Tag: EU

Convinced by unreality

Megan McArdle visits Britain and learns that there is more to a nation than its economy:

Somehow, over the last half-century, Western elites managed to convince themselves that nationalism was not real. Perhaps it had been real in the past, like cholera and telegraph machines, but now that we were smarter and more modern, it would be forgotten in the due course of time as better ideas supplanted it.

That now seems hopelessly naive. People do care more about people who are like them — who speak their language, eat their food, share their customs and values. And when elites try to ignore those sentiments — or banish them by declaring that they are simply racist — this doesn’t make the sentiments go away. It makes the non-elites suspect the elites of disloyalty. For though elites may find something vaguely horrifying about saying that you care more about people who are like you than you do about people who are culturally or geographically further away, the rest of the population is outraged by the never-stated corollary: that the elites running things feel no greater moral obligation to their fellow countrymen than they do to some random stranger in another country. And perhaps we can argue that this is the morally correct way to feel — but if it is truly the case, you can see why ordinary folks would be suspicious about allowing the elites to continue to exercise great power over their lives.

It’s therefore not entirely surprising that people are reacting strongly against the EU, the epitome of an elite institution: a technocratic bureaucracy designed to remove many questions from the democratic control of voters in the constituent countries. Elites can earnestly explain that a British exit will be very costly to Britain (true), that many of the promises made on Brexit’s behalf are patently ridiculous (also true), that leaving will create all sorts of security problems and also cost the masses many things they like, such as breezing through passport control en route to their cheap continental holidays. Elites can even be right about all of those things. They still shouldn’t be too shocked when ordinary people respond just as Republican primary voters did to their own establishment last spring: “But you see, I don’t trust you anymore.”

First of all, they’re not right. Second, they are evil, self-serving people who shouldn’t be trusted about anything. Third, if they’re for it, the wise thing to do is oppose it at all costs even if you don’t have a clue about it.

Politics by other means

It’s not at all surprising that European politicians have been attacked in more than one country. I’m only surprised that more of them haven’t been targeted, considering what they have done to their nations.

Labour MP Jo Cox was shot and injured in an attack in her constituency near Leeds today. The 41-year-old mother of two was left lying bleeding on the pavement after the incident in Birstall, West Yorkshire, an eyewitness said. She is in a critical condition in hospital.

Cox isn’t the first pro-immigration politician to be attacked in Europe. It would be astonishing if she was the last.

That being said, we’ll have to wait and see if the attacker is a genuine pro-British activist, if this is just another antifa false flag, or if it something else entirely.

#Brexit

If Oliver Cromwell were alive today, he would beseech the British people, in the bowels of Christ, to get out of the Fourth Reich while they can still do so peacefully.

What do they know about #Brexit?

Heat Street analyzes the Bilderberg 2016 attendees and notices something of potential significance:

As Heat Street has previously made clear, the secretive Bilderberg Group is rabidly anti-Brexit and ultra pro-EU. This year’s meeting, held in the German city of Dresden between Thursday and Sunday, will be no different.

No Brexiteers have been invited.

Having seen the guest list of the so-called shadow world government, it confirms that the attendees from Britain and Ireland have been campaigning publicly for months to keep Britain IN.

It might mean nothing. But my admittedly uninformed guess is that it means Bilderberg knows that Britain is going to vote for #Brexit, so they are having a strategy session on how to keep Britain in the European Union despite the British people clearly voting to leave it.

The fires rise

Immigration arson comes to Austria:

Arsonists were most likely behind a huge blaze which burnt down a newly-built but still empty refugee centre in northern Austria, police said on Wednesday. Police are now offering a €5,000 reward for information that leads to the seizure of those responsible.

The huge fire broke out in the early hours of Wednesday in the village of Altenfelden and left only charred remains of the building.

No one was harmed in the blaze, which was battled by up to 200 firemen.

“We found two sources along the building’s outer walls… where unknown suspects are thought to have started the fire,” police said in a statement, adding that investigations were ongoing.

The alleged attack happened two weeks before 48 asylum-seekers were due to move in.

Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka condemned “all forms of violence against refugee centres” while Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said in a tweet that he was “deeply affected” by the blaze.

The sad thing instead of taking this as the warning it is meant to be, the government is doubling down and the charity Caritas has announced that it will rebuild the refugee center.

