A New Anthem For Europe

Don’t go sending me three dozen roses/ Don’t you know that just one rose will do

Don’t go throwing those stones outside my window/ You don’t gotta be calling me three times a day.

Despite the facts and the likely expectations, those seeking re-election are, considering how boring it seems to be for people to hear about Europe, settling their national scores.

Haven’t you heard absence makes the heart grow fonder? / Haven’t you heard nothing good comes overnight? / I’m telling you straight baby just in case you wonder, it’s turning me off, crowding me out, it’s not right.

Spring 2005, it was time for the European elites to sit tight waiting for the storm to pass and forget the Dutch and French nos to the Constitution. Having not been able to force it they soon started feeling strong enough to push through the Lisbon treaty as a non-fat zero calories version of the rejected Constitution. The Irish no was a setback, but nothing that cannot be reversed in the autumn when a pressured country adds this up to his economic troubles to revote yes to a substantially equal proposition. Why can’t there be re-voting in all the national parliaments where acceptance was given to the treaty?

Be that as it may, European peoples are taking due note of all this.

Less is more, back it up, slow it down, let it breathe.

As the rhythm of imposition, by Europe’s decision-makers, does not back down they might still need, yet another call. The parliamentarian elections might be just that. Too much of this institutionalized Europe is taking its toll, and it’s about to reap what has been sowed summed up in a message of simplicity.

It would be something if I had a chance to be missing you / It needs rearranging, it’s so suffocating that I can’t move / You gotta take two steps back, believe what they say, it’s true / Less is more

Why don’t take as example the consolidation of the interior market through the Single Act. Is there a problem with fulfilling all the four liberties’ implications before trying to put into force treaties that have been rejected? To apply the present rule of law, does it bother anyone particularly? Is it that hard to drive down the agricultural budget? And now that we see the extent of the success of the short term driven bailout plans and other stimulus, isn’t it time to get them back from the Keynesians of the last hour, in order to put the money back in our hands?

Less is more /Back it up, slow it down, let it breathe

But on top of this institutional crisis so hardly pressed upon us by the dominant European forces, we have had the chance to experience a second crisis: the economic. To solve this one also the less is more motto is applicable. Carl Schramm in the WSJ:

As a general rule, only capitalism can create wealth and liberty at the same time. And, of course, capitalism can expand welfare faster than any other social or economic order has ever done.

That is the reason why this recreated obsession to blame it all on the free market is more than just a criticism; it is rather a political statement to enhance the power of the state and diminish the individual. It is curious that it is capitalism’s success (the one that) allows rich societies to use government to relax the impersonal rules that govern markets, creating new rules that buffer citizens from the rigors of risk-taking and failure, as Schramm adds. And this goes to show the intrinsically parasitizing nature of socialism, needing a healthy capitalistic host to draw from.

Where that becomes troublesome, however, is the moment when government comes to be seen as the sole source of security. What we, the public, need to understand is that the best guarantor of security is not government. It's economic growth.

As for the third crisis, affecting Europe’s civilization the cure is also a less interventionist public sphere. Some already think Europe is a syndrome which has already taken too much of life. With the noble intention of suppressing problems and worries, Europeans have been bereft of their occupations, as they have been transferred to the state, increasing dependence and limiting freedom. In many occurrences the end result is not so bad and this fictitious or artificial socialism is not the same, knock on wood, to real socialism (or communism), but yet in some other aspects Â- Charles Murray mentions four Â- this taking away of life from life is unsustainable. And this is because birthrates are not promising enough to provide sufficient supporters of the system, and because immigration brings with it different convictions not necessarily compatible with the system.

These four realities are better in our hands than in the public powers: family, community, vocation and faith. What did so many family-friendly policies and expenses bring? They brought birth rates below replacement. What about defending work regulations, pensions, job hours, vacations? Increasing hatefulness for one’s own job considered an inevitable evil and never a vocation. What of the confluence of religion and state? The conversion of preachers to civil service with the correlated decrease in interest among the flock, unclear about whether they are being converted to a faith, a political option or a linguistic model.

Cause too much of a good thing can be bad / Less is more.

While in the United Sates the pursuit of happiness is considered a key element to be respected by the public power, be it by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence or by James Madison in the Federalist Papers; in Europe it has been substituted by prosperity, security, or more accurately, the continuation of economic stagnation.

In such a situation it is hard to grasp the meaning of what is a life well lived, with transcendence, with sense. Transient chemical elements that we are, we may move freely about Europe, but to do what? Ideas of greatness have no place in this map, nor is there room for those who aim higher.

Vocation? It interferes with leisure. Children? They interfere with free time. Religion? It interferes with peace of mind. Neighbors, community? They’d interfere with everything.

Facing this triple crisis, maybe without realizing it Europeans are just about to claim some space back for freedom. Power that does not submit to rules nor to the result of elections has a name, and it is not liberal democracy. Despotisms or beneficial tyrannies are not what Europeans are yearning for. An official Europe, instead of the real one, is calling the shots, but it must resist temptation and listen to the message of the new anthem:

Pull it back, hold it down, chill it out / If you want me to still be around / Remember / Less is more.