The question posed by social scientist Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute's annual dinner this month could hardly have been simpler: Do Americans want the United States to be like Europe?
He asked as someone who likes and admirers Europe and Europeans. He asked also because it is becoming increasingly apparent that re-structuring the U.S. along the lines of the European social democratic model is the change many in the new administration -- perhaps including President Obama himself -- believe in. Such a re-direction surely deserves consideration.
Murray is convinced that Europeanizing America is a bad idea, and not only because the European model creates chronically "sclerotic economies." More significant, he says, is the fact that embracing the European model means discarding the Founders' revolutionary re-invention of government, and of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Murray argues this would inevitably "enfeeble" the habits and institutions that have been singularly responsible for making America "robust and vital" -- an "exceptional" nation.
The intent of the modern European welfare state, Murray says, is laudable: to take "some of the trouble" out of life. Dealing with troubles, he concedes, is not always easy or pleasant, but it can lead to satisfactions accessible through no other means. It is how people's lives "make a difference." By contrast, those relieved of important responsibilities, tend to while away their days "as pleasantly as possible."
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If amusement becomes "the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble -- and, after all, what good are they, really? If that's the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that's the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?" And so, in Europe, one sees a diminishing work ethic, catastrophically declining birth rates, a dwindling sense of nation and community, and empty churches.
I would add this: Such a society is no match for the challenge of radical Islam, a surpremacist and aggressive political/religious movement with ironclad convictions about every aspect of life, and adherents willing -- in many cases eager -- to kill and die in pursuit of their vision.
Murray has not explored the national security implications of Europeanization but, coincidently, John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, addresses precisely that topic in a new essay in Commentary magazine. He notes in particular that "foreign-policy eminences here and abroad, including former Secretaries of State of both parties as well as defense officials from the Clinton and first Bush administrations" are now advocating to Obama that the United States emulate "the European Union (EU) as the new model."
Such an approach would require that Washington achieve "transnational consensus" for foreign policies it wishes to implement. It would mean replacing the traditional American concept of sovereignty -- U.S. citizens governing themselves within the framework of the U.S. Constitution -- with something called "responsible sovereignty," a euphemism for ceding sovereignty to the United Nations in the interest of building a "cooperative international order" and, in time, "global governance."
Bolton argues that following this course would make America, by design, weaker while strengthening "international organizations, which have, time and again, proved inefficient and ineffective."
More fundamentally, this would mark a historic break with "the understanding of the U.S. Constitution, which locates the basis of its legitimacy in ‘we the people,' who constitute the sovereign authority of the nation."
Emulating the experiment now underway in Europe, in which nations "share" sovereignty even with non-citizens, Bolton adds, "by definition will diminish the sovereign power of the American people over their government and their own lives, the very purpose for which the Constitution was written. This is something Americans have been reluctant to do."
But that's the direction we now appear to be heading. Bolton contends only "concerted action" can prevent it. The possibility that "irreversible damage will be done to the American project over the next few years is real," Murray warns.
"The drift toward the European model can be slowed by piecemeal victories on specific items of legislation, but only slowed," he adds. "It is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the Earth, and immeasurably precious."
Do a sufficient number of Americans still believe that? Given the failures of America's educational system, do most people even understand the choice that is about to be made? And, even if they do, how many are willing to fight to prevent such a counter-revolution? There may be no questions of greater consequence asked and answered over the years ahead.
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