Britain

An Island Of Sick, Perverted Freaks

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Last year, I read about an incident in a water park in the United Kingdom.

A father took his kids to the park so they could frolic in the cool and refreshing waves. When the children said they wanted to hurl themselves down the water slide, the proud father decided that this would be a perfect opportunity for some action photos of the apples of his eye.

Kid Having Fun!

He positioned himself at the end of the slide, camera at the ready, only to face a muttering and hostile crowd that apparently wanted to lynch him then and there!

The justification for the violence was that he must be a pedophile. After all, what other reason would a grown man have of snapping shots of young children in swimwear? The explanation that he was only photographing his own progeny were rejected out of hand. What else would child molesters say to escape just punishment when the righteous crowd gets their blood up?

Lucky for all concerned, the police were notified by someone in the mob. A police officer arriving at the scene averted any ugly actions.

Unfortunately, I cannot now find the online article to prove to my readers in the United States that such a ridiculous incident actually occurred. It seems unbelievable, that such a climate of suspicion and paranoia can actually exist in Old Blighty. I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you thought that I was simply writing as fact a bad comedy I once viewed on cable TV, or some uncomfortable dream I once had where everyone around me turned into bizarre and violent zombies.

But such an environment of hatred and prejudice is all too prevalent in Great Britain, and simply scanning the online news article from that country proves it to be so with appalling regularity.

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There is no such thing as Europe

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How many times does one have to keep repeating that? All right, let me clarify that statement. Of course, there is a Europe as a geographical concept it is a subcontinent of the huge Eurasian continent. There is also such a concept, though it is hard to define, as European culture, which melds into European history and European thought. One gets into serious difficulties with it as European culture and European thought are so varied in themselves.

What there is not and never has been is a Europe as a political concept. There is no such thing as European politics, though there is, obviously EU politics, a completely different concept, often alien to European history and traditions. Therefore, there can be no such thing as a European Tea Party Movement. Not if ever so many people join the group on Facebook; not if Real Clear Politics or Glenn Reynolds write about it.

It would be pointless to talk about tea parties as a political concept in Europe even if such a thing as Europe existed politically speaking. No-one would understand it. In Britain tea party (as in vicarage, for instance) means something quite different; on the Continent it means nothing at all. In fact, history tells us that on the Continent tax or bread riots tend to have further reaching consequences than the American tea parties have done so far.

The biggest problem, however, more or less understood by David Ignatius on Real Clear Politics is that each country’s problems are separate and different, even though they all share the understanding that the government’s role is to spend, spend, spend, an understanding they share with most other countries in the world. One suspects that, like Henry Kissinger, David Ignatius would feel happier if there were one European fiscal authority easier to draw parallels.

What would a European tea party movement oppose? The European Union? Maybe, but it is hardly the biggest spender; its role in the destruction of the economies of European countries is a little more subtle: it used control and regulation to further integration.

Individual governments? Why would a European movement care about individual European governments? I see no point in going on a demonstration that would demand fiscal conservatism from the French or Greek governments. Let the people of those countries worry about that, as long as we do not have to pay.

All this talk of European this, that and the other or European elites, as Glenn Reynolds writes, comes to the same conclusion: we need some kind of a European political entity, a concept many of us radically disagree with. But the truth is that we cannot have a European tea party movement unless we have a European state, a European government and a European polity. People who support or call for a European tea party go along with the notion of a European state.

Cross-posted from Your Freedom and Ours

Movie Review: “Dark Blue World”

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I learned about this Czech film a couple of years ago via screenwriter/blogger Robert Avrech. It’s not very well known in the U.S. and wasn’t then available on Netflix (though it is now), so I bought it, and just re-watched it…definitely a film worth seeing more than once. Friendship, love, and war, and some aspects of history that are probably unfamiliar to most Americans.

When Czechoslovakia was occupied by German troops in 1938, many Czech pilots made their way to the West and served with the Royal Air Force. After the war, surviving/returning pilots were imprisoned by Czechoslovakia’s new Communist government, which feared that they had been contaminated by Western ideas.

Franta Slama is a Czech air force captain. His younger protege and friend, Karel Vojtisek, is an aspiring fighter pilot. After the humiliating surrender of the airfield to an ungracious German officer, Franta and Karel escape the country via motorcycle. Franta leaves behind his girlfriend, Hanicka, and his beloved dog Barcha. Karel is not in a relationship, but is girl-crazy to a degree even greater that typical for his age.

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Happy New Year

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I missed out on the Christmas and Hannukah wishes but ought to be in time with the new year ones. It will be our turn to have an election next year (May, I am still saying despite the media hoopla around the word March). It is likely to be an interesting one: we have a government that is more disliked than any I can recall and yet we also have an opposition that just cannot get the support. We also have an electorate that has been seriously angered by all main-stream politicians and has realized, if somewhat hazily, that as long as we are in the EU it makes precious little difference who one wants for. In the last three elections turn-out was extremely low. We do not know what will happen next year. Another low turn-out? Rising vote for the smaller parties like UKIP? It can happen.

The Conservatives are still likely to come back with more seats than any other party but not necessarily with an overall majority. And so what if they do get into government. Remember what Hilaire Belloc wrote about another election?

The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Broke – and Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).

Happy New Year to all.

Powering Down

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Here’s the great French scientist Sadi Carnot, writing in 1824:

To take away England’s steam engines to-day would amount to robbing her of her iron and coal, to drying up her sources of wealth, to ruining her means of prosperity and destroying her great power. The destruction of her shipping, commonly regarded as her source of strength, would perhaps be less disastrous for her.

For England in 1824, substitute the United States in 2009. And for “steam engines,” substitute those power sources which use carbon-based fuels: whether generating stations burning natural gas, blast furnaces burning coke, or trucks/trains/planes/automobiles using oil derivatives. With these substitutions, Carnot’s paragraph describes the prospective impact of this administration’s energy policies: conducting a war on fossil fuels, without leveling with people about the true limitations of “alternative” energy technologies and without seriously pursuing civilian nuclear power.

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