Enablers of EUrabia Should Cut Them Off

Our nation has had significant debate over the domestic welfare issue dating back to its inception in the 1960s. The article linked below, aside from the excerpted portions, provides an excellent backgrounder and summary of this debate. The basic premise, which I believe was borne out by the Clinton Administration cutting welfare roles in the 1990s, is that when people are forced to take responsibility for themselves, the vast majority of them stand up and do it. By the same token, if people know that there is a check coming for them every month for which they have to do nothing, there are just as many who will elect to be lazy and live in squalor.

As the author from the New Sisyphus blog articulates here, it's high time for some international welfare reform. Many countries, especially in Europe, have lived under the umbrella of U.S. military protection for decades. This made sense perhaps even as recently as the Cold War, but it doesn't any longer. Knowing they don't have to invest in their own defensive military capabilities, these nations have allowed their militaries to atrophy by sinking that money into socialist nanny-state programs which are financially unsustainable. Moreover, as socialism has crept in, so has an invasion of Muslim illegal immigrants that parallels our own invasion of illegals from Latin America.

It is well past time for the U.S. to cut off the allowance of these nations and make them stand (or fall) on their own. For countries like France, it may be too late for them to stop the implementation of Islamic sharia law, but there is still hope for others such as Italy, Britain, etc. This is a hard thing to do, but it must be done. We need full allies if we are to fight the threat of Isalamic fascism because we can't do it alone, and I believe, as does the author, that this would be a great place to start making it happen.

International Welfare Reform

"The answer to solving the problem is to re-introduce our erstwhile allies to reality. Remove the American buffer, the American umbrella, the American security guarantee, and the nations of the E.U will have to grow up rather quickly. And like the welfare moms of yore, those nations will by-and-large begin to again make rational choices, and, more importantly, will begin again to re-acquaint themselves with the hard choices those in power must make.

Responsibility makes grown-ups. And in order for us to live once again in a world with grown-up allies, with grown-up political elites, we will have to reintroduce responsibility to the mix. This comes, of course, with a cost. By encouraging allies, building up their strength and (hardest of all) passing responsibility in certain areas to other nations we also necessarily lose direct control over those areas. To a nation accustomed to handling vital missions as disparate as ensuring the sea lanes near Singapore to keeping the peace in Kosovo, it may even prove nigh-impossible.

However, it must be done. At the end of the day, the US has neither the stomach nor the appetite to police the world (despite the catchy theme song). If we are to have allies, they will have to be full allies in the greatest sense of the term. As before, there will be those who will argue that the old system is the only way. As before, they will be wrong. If the U.S. were to pursue an aggressive policy of handing responsibility over concrete areas of present-day tasks to other nations, the fact of the U.S. unilateral withdrawal of the vastly over-rated "superpower" status will have a profound impact on the decision-making in the E.U.

It seemed counter-intuitive to many people in the early 90's that by cutting off income support you could make people richer. And I suppose it seems similarly counter-intuitive that by stepping away from zones of responsibility the U.S. could increase its national security and standing in the world. But, as history teaches us, men are fundamentally rational; get the incentives right and the outcome is almost always what you'd expect. And right now it's time for the E.U. to grow up."