May 21, 2002

Michael Gove has another superb

Michael Gove has another superb column, likening the EU-niks of today to the Manchu-niks of old. They really are Mandarins!

The current trajectory of European political development is driven by elites who, unlike America’s political leadership, find the moral burden of operating in a world of nation states too onerous. The direct accountability of parliaments is being supplanted by the closed power-broking of European bodies insulated from effective scrutiny.

Instead of upgrading national armies to meet new threats to national security, waning energies and limited resources are devoted to constructing administrative white elephants such as the European Rapid Reaction Force, which adds not a tank, soldier or bullet to the EU’s defence capability.

Instead of being able to project power against threats to our interests and values, Europe’s leaders seek to manage conflict through the international therapy of peace processes, the buying off of aggression with the danegeld of aid or the erection of a paper palisade of global law which the unscrupulous always punch through.

Europeans may convince themselves that these developments are the innovations of a continent in the van of progress, but they are really the withered autumn fruits of a civilisation in decline. Elites that shy away from electoral competition, demur at shouldering military responsibilities and temporise in the face of danger are destined for eclipse.

The Middle Kingdom sought to convince itself that behind its ramparts a uniquely cultured mandarinate preserved values to which the West’s barbarians could never aspire. Now, behind the tariff walls of the common agricultural policy and the borders hostile to new immigrants, Europe’s elites tell themselves that their low-growth, low-birthrate, low-wattage home still has something to teach America. It does. The dangers of failing to keep your nation free, open, vigorous and proud.

Posted by Dr. Frank at May 21, 2002 10:53 AM | TrackBack