A Modest Proposal for the Eurocrats
Recently, the European Union published a calendar for school children that noted Moslem and Jewish holidays but made no mention of any Christian holiday, including Christmas. The same principle operates here, in the countless public school "winter concerts" that highlight music for Kwanzaa and Hanukkah but feature no Christmas carols.
If the Eurocrats wish to achieve their goal of extirpating Christianity from their continent, they need to be more bold. To be logically consistent, they should destroy any building built by Christians or inspired by Christianity. That means all of Europe's countless churches must go, but perhaps the Sistine Chapel can merely be painted over with advertisements instead. Works of art created by Christians or inspired by Christianity should be destroyed, too. Anarchists can be given hammers and turned loose on the Pietà, to finish the job begun by a mad Hungarian in the '70s. The same rule should apply to literature. Instead of using oil or gas for fuel denizens of the new Europe could heat their homes by burning copies of Dante. Needless to say, music written by Christians or inspired by Christianity should be suppressed as well. Bach can be replaced by Europop. To be thorough, works of art, literature, and music preserved by Christians should be destroyed, too. Those anarchists can be turned loose on the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön after they finish with the Pietà. Finally, institutions founded by Christians should also be destroyed. I am sure the Eurocrats are up to the task of finding better uses for the land currently occupied by Oxford and the Sorbonne.
Once they have done all this, the Eurocrats will be well on their way to achieveing their goal of a continent free of any taint from Christianity. Of course, they might also have a continent no one would want to live in or even visit.
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Far too modest. I propose feeding the Christian children to the Eurocrats. It's traditional. And while the Eurocrats may not appreciate the traditional proposal, we should.
Irony is often lost on the incurably stupid. Perhaps it's best not to give them any ideas.
I wish they would lose the pretense that they are simply being neutral about religion; the liberal humanist ruling class hates Christianity and desires its total destruction.
No collaboration with the EU. Any 'nationalist' party that urges cooperation within the EU are traitors.
Publishing calendars with Muslim and Jewish holidays but no Christian ones is kind of blatant, isn't it? I would think the Eurocrats would be more mindful of the current political trends, which aren't really going their way.
In his interesting and well-written memoirs, the absurd BF SKinner confesses that he could never look at a church without dreaming of turning it into a laboratory of behavioral research. He could be spiritual director for the EU. By the way, please note that Judaism and Islam are only significant insofar as they help to destroy Christianity. In the 19th century, moderate revolutionaries frequently expressed admiration for Protestantism, not because they really had any use for Lutherans and Calvinists, but because they was Protestantism in France and Italy as a first step toward the religion-free world of the future. Please do not respond by claiming that I view Protestantism as a step toward atheism, because I emphatically do not.
I share Tom Piatak's contempt for the liberal European order. Western Civilization, even the rapidly descending bastardized European "civilization" of today, owes most of its development to Christianity. But most Europeans are not only ignorant of that fact, they don't care. For those who do care, Picasso is considered greater than Michaelangelo and the Rolling Stones and Abba are considered superior to Bach.
Did Christianity, due to some sort of mutation, create cancerous forces that would attack Christianity? Did Arianism spring from the success of the 4th Century church? Did the Cathars form in response to the glories of the High Middle Ages? Was the Renaissance the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment? Did the economic success of Christendom lead to Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau and company? Is the West's true modern god, Materialism, a logical extension of the success of the Christian idea?
"Bach can be replaced by Europop."
I laughed.
@6: Christianity insists on perfection, while conscious that mankind is of a sinful nature. The beauty and perfection of the universal Truth will never be fully attained in this life and when a good reflection comes up it is often corrupted at the hands of human error. The sorrows and pains in the history of Christianity are but a reflection of man's rebellion against God.
But why then not simply a more benign error, such as Roman Paganism? Because those who have known the Truth and subsequently rejected it are given up into the worst horrors of them all.
Can one devise a sociological, scientific framework to explain how revolt rose from within the heart of Christianity itself? Probably, but it will never be fully satisfactory, for as Gödel proved, no self-consistent system can avoid appealing to something outside itself...
I wept.
The wall calenders here at work (purchased from an office supply company) have Christian, Jewish, and Muslim holidays. They also have U.S., Canadian, & Mexican holidays. So "Dia de la Raza" is included on our calenders.
This might be a distinction without a difference but are liberals trying to destroy Christianity or are they trying to drag it way down in the name of equality? Since Christianity is still associated with the majority and we’re at least a residually Christian (yes, the residue is pretty thin) civilization, aren’t they attacking it to equalize things? Or do they really hate Christianity (as opposed to Judaism and Islam) for its intrinsic qualities?
"Because those who have known the Truth and subsequently rejected it are given up into the worst horrors of them all."\
Yes, and no. Lucifer new and rejected. But men are not angels and most of what I hear and read today by the popular grapefruit crowd such as Hitchens, Derbyshire, NRO, and other libertines illustrates their helpless ignorance of The Christian faith. Sure they can read the creed and perhaps portions of the bible in translation, but they are in total darkness concerning the most basic lives of the Fathers, lives of the saints, Judaism, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, the history of heresy, The early Church, the differnce between visible and invisible, quantity and quality, prose and poetry, the various kinds of knowledge or time and eternity. That is to say they are utter and complete modernists of the worst kind --they do not know, do not care that they do not know and are contemptuous of under/standing in its relationship to authority and power.
