On the right, even across the Pond, somewhat reasonable essays are always ruined by loaded language.
Americans understandably seek to define their president in American terms. But looking across from my side of the Atlantic, there is a much simpler explanation. President Obama wants to Europeanize the U.S. All right, he wouldn’t put it in those terms, partly because the electorate wouldn’t wear it and partly because he sees himself as less Eurocentric than any of his 43 predecessors.
My guess is that if anything, Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do. He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.
I can debate the finer points of most of those assertions, but why throw “less patriotism” in there? Taxes, regulations, and relations with global institutions are all defined by laws and policies. Patriotism is not. It doesn’t belong on the list, and I think “transfer of sovereignty” probably covers what the author intended.
The rest of the essay isn’t any more concise or well-organized. It is strange to begin from the point of view that seeking fairness, tolerance, humility, and engagement are bad, misguided goals. But to reduce them to some liberal policy wish-list is really trite. Even worse, to make some logical connection between European integration and Obama’s position on high marginal tax rates and health care policy is simply deluded. I don’t think the author proves any of the premises he uses to build his case.
I’m pleased that he reveres our political system and separation of powers, but our system is not defined by its differences from European political institutions. It makes no sense to say this:
[Obama] is not pursuing a set of random initiatives lashed arbitrarily together, but a program of comprehensive Europeanization: European health care, European welfare, European carbon taxes, European day care, European college education, even a European foreign policy, based on engagement with supranational technocracies, nuclear disarmament and a reluctance to deploy forces overseas.
Expanding access to health care can be compared to how Europe operates, I guess, but the actual health care policy is unlike any European health care systems. As for the rest of that list, any comparisons are strained at best, and most are counterfactual. Obama hasn’t changed our welfare system, or how we provide day care, or radically changed how people finance their college education. He has expanded our presence in Afghanistan. And, unless you expected him to invade Libya by now, it’s unclear where he was supposed to deploy our troops overseas.
These kind of empty arguments are so pervasive on the right that we on the left don’t even really have partners for intelligent debate. We’re left pointing out that their entire argument is based on delusion and lies.
For people who actually enjoy a good intellectual debate, it’s very dispiriting.
These kind of empty arguments are so pervasive on the right that we on the left don’t even really have partners for intelligent debate.
What’s even worse is that we can’t even have an intelligent debate with corrupt hacks like Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln.
I don’t really see that as worse. I think the political debate in this country is pathetic and it has almost nothing to do with Ben Nelson. He doesn’t make a positive contribution, but he’s operating on the edge in a system where he has to explain why he belongs to a party that wants to turn America into Europe.
Boo:
Did you look up the Wikipedia page for that dope who wrote the WSJ op-ed you quote? Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hannan
Scroll down to the “Commentary about the United States” section. This idiot actually endorsed Obama back in ’08(I know it doesn’t mean much coming from a Brit, but still). Then he rescinded that endorsement last year.
What’s that say about John McCain?
I know. But it’s also weird when a hard-right British crank endorses a Democrat here.
Oh, this is so profoundly British! The writer is a British member of the European Parliament and casts Europe in a negative light, that is, it is bad to imitate Europe—the same Europe he purports to govern. You see, Britan is not part of Europe. That’s why many Europeans on the European mainland consider Britain a foreign entity in Brussels. Britain came into the European Union in about 1975 when the country was flat out on its back. Then it raked it in. If you want to known when the Euro is finally out of the woods, just wait until Britain deigns to adopt the currency. Then Britain can profit too.
Hating socialism pays well.
Yes, of course it does, that’s such creeps arrange plush government jobs for themselves. How many people in the House rail aginst government? So sick of the hypocrites.
Why bother worrying about what Hannan says. He’s a right wing hack that doesn’t have any credibility in the UK at all, save to the far right racist party.
Daniel Hannan = Europe’s Ron Paul. He wants to get rid of the NHS for crying out loud, and he regularly goes on Hannity.
I would take “Patriotism” in the original article to mean something close to “Jingoism.” Patriotism not as true patriotism, but as the xenophobic gun-toting manifest-destiny sorta crap that does pass for patriotism most of the time in the states.
Getting away from that, I would agree, is a good thing.
I should qualify this by saying that, for better or worse, the perception from abroad when talking about “patriotism in america” is what I described, not actual patriotism.
Wait, did I misunderstand and you meant to criticize the idea that Obama’s agenda includes pursuing “lowering the patriotism in america,” instead of criticizing that “less patriotism” is a bad thing to pursue in itself?
Um… may I have some of that comprehensive Europeanization of which you speak, please, sir?