Mark Steyn accurately says that the key product the Democrats are selling is American decline, so he has penned a long article looking at the pros and cons. On the pro side, he describes how the U.S. can act like the Europeans:
"...in the geopolitical sense it can be marvelously liberating. You still go to all the best parties and have a seat at the top table – Britain and France are members of the UN Security Council and the G7 and every other group that counts – and even better, when the check comes, you’re not the one stuck with the tab. You can preen and pose on the world stage secure in the knowledge that nobody expects you to do anything about it: It’s no surprise to find the post-great powers of Europe are the noisiest promoters of every fashionable nostrum from the iniquities of the Zionist Entity to the perils of “climate change”. The European Union has attitudes rather than policies. A couple of years back, Bret Stephens, then editor of The Jerusalem Post, opened his mail to find a copy of something called "Conclusions of the European Council", a summary of the work done during the six months of Ireland’s “Euro-presidency”. A braver man than I, he read it, at least as far as Item 80:
“The European Council expresses its deep concern at the recent events in the Eastern Congo, which could jeopardise the transition process."
And that and a couple Euros will get you a café au lait. The EU is free to flaunt its “concern” – whoops, “deep concern” - over events in the Eastern Congo precisely because nobody in the Eastern Congo or anywhere else expects Europe to do a thing about it. The Continent increasingly resembles those insulated celebrities being shuttled around town from one humanitarian gala to another – like Barbra Streisand and Leonardo Di Caprio jetting in to join Barack Obama and Al Gore in bemoaning Joe Sixpack’s carbon footprint.
And when you put it like that, what’s the downside?"
The downside is that Europe has been able to get away with this because the U.S. has done the heavy lifting around the world since 1945 and if we are in decline, then who will take our place and make sure that things don't get out of hand? The envelope please - NOBODY! While we get in touch with our inner self and become more "civilized" the uncivilized punk nations of the world will be getting nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and making their political statements by killing civilians in greater numbers in the civilized world generating, no doubt, "deep concern" from the U.S. and its European friends, at least momentarily while they put down their wine and hors oeuvres. Tsk, tsk. Steyn also quotes the British historian Arnold Toynbee who said: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder." He's right. Lovely sunset - pass the wine, s'il vous plait.
www.steynonline.com/content/view/2882/26/
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