For years I have wrongly despised them for corrupting public conversation when in fact it is we Christians who have lacked the courage to tell them to stand aside, while women and children are escorted out first.
@Robert: Your assessment of those men as individuals is correct, though the civilization as a whole has known and rejected Christianity. That is precisely why its poor deluded victims are all the more wretched.
Here's hoping the governments of every European country, the EU itself, the U.S. government, and the American state and local governments all go bankrupt as quickly as possible. Then they won't have any money for the nonsense Mr. Piatak describes. The schools will empty and the children will be free of the bondage of anti-
Christian indoctrination.
Dear Rockford Institute,
I received this at work and thought of your USMC Captain Check:
The Honorable Order of Saint Barbara:
The Honorable Order of Saint Barbara "recognizes individuals who have demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and moral character, displayed an outstanding degree of competence and served the United States Army Air Defense and Field Artillery Branch with selflessness. They must have significantly contributed to the promotion of the Air Defense Artillery in ways that stand out in the eyes of the recipient's senior, subordinates and peers alike."
Saint Barbara lived and died about the year 300 AD. She was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bold which struck down her persecutor caused her to be regarded as the Patron Saint in times of danger from thunderstorms and sudden death.
When gunpowder made its appearance in the western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions. Since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectiles, Saint Barbara become the patroness of the artillery.
Not to rain on any parades, but the Fox News blurb I just consulted says that the Christian holidays will be restored in future printings of the calendar. Leaving the question open as to whether the initial omissions were unintentional. Did the EU's minions think they could get away with this?
Ray,
It doesn't matter either way. Actually I prefer these Holy Days taken off national calendars, rather than confused with the Holy Days of Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Theosophists, Navaho Peyote Nut Sacred Dance, etc.. If Christians want an accurate reminder of their Holy Days, they should make their own.
Putting them all together reminds me of the man who says he never takes a drink before noon but when offered a Bloody Mary at ten o'clock in the morning says, "Well, it must be noon somewhere in the world."
Actually I prefer these Holy Days taken off national calendars, rather than confused with the Holy Days of Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Theosophists, Navaho Peyote Nut Sacred Dance, etc.. If Christians want an accurate reminder of their Holy Days, they should make their own.
Thank you. Well said and captures my thoughts exactly. A calendar with Jewish and Muslim feasts but no Christian Holy Days marked would only serve to discredit the Eurocrats (a good thing). It's as revealing as the fact that Muslims in Spain welcomed the planned removal (happily overturned due to public outcry) of Saint James slaying the Moors at Santiago de Compostela (Christianity's third holiest shrine) and that SAME YEAR asked permission to pray in the Cordoba Cathedral, a converted Mosque they had built partially from the materials of a Visigothic Church they destroyed on the same spot when they conquered Iberia.
Yes, indeed, we Christians might actually begin to think about living Christian lives if we could once give up the delusion that our governments do not really reflect the world we live in. I do not say our governments are necessarily evil; they may do some good, though not as much good as the government of Diocletian which took us seriously enough to persecute the Church.
Good column Tom. Its interesting that whenever power becomes too centralized or multi-national that Christianity & not other religions come under attack. Who ever voted for changing 'Christmas Vacation' to 'Winter Holiday', or taking down Crosses that are too 'prominent', or forbidding school prayer? Maybe I just missed it.
Centralized power gives the anti-Christian minority the power to impose their will on us.
In general, your point is well-taken, so far as the modern West is concerned. However, I suppose one could cite the restrictions on Islam imposed by Attaturk and his friends, and point to the persecution of Stoics under the Roman Emperors who also persecuted Christianity. In the Roman case, Domitian, for example, detested any movement whose followers were reluctant to acknowledge his divine status.
I fear that the diagnosis given by observers here is consistent with only a superficial examination. Can Europe said to be independent? Do we believe that American 'diversity coaches', State Dept missives and the tolerance-as-principal-good template were not decisive?
Isn't it more credible that a continent shackled for three centuries by Britain's Capitalism and Free Trade and then American Democracy and the Open Society (the last humbug being a pretense for the erection of American imperial supremacy and a specious slogan for the Cold War) cannot exercise its will? Those of you who object that the evil is as much indigenous as imposed by foreign power should account for 'Libertarianism'. That profane cult* was contrived by a cabal of Viennese Jews in Europe but found its vigour and influence in the United States; ironically as America is perhaps the greatest Benthamite prison-like House of Mirrors known to the annals of mankind.
*The tenets of that sect (Libertarianism) are so odious and false that by their very impurity and worldiness have made no conversions in Anglo-Australian society. Its only victims are a few reclusive, unfriended computer programmers and confused Chinese, Hindu and Jewish transplanted cosmopolites in Sydney and Melbourne.
