Never has Europe been so united as this. Never have more of its people been more free. Never before have most European countries been democracies, joined as equal members in the same economic, political and security community.
Never so unified? Well, there was Napoleon. And Hitler. And the Mongols were a funeral away from imposing political unity.
But the author does have that "free" part in there. So I guess he means that the unity of the European Union has achieved the prized freedom.
Except that the European Union has nothing to do with the freedom and security achieved. If you want to give credit to a supranational organization, you might mention NATO. Especially if you want to discuss any democracy expansion east of the Elbe River. And if you mention NATO, you might have to mention--ahem--the United States of America in the roll call of freedom's champions.
Still, the author is unwilling to risk freedom and peace, and thinks that the downfall of the EU could threaten freedom and peace:
Eurosceptics make two fundamental claims. First, that European nations enjoying full, unfettered sovereignty can better achieve freedom, prosperity and security for their own peoples, and avoid conflict with their neighbours. Second, that such wholly independent states can still effectively defend the interests of their people, even in an interdependent world increasingly dominated by non-European powers. Both claims fly in the face of evidence from past and present.
My evidence for disputing the first claim is Europe's 20th century. As Bosnia in the 1990s showed, Europeans can revert to barbarism, both within and across existing state frontiers, as quickly as anyone else. Even more settled, liberal states benefit from having European structures of permanent conflict-regulation – or, to quote Churchill again, from making jaw-jaw rather than war-war.
My evidence for disputing the second claim is the emerging world of the 21st century, in which Europe's relative power has diminished, is diminishing and will continue to diminish. Faced with old and new superpowers, we Europeans must hang together or we'll hang separately. Take the Eurosceptic path, and the Chinese will be laughing all the way to the bank (which, by then, they'll probably own anyway).
Well, the Europhiles have a sense of humor, you have to admit.
On his first point, he fears that Europeans are just a cheese regulation repeal away from slaughtering undesirables. This is part of the appeal the EU has for the Europhiles. They blame the barbaric passions of the peasantry for Europe's history of wars and--ah--unpleasantness:
Imagine that, the Europeans looked to their past, noticed that the rulers of Europe often rallied their publics into repeated wars against each other and the rest of the world, and concluded that the key failure in this is their own public that failed to stop the leaders! Never mind that it was the leadership that led Europe to fight. I just want to know how putting an elite that has been prone to war back in complete charge will end European wars? Isn't this recreating the Europe of divine right rulers that created the bloody swath that Europeans cut across the globe?
So with that in mind, the democracy deficit that infects the EU and which Eurosceptics annoyingly bring up is a feature rather than a bug. It must be the basis for the EU because even as the author notes in his nightmare scenario for Europe of Yugoslavia continent wide, the fighting in Yugoslavia was within Yugoslavia. It was civil war. If Germans hate French or Poles hate Hungarians, a single European Union super state would simply see inter-state war called civil war. Is a label change a great achievement? Obviously, no. So enlightened European rulers must crush sectarian and nationalistic hatreds that lie deep in the souls of Europeans the way Saddam Hussein was needed (as so many of them said) to control those violence-prone Kurds, and Shias, and Sunni Arabs.
Suppress the peasants to prevent war and massacre and genocide. Not limit the rulers who led the people. The people are at fault. The people must be denied a voice under these circumstances. The Europhiles clearly believe this.
I won't bother to address his second defense of the EU. As if Europe united would pay for the hard power needed to compete with America, China, or even Russia. Good God, man, how long did it take for Europe to subdue Khaddafi in Libya? And--ahem--do notice the role of NATO and America.
If Europeans truly want to bolster Europe's global influence, a robust NATO and continued alliance with America is their best bet. If Europeans want freedom, their best bet is to rely on NATO and America and their own sovereign elected parliaments without the European Union suppressing every action and thought in a broad web of regulations out of fear that someone, somewhere, will use even a hint of freedom to turn the lights out all over Europe once again.
I'll say it again of the EU: Die! With festering boils, die!
Listen. Strange bureaucrats lying in Brussels distributing words is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses.
UPDATE: Warnings of war if the European Union dies. Beware the Flemish nationalists! And Hungary's Jobbik activists! Excuse me, but I haven't exactly soiled my armor.
I would never say that war in Europe is impossible. But wars that are technically civil strife within a European Union are wars no less. And saying that the EU is what stands between people and the dogs of war is just silly.
Next up: Preserve the EU or we'll kill this puppy!
These Europhiles are a piece of work.
