E.U. and I

So I went rummaging about for old Doonesbury cartoon I know I have, but can't find. In it, Elvis comes back from the dead, Donald Trump puts on a concert, and at the punchline is that Elvis is only singing John Denver tunes.

It was funny at the time.

Europe.

Look, full disclosure, my wife, the household hottie, is European. I say that for those who may assume that I associate ideas with peoples. I do not. If you have and implement a good idea, you succeed. If you have and implement a bad idea, you fail. Period.

Genetics (as we will see in the next few decades) is a fungible measure of success.

It is, and will always be, about ideas.

So the E.U. corporatist are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the "Idea of Europe." Bring out the fiddle boys, because "it's gettin' hot in here."

Look, I like europe. I like it's people, and had a good time living there. But that shouldn't stop me from pointing out that this idea of "Europe" stinks. And yes, I'm talking the E.U., the constitution, the EUROMED Partnership, the Battlegroups, Galileo, the A380 and the like.

Ideas.

Europe is enamoured of this idea that big is better. That government, like father, knows best. Dress it up however you want, from the Napoleonic Code, to Nazisim, to Communism to it's current multicultural malaise, Europe has continued to shoot itself in the foot over the past two centuries over the idea that the state is sovereign over the individuals. Pity.

As the world gets smaller, our friends come close and our enemies closer, the E.U. spends time and money gassing up the Hindenburg by building the A380. A plane that goes from "A" to "B", while Boeing is building the Dreamliner, a plane that goes from "A" to "Z" and points in between. A hella more flexible, adaptable model. One that can evolve, for you darwinians out there.

Then there's Galileo, the GPS system the E.U. is building. Unless they can seduce the CHICOMS into investing in it (by handing over the codes for military applications) the Galileo system is going to be so much orbital trash. Who's going to want to buy GPS from Galileo when they can get it for free from the Damn Merkins.

EUROMED? Oooops? Another bad idea. By seeking to counterbalance the U.S., you've begun priveleging some very savage ideas. Note: not people. Ideas. Retrograde thoughts issuing forth from a dark continent and a barren desert. Again, savage ideas. It's why we Damn Merkins had to adopt Hirsi Ali. And Hitchens. And by proxy, Steyn.

Battlegroups? Been all over the proposed MTOEs and to be honest, they are less about power projection and more about dissent suppression. By design. We'll let that thought percolate for a few years and see what happens.

The Berlin Declaration? Here's where the fiddling gets good.

At the end of the day, europe's going to, yet again, have to determine who's supreme. The individual or the state? Really, that's the only argument. Choose the state, and it's going the way of the palestinians. Choose the individual, and there is hard road ahead, with better days to come.

I mean, that's it.

Everything else is cramming angels onto the head of pins.

Good luck with that.