The future leaders of Europe and future peace
By Bruce Walker
web posted November 22, 2004
If there is any lesson we can learn from Leftists it is that they will do or say anything to demoralize us. Americans -- only Americans! -- cherish freedom, believe in truth, and view life with hope. The people of Iraq will never embrace democracy (just like the people of Japan and Germany once would not) because functional democracy is something only happy-go-lucky Americans still believe is possible.
Europeans, of course, hate us and particularly hate President George W. Bush and his unabashed faith in God and in liberty. Not all Europeans. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger, who risked his political capital in California to campaign for President Bush in Ohio. Should we amend the Constitution to allow Arnold to run for President? If we are going to amend the Constitution any time soon, I would Clause 8 of Section 9 of Article I and not Clause 4 of Section 1 of Article II (the clause requiring that the President be a native-born American.)
The reader need not scan the Constitution quickly to find out what Section 9 prohibits and, should he do so, it would probably only confuse him. Congress -- the body in which nearly all power was intended to be given -- cannot, according to that section, grant a title of nobility. Yet that is precisely what America owes Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, who will probably not be Prime Minister much longer.
 Howard |
Who will replace Tony Blair? Very likely, the new Prime Minister will be Michael Howard, the bright and articulate leader of the Conservative Party. This is good news for us. Although the Conservatives of Britain are only generally more supportive than the Labor Party members on our conduct of the war and although Blair has the decisive advantage of being a strong Labor Party leader, cutting off any effective opposition from the Left to the war, Howard and his Conservative cabinet will bring the long term sympathy which Blair simply cannot.
Michael Howard also brings another great advantage: he is Jewish. The real rise of anti-Jewishness in Europe and throughout the Left needs to be stopped from spreading any further and the election of Conservatives and Howard will be a wonderful tonic toward that end. Beyond that, Howard will be a powerful and living rebuttal to the asinine and whiney segment of Leftist Jews who scream "Nazi!" whenever someone like President Bush says a prayer or speaks of the greatness of the Anglo-American political tradition. The political movement that chose Barry Goldwater, the only major party candidate for president of Jewish descent in American history, as not only its icon but its hero, is no threat to Jews, only to the power of Leftists.
Across the English Channel, in the land Americans love to hate, the only genuinely popular French politician is a Hungarian, Nicholas Sarkozy, the outgoing Minister of Finance and the probable next President of France. Sarkozy is religiously serious, which is very odd indeed in France. Moreover, like President Bush, Sarkozy has advocated winning the growing Moslem population of France with love and not loathing.
Recently he proposed using state funds to build mosques. Crazy? Hardly. The stark separation of church and state is an idea almost unique to America and to France. England, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Scotland and Finland, for example, have established state religions. Sarkozy understands that providing support and incentives for moderate Moslems to join the mainstream of French society is a national security and national cultural issue which is easily worth the investment of tax dollars.
Sarkozy also is an unapologetic supporter of America. The poison of Chirac and the Left can be dramatically diluted by the true friendship of a brilliant man like Sarkozy. Curiously, Sarkozy also has a Jewish grandfather, and a practicing Christian of Jewish heritage reaching out a hand of friendship to moderate Moslems is just what the world will be needed in three years when Sarkozy, likely, will be assuming one of the most powerful offices in any democracy, President of the Republic of France.
Cross the Rhine and into the most important nation in Europe, Germany, and there is again hope. Gerald Schroeder and his Leftist SDP have been battered by parties of the Right ever since he squeaked to a Bundestag wafer thin majority two years ago. Already the President of Germany, who is head of state and not head of government, is a Christian Democrat much more sympathetic to America than his Social Democrat predecessor.
 Merkel |
The leader of the Christian Democrat Party is Dr. Angela Merkel, the physicist daughter of an evangelical minister who moved to East Germany. She would not only be the first woman to lead Germany but also the first East German, overcoming a powerful and latent prejudice within united Germany. She, like Sarkozy and Howard, is extremely intelligent and like them she is the leader of the Right within her nation.
While it is hard to peg her, she is considered "rabidly anti-abortionist" and "clearly conservative and often reactionary" in European political periodicals (i.e. she is sensible and ethical) and she has championed the rights of evangelical Christians in Turkey (i.e. she believes that Christians are entitled to tolerance too.)
Before President Bush leaves office he may well sit down at a summit with a Jewish Conservative Prime Minister of Britain, a pro-American Catholic President of France (of Jewish descent) who has reached out to Moslems and a female Christian Democrat Chancellor of Germany who we would call a social conservative, and they, with other leaders who see that the good guys are winning, will join in making a lasting peace. Amen. 
Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.
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