May 09, 2011
FREE SPEECH
The next European target will be the First Amendment, where America will be pressured to outlaw what is misleadingly and emotively called “hate speech.” This February, the European Union’s Law Enforcement Working Party considered plans to “create a single secure cyberspace” from which all “illicit content” is blocked. It is an emulation of China’s methods for controlling Web access. European politicians and left-wing activists are resentful of, and outraged by, ordinary citizens” ability to log onto facts and opinions that the authorities would like to outlaw altogether. The Internet undermines not only local censorship but also the monopoly enjoyed by the progressive oligarchies who control European media. It places far too much power in the hands of free individuals, an idea quite alien to the European mind. Freedom is not a European value. Continental Europeans tend to rate liberty lower than equality, which is also why they subordinate the marketplace to the state.
GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD
The latest manifestation of these European prejudices has been the widespread hysteria over genetically modified crops and food, despite a scientific consensus that they are safe for the consumer and the environment. In France as well as other countries, thousands of fanatical greenists who call themselves “mowers” routinely destroy genetically modified crops on experimental farms. Throughout Europe there are ridiculous restrictions on the planting and sale of GM crops and comestibles. Many European supermarkets refuse to stock GM foods, and restaurants will not use the ingredients. The European gutter press, engaged in one of their crazed circulation wars, have combined political correctness and populism to campaign for a ban on “Frankenstein foods.”
In this context, “Frankenstein” could mean “American.” It will be easy for an alliance of greenists and European peasants to mount a crusade against “American mega-corporations” seeking to dominate Europe through sales of genetically modified food and seeds. Once again, absurd health and safety regulations are being used as the new arm of socialist ideology to justify protectionism. Sooner or later there will be a “Boston style”” GM foods party in Europe, and greenist activists will board American ships full of seeds and soybeans to hurl their cargoes into the sea. The mass media will deplore this act of piracy (but in a muted way), and the European greenists will win against the scientific evidence as they did over the disposal of the Brent Spar oil-drilling platform or the nonexistent death of trees (the Waldsterben) from acid rain in Germany. American agricultural exports to Europe, already hampered by unfair subsidies to the European peasantry, will collapse.
Next they will take the war across the Atlantic and into America, seeking to frighten American consumers and politicians. Given past American techno-moral panics over asbestos and artificial sweeteners, it will not be difficult to do, even though the consequences would be disastrous for America. The Europeans envy and resent American preeminence in high-tech industries such as computing and biotechnology, and this will be their revenge. European envy will drive a moral crusade rooted in a hatred of American individualism and its achievements.
Americans are often puzzled as to why European leftists dislike them so much. The answer lies in an old New York joke: “Why do you hate me? What have I ever done for you?”
There is the answer. America saved Europe first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets. Apart from Britain, no European country emerged with its self-respect intact after World War II”a tale of conquest, collaboration, and cowardice that was repeated in the Cold War against Soviet communism. The mean-spirited always hate their rescuers.