Which means that we’re going to see arsonists burning down refugee centers with refugees in them. The “migrant crisis” is now transforming itself into a war of governments and globalists against the nations.

Europe cannot become an Arab country

Thus spake His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

The Dalai Lama says Europe risks losing its identity by taking in too many migrants and warned: ‘Germany cannot become an Arab country.’

Tibet’s spiritual leader says refugees should only stay temporarily and return home to rebuild their countries when the conflicts have ended.

The Dalai Lama, who has himself lived in exile for over half a century, said: ‘When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering.

‘A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now.’

In an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said: ‘Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country. Germany is Germany.

‘There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.’

He said ‘from a moral point of view too, I think the refugees should only be admitted temporarily’.

‘The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.’

It’s very sad when the Dalai Lama is a more staunch defender of Christendom than the Pope.

Not for long

The globalist media is celebrating the “thwarting” of Austria’s “Far Right”:

Alexander Van der Bellen has won Austria’s presidential election, preventing Norbert Hofer from becoming the EU’s first far-right head of state.

Mr Hofer led narrowly after Sunday’s election but postal votes gave Mr Van der Bellen victory by 50.3% to 49.7%.

Mr Van der Bellen campaigned on a pro-EU platform backed by the Greens.

Mr Hofer, of the Freedom Party, tapped into anti-EU sentiment and fears about rising numbers of asylum seekers. He conceded victory on his Facebook page.

Mr Hofer, 45, said it was a sad day and that he would have gladly served as president.

“But please don’t be disheartened. The effort in this election campaign is not wasted, but is an investment for the future.”

I think it’s fascinating that they pretend to think Hofer and the Freedom Party are the “Far Right”. They are either being disingenuous or have no idea what is coming. And if they keep stealing elections, as appears to have been the case here, they will render the electoral process entirely irrelevant.

But as I said, it will take two election cycles for the nationalists to gain power. This is still the first. This is the phase in which the mainstream parties band together to maintain the status quo and keep out the nationalists. The next phase is when the nationalists overwhelm the united status quo.

It’s worth noting that the Freedom Party gained 13 points from the first round to the second one, from 36 percent to 49 percent.

Business for #Brexit

320 business leaders sign a letter to the Telegraph:

Britain is the fifth biggest economy in the world and, on current projections, will overtake Germany to become Europe’s powerhouse. Britain is America’s largest inward investor, and our openness and dynamism mean we attract more inward investment than any other European country.

Three of the world’s top 10 universities are British, we speak the international language of business, our legal system is trusted round the world and we have an unrivalled reputation for innovation and creativity.

These are just some of the reasons we believe that Britain is world-class. However, we also believe that Britain’s competitiveness is being undermined by our membership of a failing EU.

Year-on-year the EU buys less from Britain because its economies are stagnant and millions of people are unemployed. According to Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, the euro “might explode”. Brussels’ red tape stifles every one of Britain’s 5.4 million businesses, even though only a small minority actually trade with the EU.

It is business – not government – which generates wealth for the Treasury and jobs for our communities. Outside the EU, British business will be free to grow faster, expand into new markets and create more jobs. It’s time to vote leave and take back control.

If you’re British, you must seize the opportunity to free yourselves from Eurofascist rule. Seize your national sovereignty and retake control of your own laws. Britain stood alone against a continent occupied by Berlin, and it can stand alone against a continent occupied by Brussels.

Vote Leave.

Big Larry’s European adventure

It sounds like Larry Correia had a blast on his European tour:

Of all the languages, German was by far the easiest to pick up words and phrases for me. Despite being related to Portuguese and Spanish, French sounds totally eluded me. And Czech is HARD (they have like 46 ways to make conjunctions). But German shares a lot of word roots with English, and the actual structure is pretty straight forward. Plus it is fun to just walk around and make up vaguely German sounding names for things, like a pigeon is Das Poopinbirden.

The next day we drove across all of Germany to the Czech Republic, and I got to experience the autobahn, which my whole life has been this sort of mythical place that has no speed limits, and is filled with drivers that understand slow traffic stays right, and where they never camp in the left lane, and in fact, if you’re blocking the left lane, they’ll come right up on your bumper at 100 miles an hour, honking, and flashing their lights. It was a place devoid of mercy, unforgiving of weakness. So we set out.

