A.J. DiCintio
Death by arrogance
By A.J. DiCintio
Liberals lecture us ad nauseam about the admirable sophistication of the European public.
But the opposite is true, a reality exemplified best by the fact that compared to their ancestors, serfs and other assorted underlings who had no illusions about the reeking arrogance of their aristocratic rulers, modern Europeans remain naively or stupidly oblivious of the flaw that is a trillion times more common in political leaders than hemophilia ever was.
Yes, it is an exhausted, hopelessly incestuous, morally and intellectually enfeebled land that cannot recall, much less act upon, the legacies bequeathed it regarding the wages of arrogance.
For instance . . .
The eternal wisdom of Proverbs, teaching that "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
The immutable truths illustrated by the ancient Greeks, whose tragedies warn of the astounding retribution exacted for the sin of hubris.
The remorseless morality of Shakespeare, who, clearly believing the Greeks had it all wrong when they depicted arrogant leaders as capable of earning earthly redemption, ended his tragedies by littering the stage with their dead bodies.
So, keeping in mind that there is no escaping the realities associated with Faulkner's "eternal verities," let's turn to the most recent specter haunting Europe: death by arrogance.
The purpose made clear in a moment, we begin with a ninth grade Latin class whose teacher asked her students what they considered the greatest divide among peoples.
Taking their first class in another tongue, the students excitedly answered, "language!" But giving her charges a lifelong lesson about not putting the mouth in motion before kicking the brain into gear, she responded, "No, it's culture."
The truth spoken by that excellent teacher is exactly what European leaders dismissed when, in 2002, they continued their foolish pursuit of a New European Order by instituting the euro as the common currency among a culturally disparate group of nations, their arrogance permitting them to pooh-pooh objections that monetary union in the absence of a culturally stable political union is certain to lead to disaster.
Now, by 2002, the PIIGS (the euro nations of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were already characterized by their obese governments that mocked the realities of mathematics and human nature as they lavished citizens with benefits and instituted regulations destined to lead only to rampaging debt, disastrously high unemployment, and slow to no economic growth.
But arrogance interferes with the reason center of the politician's brain with a truly amazing effectiveness, causing Europe's national leaders as well as the centralized power loving maniacs of the continent's super-arrogant supra-government (the European Parliament) to further offend common sense in ways an amoeba never would.
Therefore, over the next seven years, they sat by smugly secure as banks in the richer nations, principally those in Germany and France, fed the insatiable appetites of the PIIGS by purchasing their bonds, a behavior so mindlessly irresponsible it cries out to be described as lying a billion light years beyond stupid.
Moreover, the leaders didn't stop with the madness of unsustainable excesses made in the name of "social democracy" and a mindless slopping of pigs.
Combining their arrogance with that of the buffoons of the European Parliament, they adopted a constitution and greatly expanded a pernicious regulatory regime already infused with the stink of centralization.
For a quick insight into the insane arrogance of the latter, consider facts about these EU regulations, reported by investment expert John Mauldin (johnmauldin.com).
.. . Article 47 of the EU Common Fisheries Policy requires every EU angler to report his catch to Brussels so that it may be counted against his nation's quota.
. . . The EU regulates the precise hue of the greenness of the human figure that appears on pedestrian crossing lights.
. . . Three separate EU directives limit the loudness of lawnmowers.
. . . EU Regulation #2257/94 requires that bananas to be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature of the fingers," the abnormal curvature, by the way, quantified in language that would have confounded Euclid.
. . . Regulation #1677/88 brings the deranged, obsessive eyes of EU bureaucrats to bear on the humble cucumber, limiting every cuke's curve to 10mm for every 10 cm of length, a rule for whose explanation normal folks rush as fast as they can not to a farmer, geometer, or civil engineer but the head of the nearest department of psychiatry.
To sum up, the Europe created by the continent's modern crop of arrogant heads of state is not just a land permeated by the stench of a sovereign debt crisis and of politicians scurrying a la Bernanke to conjure up a painless solution to it.
It is also a continent of stagnant economies unable to sustain bloated promises, high unemployment that destroys hope for youth, continuing bailouts for the piggishly irresponsible PIIGS, and social unrest fomented by ostensibly populist, infinitely ironic "indignants" who agitate, often violently, for policies that reek of the supremely arrogant ideology that, having caused well over a hundred million deaths, played a major role in R.J. Rummel's coining the words "politicide" and "democide."
Contemplating this reality, we might be tempted to laugh at the liberal Europhiles mentioned at the outset of this piece.
But if we have our minds wide open, we won't because we also suffer the plague of arrogant leaders.
. . . Politicians of both major parties who look upon the nation's problems and call for more "free" trade, more widely open borders, and more expenditure of life and treasure in the messianic pursuit of a New World Order.
. . . Republicans who refuse to distinguish between harmful regulation and the kind desperately needed regarding the financial industry.
. . . Democrats who deem $15 trillion in debt as woefully low and react to every last social and economic problem by proposing more spending by an ever more powerful federal government.
. . . And a president whose policies have clearly coincided with the purpose of his entire political life: transforming the United States into an arrogantly top-down, European style social democracy, at least.
Finally, we won't laugh because death by arrogance wherever it occurs is anything but funny.