Fool that I am I forgot to adduce the weightiest evidence for my accusations; the circumstance that most of Europe is garrisoned with hundreds of thousands of American soliders. Does the US Government and the American people apprehend the imminent attack of the horrible, child-eating Huns launching half-a-dozen Panzer divisions down Main Street, Peoria?
Or is the presence of the garrisons conformable with the pattern of American policy? Namely, strip-malls and 'adult' stores with Xeroxed copies of the US Constitution for the school kiddies at home, and carpet-bombing then carpet-bagging, paving the way for McDonalds and Starbucks, for all peoples abroad. Just sayin'.
"Do we believe that American ‘diversity coaches’, State Dept missives and the tolerance-as-principal-good template were not decisive?"
Yes, they were not decisive. Americans are not relevant here.
My father lived and worked in France, our family has ties in France, and I have many old friends in France. The French do not care what the rest of the world thinks, and do not think too much about the rest of the world. They are almost under zero foreign cultural influence till date, with even Corsicans and Parisians considering each other a separate class.
Without digressing, I'll shoot to the point. To say Continental Europeans are not responsible for their own vices would perhaps be insulting to Continental Europeans. On a day to day basis, they don't seem to even think too much about other Europeans, let alone evil imperialistic Anglo-American hegemony, and if they do, it is with some chauvinistic contempt.
With respect Mr Sanjay I do not intend to be understood as believing ordinary Americans answerable for the political not personal charges I wrote.
Whilst I'll cheerfully acquiesce to more benevolent constructions offered here about historical events, as an Australian whose family have settled here from the year dot and sacrificed for its sake from the Mesopotamian Front to rural Victorian bushfires, I must insist on the reality of the American empire; a spy station in the middle of our country, our leaders (falsely so-called) as soon as chosen leap to America for the Australian-American Leadership Conference or some such, to be, in the Yank expression, 'vetted' no doubt for pliability and having orthodox opinions. As a reader of Dr Fleming's books I didn't expect finding National Review or O'Reilly-like commentary here that the US is not an imperial power and, like Tiberius over the Cappadocian king or the Roman governor over the Greek cities of Asia, does not wield an influence which can prevail upon the hesitant. Britons and Spaniards didn't want their nations to join Mr Bush's war but that did not affect policy; the Brussels apparatus was built in emulation of the original model in Washington. Do foreign garrisons not exclude the complete independence of sovereignty?
You are talking about defense and foreign policy.
How would that affect cultural habits? I mean, United States never tried diversity experiments in Saudi Arabia.
Weren't we talking about excluding Christian holidays from a calendar? I have a hard time imagining a Holbrooke-style character sending a memo asking for such a thing.
Peter,
The notion that the United States is behind Christophobia in the EU is absurd. European leftists hate Christianity for reasons having nothing to do with the US. European leftists were the ones who rejected efforts to mention Christianity in the EU constitution, and European leftists recently vetoed an effort to mention Christianity in a resolution condemning religious discrimination: http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=111350
Indeed, European leftists have a rich, indigenous tradition of hating Christianity, even one of destroying churches and killing clergymen, as shown by the bloody history of the French Jacobins, the Russian Bolsheviks, and the Spanish Republicans, among others. Sadly, those traditions live on. Apparently, the Spanish government was among those opposing any mention of Christianity in the resolution condemning religious discrimination, and that government is headed by a proud descendant of Spanish Republicans who, inconveniently for your thesis, came to power by opposing Spain's involvement in the Iraq War.
Mr. Piatak, you're right. It is too much to say that the United States is behind"Christophobia" in Europe. We are still a nation largely of Christians. But who could say today we are a Christian nation. Your fine publication from the 90s exposed our government's heavy, even military, tilt against Orthodox Christians in Europe. As I write, our State Department and its quasi-public tentacles finances and encourages myriad projects to encourage in Europe "multiculturalism", "immigration"," America's outreach to Moslems in Europe", etc. And it is enough to close by just pointing out the endless hectoring to admit Turkey to the EU. But the worst might be the politically correct culture that runs off our polluted land like sewerage on the whole world; it has at least the stench of AntiChrist. What a bitter fact that this nation of Christians may not be behind Europe's "Christophobia" but certainly seems to mainly support it.
American leftists, European leftists... same difference. On the one hand, it is impossible to deny the role played by the U.S. in reconstructing the post-World War II Christian Democratic order and making the center-right dependent on U.S. aid, thus castrating the Right's ability to fight back. It is true that some nefarious Christian Democrats--think Charles De Gaulle--were not exactly friendly to the U.S., but they were pretty big phonies. Every European country is hooked on TV--a nefarious American invention. On the other hand, it is absurd to claim that the fat rich EU is really being *coerced* to accept "American" values--if that were so, every European country would have joined the Iraq invasion. The larger problem stems from within, even if the U.S. has aided and abetted the dark side.
Peter from Australia may have been alluding to the memo unearthed by Wikileaks regarding efforts by the US to spread multiculturalism in France.
http://www.wikileaks.fi/cable/2010/01/10PARIS58.html