First the election...

Hi -

First a comment on the election results in France and in the Netherlands.

It's simple why the voters rejected the election results: they didn't want it. Don't buy the MSM sell of "protest" votes.

I've actually taken the time - it took three full evenings - to read through the now failed constitution. It's, as I've said elswhere, a constitution not of, by and for the people, but one of, by and for the technocrats.

Who are the technocrats?

Simple: they are the ruling elite of Europe, trained in nuance and subtlety of interpretation. They have been indoctrinated from childhood on the inherent superiority of their ways; have gone to university to learn the complexities of the tools that they use to confuse and obfuscate; have gone to work and entered into the incestuous relationship between government and business and punched their way to the top of their respective fields.

And they are clueless, with a rare technocrat who has been outside the sandbox. It's a glorious life, discussing subtle changes to law to attempt to achieve some sort of transcendent social justice; enjoying extensive expense accounts and reimbursements schemes that the taxpayer pays; and most fundamentally enjoying a nice, safe, socially statused existence without really having to worry too much about adding value to people's lives.

Of course they were shocked and amazed that the unwashed masses wouldn't simply accept yet another scheme to screw over the common man. They don't understand the comman man in Europe and never will.

Why not? Because they don't want to. The challenges facing Europe are hard and there is no simple solution: the core of the European system of social nets must be dismantled, demystified, debugged and deloused to get the vermin out.

Demographic problems of nightmare proportions must be addressed and solved. The fundamental core of European political systems has failed, failed fundamentally, and must be restructured. These are all extraordinarily difficult tasks, yet the politicians in Europe are in active denial that any of this needs to be done at all.

These last two decades will go down in history as having been frittered away, with massive consequences.

Why this refusal? It has a lot to do with a fundamental failure of the political system: it is not a critical system. Now all the LWL are going "Huh? Socialists are always critical of the existing system!!!"

But not when you are dealing with dogmatic "criticism" that is nothing more than catechism writ large. I've studied in both the US and in Germany, and in general the German students were less critical than US students.

Now I'm gonna propose something so radical that it's heretical: that Americans are vastly more critical of their system of government and social support than Europeans are. That Americans don't go out on the streets in massive numbers to protest the idea that you should maybe work more than 35 hours a week - HAH! - isn't an indicator that Americans aren't critical, but rather the fact that Americans are too pragmatic to worry about such a completely and totally addled idea of having the government decide how long I should work.

Social inequality issues are DOA in the US because you don't, as an American, generally worry about how everyone else is doing: you worry about how YOU are doing, it's called self interest and is a perfectly normal and human pattern of behavior. And it works.

And ignoring human nature is what got the Eurocrats in trouble: the rejection of the constitution shows that. It's why democracy is the best damn form of government around: it's the only way that you can say NO.

And the French (The French! The French!!! Oh, the glorious irony of it being the French!) and the Dutch populace have told their keepers to well and proper frell off, that the constitution and the politics that have accompanied it - expansion of the members (to dilute and divide the political opposition) and the bureaucracy - are not in their, the people's interest.

And of course the technocrats don't understand that. They obviously think: How dare these people do anything but agree with us, we're the ruling elite. Quelle absurd!

What these ruling elites don't understand is that they are at the very, very beginning of the process of European unity: but where oh where are the European philosopher-politicians of the caliber of the authors of the Federalist Papers? The debate is so desperately needed.

Given the current caliber of European politicians and the politically correct environment that actively suppresses critical and independent thought that passes for politics in Europe - I'll be once again heretical and suggest that Haider and theFPÖ in Austria were so castigated not because of right-wing leanings but rather because he was a successful challenge to the Holy State - this means that there won't be any sort of political awakening as a result of the vote.

Which means that the Europeans will continue to muddle through.

Continue to deny the problems.

Continue to avoid the problems.

Continue to get deeper and deeper into the hole, digging furiously.




Continue to play on the deck of the Titanic.