What is the matter with Europeans? What ails the Europeans? Why can’t they act like rational men and not like fools and cowards? What is it that seems to be eating at their insides especially with regards to America? Here are some hints in their own words by one American living in England and three Europeans (The American Enterprise, October, 2005).
“...beneath it all, the growing divide between Europe and America is a divide between theism and atheism. This simple divide is cosmic in its importance and affects simply everything.” Dwight Longenecker (An American living in Britain).
“Some want to have a new orthodoxy, a new official religion. It is not a true religion. It is a religion that forbids to have values, that forbids to affirm anything as true, but it is nevertheless a religion...If you are not a moral relativist, you are a second class citizen.” (Rocco Buttiglione, Italy’s Minister of Affairs.)
“Europe is going through a dangerous period of indecision, blurred memory, lack of future vision, and little sense of external reality. It is looking inwards as far as the future is concerned.” (Ana Palacio, part of Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar’s government.)
“We Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those “arrogant Americans”, as the world champions of “tolerance”…Why? Because we’re so moral? I fear it’s more because we’re so materialistic, so devoid of a moral compass.” (Mathias Doepfner, CEO of Axel Springer, a German publishing conglomerate.)
There is a malignancy that is sucking the life blood from the Europeans. Americans have witnessed European failure to act decisively in numerous life and death issues over the last 60 years. But what disease do they have and what organ is the malignancy attacking? Mathias Doepfner, writing in The American Enterprise, gives numerous examples of the salient attribute of this disease: the lack of resolve to act to defend the good and destroy evil. Mr. Doepfner calls this appeasement:
1. when millions of Jews and non-Jews were slaughtered as England and France bargained with Hitler.
2. when millions of people were swallowed up by Communism, while the West dithered and bargained with the Soviets for years.
3. when thousands were slaughtered in Kosovo while Europeans debated endlessly about what to do.
4. when half a million people were slaughtered and tortured by Saddam and Europeans chose to ignore this fact while many of them made money in the illicit Oil-for-Food program but George Bush is fair game and is excoriated again and again.
5. when escalating violence by Islamic terrorists results in Germany’s suggestion, that they have a “Muslim holiday”.
Who do Europeans see as their enemy: Francois Mitterand, former President of France once stated it clearly. “The Americans, they are voracious, they want undivided power over the world…We are at war with America. Yes a permanent war, a vital war, a war without death.”
Undivided power over the world? Voracious? We want power alright. The power of what freedom and reason unleashes – individuals engaging in commerce, invention, discovery and upward mobility. Anybody can see with their eyes that America is a people not of conquerors of other nations but of conquerors for reason and truth.
So why does Europe have this apparent hatred of America? Yes, America is freer than Europe. Yes, America is growing economically while Europe is stagnant and has been for over a decade. Yes, Americans enjoy larger homes, more cars, appliances, cheaper food and energy and more disposable income. Yes, Americans are enterprising and a can do nation, not afraid of hard work but so are the over 700,000 Europeans who have immigrated to the US in the last three years. Yes, American culture dominates around the world, but no one forces people to like what we export. Yes, we enjoy low unemployment, a strong work ethic and a strong morality. And most important, Americans are willing to wage war to defend our freedom and our homeland. The French and Germans lumber under the opposite of these.
A recent poll asked the question: “How satisfied are you with your life?” Americans responded 57% in the affirmative while France, Germany and Italy responded 14, 17 and 16% in the affirmative. Another question asked “How do you expect your personal situation to change in five years?” Sixty-three percent of Americans responded that their lives would improve versus only 20% of Germans and 42% of French. The statement: “Success if determined by forces outside our control” resulted in only 32% agreement by Americans versus 54, 68 and 66% agreement by the French, Germans and Italians respectively.
I believe these numbers tell us two things: First that Europeans like their nanny governments which provide cradle to death benefits. They are accustomed to the easy way out-their disease is apathy and it attacks their ability to face facts and act decisively in the face of evil. The second is not that Europeans are not religious but that they have no philosophy at all and the organ under attack is their brain. The American philosophy, for all the apparent religiosity in the US, is one stated in our precious Declaration of Independence: That man is endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is a powerful statement that tells each American that he will have to use his own noggins to figure out how to achieve his own happiness. Europeans have no figuring out to do since all the thinking is done for them by busy-body bureaucrats.
We view man as an individual entity, Europeans view only the group. It is the centuries old struggle between statism and capitalism, between collectivism and individualism, between slavery and freedom and between faith and reason. In sum, as always, the battle is between what is against man’s nature and survival - evil and what is pro man and life – the good.
The Europeans have so blinded themselves to what the good is that they can’t distinguish evils that confront them. Therefore, they condemn Israel and coddle Saddam Hussein; They appease every anti-Western noodle head that has a grievance and reject any notion of proudly defending their Western values, culture and civilization; They reject lower taxes and productivity for the government dole and stagnation; They reject to ally themselves with America but rather, acting cowardly, they scrape their foreheads bowing to miserable dictators.
In the article “Villainy: An Analysis of the Nature of Evil (Part 1 of 5)” Andrew Bernstein (www.capmag.com October 8, 2005) describes the nature of evil.
“In this environment, it is crucially important to prevent oneself from becoming a victim of evil.
“Victim” in this context does not mean merely the possibility that evil men may literally violate one’s rights; but more subtly, that the ubiquitous presence of evil in the culture might insidiously wear down the desire to pursue values; that one might come to feel, at an emotional level, that the good has little chance in this world, then give up in hopelessness.
“To prevent that, it is crucially important to understand the nature of evil. Evil must be examined – as an act of self-preservation – to keep it from poisoning one’s soul with the slightest bit of pessimistic despair.
“In the face of evil run rampant, it is crucially important to protect the benevolent universe premise.
“Ayn Rand has shown that the evil is the irrational, willful denial and evasion of the facts of reality. It is the deliberate defiance of the facts and laws of nature, a spitting in the face of existence. Human survival requires rationality, a commitment to discover and act on the full truth. Evil men stand opposed to this – to reality, to the rational, to every value on which human life depends.
“Because of this, evil is metaphysically impotent: it cannot build, grow, create, or produce. Achievements require commitment to the laws and facts of reality. As stated by Francis Bacon, 'Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.' Men who forsake nature, whether to follow their own whims, conform to the group, or obey God, are incapable of producing or prospering on their own. Criminals, dictators, tribal warlords, Washington bureaucrats, and welfare leeches create and achieve nothing. Left to their own devices, they would huddle in caves and die. The irrational is helpless, utterly powerless.”
Let us understand the nature of evil so that we do not despair and let us above all allow these terrorists to huddle and die by not caving in to their fantasies and delusions. America can only hope that the Europeans wake up and smell the coffee before it’s too late.
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