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10/2/06

National Review Online: Traitors to the Enlightenment: Europe turns its back on Socrates, Locke, et al. - by Victor Hanson

For the complete report in the National Review Online click on this link

Traitors to the Enlightenment: Europe turns its back on Socrates, Locke, et al. - by Victor Hanson

Europe boldly produces films about assassinating an American president, and routinely disparages the Church that gave the world the Sermon of the Mount, but it simply won’t stand up for an artist, a well-meaning Pope, or a ranting filmmaker when the mob closes in. The Europe that believes in everything turns out to believe in nothing.

Third, examine why all these incidents took place in Europe. Since 2000 it has been the habit of blue-state politicians to rebuke the yokels of America, in part by showing us a supposedly more humane Western future unfolding in Europe. It was the European Union that was at the forefront of mass transit; the EU that advanced Kyoto and the International Criminal Court. And it was the heralded EU that sought “soft” power rather than the Neanderthal resort to arms.

Those in an auto parts store in Fresno, or at a NASCAR race in southern Ohio, might appear to Europeans as primordials with their guns, “fundamentalist” religion, and flag-waving chauvinism. But it is they, and increasingly their kind alone, who prove the bulwarks of the West. Ultimately what keeps even the pope safe and the continent confident in its vain dialogues with Iranian lunatics is the United States military and the very un-Europeans who fight in it. Editorial Comment EU-DIGEST: Victor Hanson's reasoning is the perfect example of the neocon mindset which has influenced the Bush Administration since it first appeared on the scene and consequently destroyed world-wide respect for America.

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