Taboos

People in Europe are very, very, silent about their religious beliefs. It is a "personal" decision, which has little bearing on their "public" life. They are not quite sure how to deal with Muslim immigrants, who have the audacity to believe in something and are actually willing to discuss it in public. (To be fair, they say the same thing about American Mormon missionary kids, but they know that most of them will probably go home soon, and about Scientologists, but, well, so do Americans.) It is possible that one of the reasons that Muslims in America are dealing surprisingly well with the War on Terror, not burning cars or attacking synagogues, is that Americans are a religiously tolerant people, but a religious people nonetheless. It may be that the European nations with the most trouble assimilating Muslims also have the most trouble "assimilating" Christians.

Sex, on the other hand, is shockingly public. "Everybody does it!" they say, "we might as well talk about it." I don't have much research on it right now, but I'd be willing to bet that this little public/private switch happened about the same time as so many other peculiar things did in the late 1960s. While religion has always been necessarily had a public component, sex, for the most part, was truly private. This managed to change somehow. The "personal is political" was a famous quote of feminist theory; at the same time, people were told that things that had traditionally had a public aspect, such as religion, were to be forced into back alleys and treated with stigma.

It may be helpful to notice that the oddity of this taboo lies not with the USA, but with Europe. Religion is a common topic in political discussions throughout the world; one's attitude to sex is considerably less so. Frequently people say that the Western World, ie. Europe and the USA, should be more understanding of the Third World. In the Third World, religion plays a huge role; personal sex lives play a role only insofar as they are subordinate aspects of a religious-political debate. Many of the same right-thinking people also say that the best thing for the former Yugoslavia is to break it into pieces that happen to break down along sectarian lines. Interestingly, no one argues that borders should be drawn along those who believe that the age of consent should be 17 and those who believe it should be 18. They seem to concede that religion is important to the savage peoples (such as Croatia, a nation with more than twice the per capita GDP of new EU member state Bulgaria, and a fantastic vacation destination), but cannot imagine it in their better new world.

To say that religion is not and should not be an important aspect of politics, or rather of politicians, is wishful thinking at best, and dangerous at worst. The translation of beliefs, no matter how private, into public action is the hallmark of public service. It used to be that people's opinions on sex were derived from their opinions of faith. It will stay that way, and hopefully Europe will recognize that.

With all the trouble in the world today,

it's nice to have some good news from the Czech Brewing and Malting Association.

Questioning Authority

I consider myself as a person who sometimes questions authority, but not usually for its own sake. I think that might be something that defines conservatism. However, if authority is demonstrably pointless, or wrong, then, yeah, I like to mix it up from time to time.

I had a daydream that a policeman actually busted me for crossing the street while the light was red. People, especially of the ‛60s, are convinced that it is absolutely critical to question authority, wherever it might be. In Europe, their questioning has often led to stagnant birthrates, high crime, unemployment, people afraid to discuss their (non-Muslim) faith, and huge state bureaucracies. However, they militantly obey the little red man who tells them to stop when they cross the street. Even if no cars are in sight, they refuse to cross. It is insufferable. They also have a slight tendency to cross when the light is green, even if an ambulance is coming.

If you think of the little red man as a bureaucratic and inefficient waste of time, which gives good advice most of the time, but is sometimes obviously stupid and counterproductive, he is extremely helpful. To endow him with a conscience and the authority to direct your actions is absurd. He is an authority, but ultimately not the authority.

It led me to consider some things. I got to thinking that everyone has a tendency to obey some things, and disobey other things. The purpose of questioning authority should be to challenge truth, in an epistemological attempt to contribute to the generations of human knowledge and wisdom. It is to correct the imperfections of the wisdom of previous generations; it is not to show off.

One's deference to authority should be based on the assumption that there is a reason for "how things are the way they are." Rebellion for its own sake, however, is just immature. Unfortunately, some very old people have not yet grown up.

Tony Blair

As the BBC (and every news agency not run by eels) reports, the British Prime Minister, Anthony Blair, has decided to resign. They pointed out that he was the first to pick his departure date. In this respect, he has imitated the tradition more of the American Presidency, as opposed to the usual British way of the house usually burning down around the PM.

