On Jun 26, 9:49=A0pm, Captain Compassion <dar...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> An Irrelevant Europe - Best for the
World?http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/=
2008/06/23/an-irrelevant-europe-best-f...
>
> In a recent op-ed Robert Kagan laments that (Western) Europe is
> sliding into irrelevance. But that might be the best thing for the
> rest of the world.
>
> Don=92t get me wrong, the world owes plenty to Europe. It=92s given the
> world great art, architecture, literature, and music. It=92s also given
> the world the ideas of universal education, the scientific method,
> research institutions, property rights, rule of law, democracy,
> religious freedom, and freedom of thought and expression, among other
> things. These ideas and institutions coalesced to power the engine of
> progress that drives the economic and technological development that
> have improved human well-being =97 not only in Europe but elsewhere =97
t=
o
> levels far beyond what our ancestors could have imagined.
> Consequently, today we live longer, healthier, more educated, freer,
> and wealthier than ever before. But for the past century, Europe seems
> determined to undo all the good it=92s ever done.
>
> Europe gave the world the ideologies of Fascism and Marxism, which
> were responsible =97 or provided rationalizations =97 for 100=96150
milli=
on
> deaths worldwide, including many outside Europe, most notably in
> China, Cambodia and North Korea. Then in a few short decades, despite
> having risen Phoenix-like from the ashes of destruction of World War
> II, instead of brimming with optimism, Europe has taken a decidedly
> pessimistic turn.
>
> It no longer believes in progress. Its birth rate has dropped below
> replacement rates, yet, despite its protestations of equality,
> fraternity, secularism, and respect for human rights, it=92s unwilling
> or unable to welcome or integrate immigrants of different colors or
> religious backgrounds into its societies. And one by one it=92s
> abandoning the great ideas that brought it, and the rest of the world,
> progress, and advanced human well-being.
>
> Its political leader****p, although democratically elected, has
> abandoned democracy in its pursuit of a united Europe. The more the
> idea of the EU fails in democratic tests =97 most recently in Ireland
=97
> the more devious its politicians=92 machinations to bypass popular
> approval.
>
> It has abandoned scientific inquiry, relying instead on mantras such
> as the =93science is settled.=94 Having abandoned science, it now relies
> on superstition, manifested in the notion of a
> global-warming-triggered apocalypse of Biblical pro****tions if average
> temperatures exceeds 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels
> =97 an apocalypse complete with death, disease, pestilence, droughts,
> famines and floods. Not only is there no evidence for this, this
> superstition persists despite the current reality that more Europeans
> die in winter than in summer, Europe=92s long history of misery and want
> during cold periods and plenty during warm eras, and that even as
> media coverage of extreme weather events becomes more compelling and
> ubiquitous, globally the deaths and death rates from such events are
> in long term decline. If Europe had spent a fraction of the resources
> in adapting to climate change as it did on complying with the futile,
> but politically-correct Kyoto Protocol, it might have reduced by
> thousands the death toll of its 2003 heat wave.
>
> Europe is now on the verge of abandoning the quest for technological
> progress, preferring instead to be ruled by the so-called
> precautionary principle which, as applied by Europe, actually
> increases human misery and death. It does this by discouraging, if not
> vetoing, new and safer technologies that could displace older and less
> safe technologies on the grounds that =93safer=94 is not good enough =97
=
it
> has to be absolutely safe.
>
> The precautionary principle was used to justify relinqui****ng its use
> of DDT, which was easy, because Europe had already conquered malaria.
> It is also used against genetically modified crops. The misapplication
> of the precautionary principle, coupled with its abandonment of
> scientific inquiry evident in the torching and destruction of
> experimental trials on genetically modified crops and its reliance on
> superstition, has resulted in a de facto ban on such crops in most of
> Europe. But giving up such crops isn=92t hard either. Western Europe is
> well fed =97 in fact today it worries more about obesity than hunger =97
> and its farmers=92 excessive productivity is actually a drag on its
> taxpayers. Some Europeans would also give up nuclear and coal, but
> that would actually be giving something up, so protestations to the
> contrary, that will come about only after renewable energies mature
> and are better able to pay for themselves without subsidies.
>
> But worst of all, Europe is once again ex****ting dangerous,
> misanthropic ideas, which unfortunately are echoed even in the US
> where many are in thrall of European ideas, no matter how
> ill-conceived. These ideas are couched in doublespeak, such as the
> European version of the precautionary principle, which could kill as
> many people as the failed ideologies of Fascism and Marxism.
>
> Europe talks endlessly of helping developing countries and offering
> token amounts of aid but then refuses to reform its agricultural
> policies which would do a lot more for helping the latter help
> themselves. At the same time it bemoans the new prosperity of
> long-suffering Asia that has lifted over a billion out of a poverty
> that Europe has not known since even before the French Revolution
> because it=92s enabled by and rides on greater energy use. And for that,
> some Europeans threaten punishment through carbon tariffs.
>
> But energy use and economic development are inextricably linked not
> only in China and India but in Europe and elsewhere. Even as energy
> use fueled economic development, it freed human beings from
> back-breaking physical labor, allowed women to escape the drudgery of
> household work, equalized economic op****tunities for women, reduced
> the need for child labor, liberated animals from being our beasts of
> burden, and enabled brains to displace brawn, laying the foundation
> for a less energy-intensive economy.
>
> Europe campaigned actively, but fortunately unsuccessfully, to ban
> DDT. Despite this, African nations, deferring to European
=93expertise=94
> on matters technological while fearing a European boycott of their
> agricultural ex****ts if even trace amounts of DDT are found on them,
> have been slow to adopt DDT to combat malaria =97 fears that Europe did
> nothing to dispel and may, in fact, have actively encouraged. For the
> same reasons, Africans have been reluctant to turn to genetically
> modified crops to reduce hunger and malnutrition. And once again,
> Europe is standing silently by if not actively discouraging the use of
> genetically modified crops.
>
> For context, consider that over 6 million people die each year from
> malaria, hunger and malnutrition, a toll that annually rivals that of
> the entire Holocaust. Yet Europe has done little to help or reassure
> Africa in this regard, thereby abandoning one of the Holocaust=92s most
> im****tant lessons, namely, inaction can be no less culpable than
> active participation.
>
> Europe may be able to walk away from further economic and
> technological development, but the rest of the world can=92t afford to,
> not if it values human and environmental well-being.
>
> An irrelevant Europe could save innumerable lives in the developing
> world. And that might be best for this world.
>
> --
> "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our
> homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other
> countries are going to say OK." -- =A0Barack Obama
>
> The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
> escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
>
> "...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
> we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
> Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
> of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
>
> Joseph R. Darancette
> dar...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
read, thx.
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