July 25, 2008

Jean le Kerry Redux: Obama Tops Among Americans Who Wish They Were Europeans Instead

From the "be careful what you wish for" department, we have this story that Barack H. Obama has found a group of Americans (?) who support him even more overwhelmingly than blacks -- Americans who choose to live in Europe:

Barack Obama's campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.

Federal Election Commission reports show Obama has raised at least $1 million from donors who identify themselves as Americans living in Great Britain, Germany and France, while John McCain has taken in at least $150,000.

It's not exactly surprising that Americans who have a European perspective and prefer to live outside the United States support the socialist-leaning Obama, who hangs out with America-bashing (and even bombing) pals like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, against the America-loving John S. McCain, who has actually worn a uniform and fought for his country. But the cosmopolitan worldview may not precisely help the Obama campaign; it raises the specter of John F. Kerry sitting around the family mansion chatting amiably with his latest sugar-mama wife... in French.

That image of decadence, ultra-sophistication, and condescension devastated the Kerry campaign in 2004; and I suspect the more of the same disdain for America and American values we see from Obama, the more he will repel real Americans.

Reactionary progressivism

As a general rule, today's liberal leaders have transformed the Democratic party into the party of "Americans who wish they were Europeans." For decades, I have heard that Europe (and the UK in particular) believes that "the world" -- read "the United States of America" -- ought to look to Europe (read "Britain") for a lead; there are clearly millions of Americans in the US and in Europe who agree heartily, and they're all Democrats (except for a few who are Greens). Not all Democrats are Euro-wannabes (EWs); but virtually all EWs are Democrats... and they're the ruling chunk of the party; this explains virtually every anti-American, "old world" tendency found in the modern Democratic Party.

That segment of Democrats composes Obama's core constituency; he explicitly plays to the EWs, while he simultaneously sucks up to actual Europeans who wish America were a good and obedient member of the European Union (Obama himself is a Euro-wannabe):

The fecklessness of the UN shows how little it means to be a "citizen of the world." It means something, though, to be a citizen of the EU, and Obama espoused distinctly European views, pledging to move American policy in a European direction -- and to make the United States more European -- under a President Obama.

Scott "Big Johnson" Trunk goes on to list a number of examples of Obamasms that in fact play directly to a European audience (and to an EW one); then he concludes:

Josef Joffe noted in The New Republic, “If he ran in Germany, Obama would carry the country by a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote.” This comes as no surprise, as this is a speech about turning America into the European Union more than anything else.

If the number of Americans who wish they were sophisticated enough to be Europeans outweighs (or outpolls) the number of real Americans who believe in American exceptionalism and don't look to Europe for "a lead," then Obama will win. Otherwise, the next president will be John McCain.

Two great cultures divided by a common history

Naturally, the values of Europeans and American EWs on the one hand and real Americans on the other differ markedly:

• In general, Europeans don't believe in peace through strength but in peace through incessant prattling with each other.
• In general, Europeans have only a sketchy understanding of the connection between intelligence (in the spying sense, not the IQ sense) and military success; they find intelligence gathering repugnant, inaesthetic, and beneath their dignity.
• In general, Europeans don't support Capitalism; they reluctantly include it in their five-year economic plans, while holding their noses and mugging like they've just eaten something disagreeable.
• In general, Europeans have only a sketchy understanding of the connection between intelligence (in the IQ sense, not the spying sense) added to hard work, and economic results; so they tend to have bad work habits. These can be overcome, particularly in the Northern European cultures (the Teutonic countries, the low countries, and Scandanavia)... but it's a very intense and implicate disconnect in the Mediterranean countries and in the former Soviet-run countries.
• In general, Europeans are significantly more prone to believe wacky conspiracy theories, from the "Truther" idea that 9/11 was an inside job, to the insane idea that every scientist who disputes anthropogenic global climate change is in the pay of Big Carbon, to the "magic pill" conspiracy I discussed in an earlier post.
• In general, European culture is areligious, often militantly secular -- not just refraining from belief but showing overt hostility to it.
• In general, Europeans have no firm ideological beliefs... everything is up for grabs. (Even Leftism, which is simply the default condition... it can and has been modified into liberal fascism of the Wilsonian/Rooseveltian molds (they were both classic EWs), illiberal fascism of the Hitlerian mold, welfare-statism, and even what lefties who wanted to blame us for the Soviets used to call "state capitalism." But the constant is statism, about the only ideology that the typical European will fight for.)
• And in general, the only constant belief found in virtually every European of virtually every political, social, religious, or ideological bent, is belief in his own superiority to the rest of the world -- from the Hottentots in the "Non-Integrating Gap" of Thomas P.M. Barnett to the nouveau-riche barbarians in America. This sense of superiority usually translates into an almost unbearably frothy smugness and refusal to take seriously any American leader who does not kow-tow to the Euro-elites... that is, look to "the continent" for a lead.

The vision of the anointed

I believe this list also perfectly describes the vanguard of the Democratic Party in the United States, and particularly its current Savior and Light Bearer, Barack H. Obama: They take their votes from those who wish they were sophisticated, cultured Europeans -- and who thus try to ape them in everything they do. (Including, in extreme cases of Euro-worship among native-born Americans, speaking some European language at home -- usually French, the international language of snootiness -- rather than English.)

Note, for example, that when Obama (who speaks no foreign language) chastised Americans for not speaking foreign languages, all of the examples he cited came from one particular, tiny segment of the globe:

Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right? [The mob of Democrats brays with derisive laughter at this point.]

He doesn't demand that we all learn Japanese, Arabic, Persian, Bahasa Indonesia, or Tagalog; he ridicules us for not teaching our kids Spanish, French, and German -- the languages of employability, according to Obama. I'm sure he would also include Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese, except he probably thinks they speak Spanish in Portugal (and Brazil). That is, he looks to Western Europe for a lead.

This trait is worrisome, but it's not particularly new; it's actually a reactionary throwback to the antebellum nineteenth century, when America still felt inferior to the old, established monarchies in the Old World. I think many Americans have the vague, uneasy feeling that every European is somehow related to royalty... and you now how Democrats go bananas over "the Royals."

We've seen such Euro-deference in John Kerry, of course, but also in Algore -- who still roams the continent (Europe, not North America) basking in the approval from his masters -- and even Bill Clinton, who was a Rhodes Scholar (though not a successful one) in his youth.

The men on the wall

It worries me, of course, because Euro-worship doesn't find any place for global guardians from evil; they do not see any reason why we need "men on the wall," as Jack Nicholson's character Col. Jessup calls them in a Few Good Men. They cannot even fathom these words -- though of course, their forebears would have had no difficulty:

We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and curse the Marines; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

In fact, Europe is the source of the Democratic fallacy that the gravest danger facing us today is not radical, militant Islamism and world terrorism -- but global warming and smoking. Global "health" substitues for global security or global liberty... i.e., "the Earth has a fever," or "good health is a human right." (To whom do I complain about the deprivation of my human rights due to my cat allergy?)

I cannot see Barack Obama responding to a future 9/11 in any forceful or effective way; but I can see him issuing an executive order banning trans-fats from the American diet and making the BMI scale, the Body Mass Index of weight to height, mandatory.

So you just have to ask yourself one question: Do you feel comfortable electing a "citizen of the world" to be President of the United States? Or do you want to elect someone who thinks that the United States has nothing for which to apologize to the rest of the world, and rather is unique in its willingness to defend the liberty even of those who would throw it away at the first rustle of an aggrieved party?

How you answer presages how you will vote on November 4th.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, July 25, 2008, at the time of 5:59 PM

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