© A.J. DiCintio
October 30, 2011
Liberals lecture us ad nauseam about the admirable sophistication of the European public.
But the opposite is true, a reality exemplified best by the fact that compared to their ancestors, serfs and other assorted underlings who had no illusions about the reeking arrogance of their aristocratic rulers, modern Europeans remain naively or stupidly oblivious of the flaw that is a trillion times more common in political leaders than hemophilia ever was.
Yes, it is an exhausted, hopelessly incestuous, morally and intellectually enfeebled land that cannot recall, much less act upon, the legacies bequeathed it regarding the wages of arrogance.
For instance . . .
The eternal wisdom of Proverbs, teaching that "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
The immutable truths illustrated by the ancient Greeks, whose tragedies warn of the astounding retribution exacted for the sin of hubris.
The remorseless morality of Shakespeare, who, clearly believing the Greeks had it all wrong when they depicted arrogant leaders as capable of earning earthly redemption, ended his tragedies by littering the stage with their dead bodies.
So, keeping in mind that there is no escaping the realities associated with Faulkner's "eternal verities," let's turn to the most recent specter haunting Europe: death by arrogance.
The purpose made clear in a moment, we begin with a ninth grade Latin class whose teacher asked her students what they considered the greatest divide among peoples.
Taking their first class in another tongue, the students excitedly answered, "language!" But giving her charges a lifelong lesson about not putting the mouth in motion before kicking the brain into gear, she responded, "No, it's culture."
The truth spoken by that excellent teacher is exactly what European leaders dismissed when, in 2002, they continued their foolish pursuit of a New European Order by instituting the euro as the common currency among a culturally disparate group of nations, their arrogance permitting them to pooh-pooh objections that monetary union in the absence of a culturally stable political union is certain to lead to disaster.
Now, by 2002, the PIIGS (the euro nations of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were already characterized by their obese governments that mocked the realities of mathematics and human nature as they lavished citizens with benefits and instituted regulations destined to lead only to rampaging debt, disastrously high unemployment, and slow to no economic growth.
But arrogance interferes with the reason center of the politician's brain with a truly amazing effectiveness, causing Europe's national leaders as well as the centralized power loving maniacs of the continent's super-arrogant supra-government (the European Parliament) to further offend common sense in ways an amoeba never would.
Therefore, over the next seven years, they sat by smugly secure as banks in the richer nations, principally those in Germany and France, fed the insatiable appetites of the PIIGS by purchasing their bonds, a behavior so mindlessly irresponsible it cries out to be described as lying a billion light years beyond stupid.
Moreover, the leaders didn't stop with the madness of unsustainable excesses made in the name of "social democracy" and a mindless slopping of pigs.
Combining their arrogance with that of the buffoons of the European Parliament, they adopted a constitution and greatly expanded a pernicious regulatory regime already infused with the stink of centralization.
For a quick insight into the insane arrogance of the latter, consider facts about these EU regulations, reported by investment expert John Mauldin (johnmauldin.com).
.. . Article 47 of the EU Common Fisheries Policy requires every EU angler to report his catch to Brussels so that it may be counted against his nation's quota.
. . . The EU regulates the precise hue of the greenness of the human figure that appears on pedestrian crossing lights.
. . . Three separate EU directives limit the loudness of lawnmowers.
. . . EU Regulation #2257/94 requires that bananas to be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature of the fingers," the abnormal curvature, by the way, quantified in language that would have confounded Euclid.
. . . Regulation #1677/88 brings the deranged, obsessive eyes of EU bureaucrats to bear on the humble cucumber, limiting every cuke's curve to 10mm for every 10 cm of length, a rule for whose explanation normal folks rush as fast as they can not to a farmer, geometer, or civil engineer but the head of the nearest department of psychiatry.
To sum up, the Europe created by the continent's modern crop of arrogant heads of state is not just a land permeated by the stench of a sovereign debt crisis and of politicians scurrying a la Bernanke to conjure up a painless solution to it.
It is also a continent of stagnant economies unable to sustain bloated promises, high unemployment that destroys hope for youth, continuing bailouts for the piggishly irresponsible PIIGS, and social unrest fomented by ostensibly populist, infinitely ironic "indignants" who agitate, often violently, for policies that reek of the supremely arrogant ideology that, having caused well over a hundred million deaths, played a major role in R.J. Rummel's coining the words "politicide" and "democide."
Contemplating this reality, we might be tempted to laugh at the liberal Europhiles mentioned at the outset of this piece.
But if we have our minds wide open, we won't because we also suffer the plague of arrogant leaders.
. . . Politicians of both major parties who look upon the nation's problems and call for more "free" trade, more widely open borders, and more expenditure of life and treasure in the messianic pursuit of a New World Order.
. . . Republicans who refuse to distinguish between harmful regulation and the kind desperately needed regarding the financial industry.
. . . Democrats who deem $15 trillion in debt as woefully low and react to every last social and economic problem by proposing more spending by an ever more powerful federal government.
. . . And a president whose policies have clearly coincided with the purpose of his entire political life: transforming the United States into an arrogantly top-down, European style social democracy, at least.
Finally, we won't laugh because death by arrogance wherever it occurs is anything but funny.
© A.J. DiCintio
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