Strong words in liberal newspaper against European unification

Since the French and Dutch rejected the EU constitution, commonsense on the issue, long muffled in the respectable mainstream, has suddenly emerged into the light of day. First liberal Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum attacked the European leaders for continuing to push the EU constitution despite popular opposition, and now Claire Berlinsky writes in the Post:

[E]very Turk to whom I’ve spoken wants nothing more than the chance to become part of the predicted flood of cheap, unskilled labor that would almost certainly destabilize the economies and social orders of the Northern European welfare states if Europe and its periphery were to be glued together and all the borders thrown open.

The French understood that when they voted non last weekend to the European Union constitution, as did the Dutch when they followed suit with their nee on Wednesday. Contrary to the assurances of many of their politicians, people in those countries recognized that their core national values were under threat by the prospect of an expanded and unified Europe.

These words of non-liberal truth, I repeat with pleasure and surprise, appeared in the Washington Post. (The article as a whole, especially in its last few paragraphs, adds up to a total rejection of the EU idea.) It appears that all that was needed to break the EU mesmerism affecting both sides of the Atlantic was for some European national electorate to say, loud and clear, that the emperor has no clothes. I would suggest that the same is true of most of the negative trends afflicting us today. In discouragement, we insensibly come to believe that the left-liberal transformation and destruction of our civilization is inevitable. But it is not true. All that is necessary to expose and stop the various left-liberal projects, is real opposition to them.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 04, 2005 03:12 PM | Send