Apparently there are two kinds of tourist drivers on the autobahn. Those who are weak, fearful, whose crying pillows smell of lilacs and shame, who stay in the truck lane, or who wander out into the left occasionally, timidly, to be honked at and chased aside by awesome Teutonic Super Drivers…

And the other kind is the American who manages to average 180km an hour across all of Germany in a Volvo diesel station wagon.

It was AMAZING. I felt like a race car driver across an entire country. You know why German cars don’t have cup holders? Because if you stop to drink while driving, YOU WILL DIE. And you should. You need to be on. I’d get a gap, jump out to the left, floor it (because fuel economy is for hippies I’m on the mother f’ing autobahn!),  and nobody pulls out in front of me in a minivan to enforce their personal speed limit, people ahead of me going slower (like 100mph) immediately get out of the way, and when some bad ass comes up behind me in a super car, I get out of his way, and then they blast past me like I’m standing still.

It was beautiful.

You wouldn’t think a diesel Volvo would be comfy at 112 miles an hour, but it really is. Yes. I friggin’ love the autobahn. If I lived here I would buy a giant BMW or Audi and drive very fast, all the time. Why can’t we have something like this here? I would like to institute autobahn style rules on I-15 in Utah. Sure, a few thousand people would probably die in the first weekend, but after that it would be awesome.

Can confirm. What some might find interesting is that Italy has its own sort of temporary autobahn, which is certain stretches of the autostrada on Sunday mornings from 9-11 AM. Spacebunny and I were driving home from Verona one morning, doing about 100 MPH or so, when I saw a red car coming up VERY FAST from behind.

It turned out to be a Ferrari 456. A few moments later, a tricked-out blue Porsche with a vague resemblance to a 911 flew past as well. My Call of Duty mate, who used to race Formula 2, has friends who drive for Ferrari, and drives an Aston Martin, later told me that there are certain sections of the autostrada that are intentionally left camera-free so that the men with the supercars can let them rip at times when the traffic is light.

European pro tip: if you see silver in the distance behind you, move over without delay. No one in Europe drives faster, or is more likely to ride your bumper, than drivers of silver Mercedes station wagons. My theory is that if you need a station wagon, but insist on spending the money for a high-performance engine, you’re probably a roadway lunatic. I see plenty of nice, big-engined sports cars and sedans cruising along the autostrada at reasonable speeds, but every single Mercedes station wagon driver is flying along at least 20 MPH faster than the flow of traffic, no matter how fast it is, with his left blinker permanently on.

And for some reason that still eludes me, they are always silver.

Larry is right about German being easier for English speakers too. As for French, I honestly found it easier to pick up Japanese. The Italians may speak rapidly and use the same word to describe three completely different concepts, (hence the need for all the gestures) but at least they enunciate.

Nationalism rising fast

This is the first of the two election cycles I predicted beginning. So far, so anticipated:

Austria’s government was licking its wounds after the anti-immigration far-right triumphed in presidential elections, dealing a major blow to a political establishment seen by voters as out of touch and ineffectual.

According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom party came a clear first with 36% of the vote in the first round of elections for the largely, but not entirely, ceremonial post of head of state.

Candidates from the two ruling centrist parties, which have effectively run Austria since the end of the second world war, failed to even make it into a runoff on 22 May, coming fourth and fifth each with 11% of the vote.

The result means that for the first time since 1945, Austria will not have a president backed by either Chancellor Werner Faymann’s Social Democrats or their centre-right coalition partners, the People’s party.

Having a president in the Habsburg dynasty’s former palace in Vienna not from either of the two main parties could shake up the traditionally staid and consensus-driven world of Austrian politics.

“This is the beginning of a new political era,” the Freedom party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, said after what constituted the best result at federal level for the former party of the late Joerg Haider, calling it “historic”.

The Oesterreich tabloid described Hofer’s victory as a “tsunami that has turned our political landscape upside down”.

It’s very good news for everyone that the Freedom Party, AfD, the Swedish Democrats, and other nationalist parties are rising fast. At this rate, the nationalists will come to power in the second election cycle, in time to begin the necessary demographic modifications without excessive violence.