, a Eurosocialist to the core. Europe would love to control US policy; and in the O years it might succeed. Yet by itself it plays helpless.
The tales of Europe's futility are endless, because its actions have no visible consequences. Dead fetuses don't raise a fuss. Dead Africans in Chad and the Sudan never show up on BBC TV. Neither do HIV victims of the sexual revolution, burned-out junkies of the drug revolution, or assisted suicides of the elderly, thanks to the national health-care revolution. It's a Progressive's Dream Come True. All the failures and mistakes are ignored by the Leftist media.
Sound familiar?
Well, if America becomes O-merica, the consequences will finally arrive with a loud thud in London, Paris and Berlin. Europe may have to grow up. Because America will no longer have the power or the will to act. It will be Carterized.
So the Euro-Left is sounding scared. Take the Guardian, the noisy cabal of anti-Americans who went into shrieking paroxysms when George W. Bush overthrew the bloody tyrant of Baghdad. The Guardianistas were shocked by America's willingness to fight for a cause that Winston Churchill would have considered to be civilized and honorable. The Brit Left hasn't seen that much heterosexual gumption since World War Two. They were appalled, my dear.
But today, one week after the O Revolution in America, the Guardian suddenly sounds like the Wall Street Journal -- telling its readers not to worry, that nothing is going to change.
We see headlines like:
"Why America will not turn to the left"
Hold the red carpet: amid the euphoria, states find their own reasons for doubt.
The Guardian sounds worried that under Obama America might leave the Philippines to its Muslim rebels, or that it might stop defending free capitalist trade in the world's oceans.
Those headlines come from the same scribblers who soft-pedaled Putin's brutal invasion of Georgia just six months ago. The same folks spent years noisily sneering at the danger of Iranian mullahs armed with nukes. Every single day of the Bush years the Guardian ripped us another one. For decades they peddled multiculti nonsense to browbeat their domestic enemies and smeared dissenters as racists. They went weak in the knees for radical chic, Islamofascist style, and scoffed at democracies under deadly assault, like Israel, the elected governments of Iraq and Afghanistan and most recently Georgia. They imposed a Politically Correct speech code on everyday life in the United Kingdom.
It would be poetic justice for the European Left to get exactly what it's been asking for. Unfortunately that would be bad for the United States and the civilized world. If the US withdrew from Europe, would you trust them to behave decently? I wouldn't. They would instantly sell out to the nearest Putinista or the richest Saudi Prince, or both.
That's the real American dilemma when it comes to the Left, here and abroad. The big question about the radical Left is always - should grownups let them cross the street alone? Can you ever trust them?
We will find out the answer very soon.
If there are any grownups in Washington in the coming administration -- a very big "if" -- they will have to answer that question every single day. If the Left follows its instincts and the American military are systematically weakened, cut down and demoralized, Europe may realize its fondest wish.
No more American guardian angel.
It's what they secretly fear.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com.
