EU is terrified of nationalism

Originally posted elsewhere on 12/11/2010

While addressing an audience in Berlin, Herman Van Rompuy, the President of Europe, said:

The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear. Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war.

By the way, the “President” of Europe was appointed, not elected, to the office of the presidency. Taking exception to van Rompuy, Bill Cash replied:

It is not anti-European to be pro-democracy. The problem is that the democratic base for the EU is wanting. The solution to the rise of the far-Right is proper democracy exercised through national parliaments.

For another post here on the anti-democratic tendencies of contemporary Europe, check out Welcome to global governance.

Welcome to global governance

Originally published elsewhere on 10/18/2010

Since the American Left dreams of an America that is more like Europe, it is worth noting developments within the European Union (EU). In The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America, Daniel Hannan really brings home how anti-democratic this emerging superstate is. Daniel Hannan is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing South East England in the EU.

Following WWII, the elite within Europe wanted Europe to arrange its affairs so that another war like it would never happen. Hannan singles out Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman as being forefathers of the movement that would eventually lead to the EU. Hannan claims that Monnet, Schuman, and other prominent European intellectuals in the 1950s really didn’t have much faith in the democratic institution of voting. In the years leading up to WWII, these intellectual leaders felt that the common folk had shown themselves to be easily swayed by demagogues. What mattered most to these forefathers of the EU was to so intertwine the economies and administrative bodies of the Western European nations that it would be logistically impossible for a member state to engage in war with another member state.