Blair leaves with a UK more European and more conflicted with official Europe; the UK is further to the left, if only slightly; his legacy includes his capitulation to the EU with respect to the CAP, and his defiance of the continent with respect to Iraq War.

Tony Blair signed the UK on to the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty (the UK was not a signatory to this in 1992, when the treaty was ratified); in the end, this will possibly be the most significant binding of the UK to the EU. He started out, as he put it himself, a Socialist. His domestic policy brought the "right" of additional maternity leave, and limited working hours. But New Labour was also productivist, and rejected the old labor-ownership adversarial relationship. Blair, like his philosophical soulmate Bill Clinton, were far more conservative (or liberal) in this respect than the continent. They stressed work, and in the Anglo-American tradition, they were unabashed believers in the rightness of liberalism.

The transformation of Tony Blair was completed, and his link with the transatlantic alliance cemented, with the bombing of Serbia. International law was secondary to humanitarian necessity in the case of Serbia. For Blair, insofar as international law should serve humanitarianism, international law was merely a scaffold for what needed to be done. If humanitarian goals were apparent, and international law was unclear, than international law was the obvious failure.

Later, a new American President, George W. Bush, drew on this tradition (which is far older than either the current President or the Prime Minister) and worked to facilitate democratic liberalism in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was merely a continuation of the values Blair, Bush, and Clinton espoused at home. Blair was at his best when he described the Iraq War in humanitarian terms; it was not just about WMDs; it was about the freeing of individual human beings that Blair sought as his legacy.

We can disagree whether or not Mr. Blair's idea of freedom, with its proclivities toward communitarianism, was perfect. Nevertheless, in the crucible of Serbian nationalism and radical Islam, Anthony Blair stood on the side of breathing the air of freedom, and capping the smokestacks of totalitarianism. For this, he succeeded as Prime Minister. The Union Jack waves as a prouder standard for his efforts.

The War

Mr. Blair leaves as "The Surge" starts to tapir off. Expect huge attacks in Basra in the final end of Blair's reign, with a message to Gordon Brown (or whoever is the Labour leader): "The jihad is not yet over; please leave ASAP." We can only hope Mr. Brown is of the same meddle as Mr. Blair.

Understanding the European Union

I was in Germany (lovely place) this past weekend. On the eve of the US-EU summit, the local paper in Essen, the WAZ, exclaimed that there was a general ignorance about how the European Union works in the United States. Putting aside the fact that most of its so-called citizens know as little about how the EU works as many Americans do, it nevertheless has a bit of a point – there is shockingly little type dedicated to the institution that makes, by one estimate, 81% of Europe's laws.

Part of this is because the European Union itself sometimes isn't entirely sure about its role. As an example, about a month ago, the President of the European Commission (the real powers-that-be of the EU), a Portuguese man named José Manuel Barroso (spelling?) said that any negotiations on a US plan to build a ballistic missile defense system should be conducted on a bilateral level, with occasional unofficial contact with Brussels.

Fast forward to now; the Commission has decided that, well, actually, it would like a little bit more information about the plan, and would particularly welcome it coming under NATO auspices rather than bilateral agreements with Poland and Czech Republic. The head of the Social Democrats in the Czech Republic, Jiří Paroubek, has begun to meet with Social Democrats (and Greens) in Germany, Austria, and other European nations (who would be protected under this missile shield, bankrolled almost entirely by the US, and likely under NATO). In turn, left-of-center parties in the European Parliament (a talkshop masquerading as a legislative body) have injected themselves into a conversation that almost no-one planned on having, and which almost certainly has little legal standing under the current Treaty of Nice.

Part of the reason that the EU is so woefully misunderstood by Americans is because of its determination for "ever closer union." In the US Constitution, "more perfect union" never implied "ever closer." Its self-perpetuating consolidation of power is something that American policymakers will have to deal with.

European Unionists will tell you that the principle of subsidiarity is enshrined in all the treaties since the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which created the European Communities, forerunners of today's EU. Of course, the principle of subsidiarity is in the US Constitution as well, in Amendments IX and X. However, any government will always tend to seek to allocate greater powers and responsibilities to itself. The European Union, unfortunately, is simply extremely adept at doing so. During this summit, keep that in mind.