The (Minority) View from Abroad

While Eurocrats, left-wing journalists, and other socialists rail at the USA for taking a stand they disapprove of — or is that for taking any stand whatever? — three writers this week have dared to dissent.

The business of America is America - and we'd better get used to it (Matthew Paris in The Spectator)

On reading this week's headlines about America's refusal to be part of the International Criminal Court I suffered a sustained and dizzying spell of seeing it from Washington's point of view. Why should the Americans join the ICC if they do not want to? Are they not a sovereign nation with some reason to distrust progressive internationalists? America is not preventing other countries setting up whatever international courts we choose; she is simply declining to take part. Any claims we make to jurisdiction over non-participants are preposterous, and if we cannot assure Washington that US peacekeeping troops are safe from being dragged before this court, then - obviously again - her troops will come home.

Again, that's our problem, not hers, and we really are stuck. To concede America's demand and grant immunity to her peacekeepers would have to be matched by immunities for all peacekeepers. This would exempt a police force from the very rules it was there to police. Then the ICC would be accused of administering victor's justice, the very charge which establishing the permanent court was supposed to answer. Let's face it, fellow whingers: America has no intention of being subject to anything but the American Constitution....

Why we should all love America (Michael Gove in The London Times)

.... No country, even one's own, deserves to be defended right or wrong. America has made mistakes, sometimes criminal ones. And any citizen of the United Kingdom is bound to find aspects of life Stateside not just disorientating but downright distasteful in comparison with the more settled rhythms of British existence.

But the values America has, sometimes imperfectly, sought to embody, defend and extend deserve to be applauded. As a nation, the United States is more open, vital, creative, free, diverse and healthily democratic than any other on earth. Britain may be more stable, earthed and charming. Australia may have much of America's openness with a healthier population, freer of conceit. Europe's smaller nations such as The Netherlands and Denmark may have succeeded in building greater social solidarity while still preserving personal freedom. But no nation has the sheer innovative energy, the democratic vitality, the openness to personal growth and the willingness to shoulder burdens bigger than itself that America has....

America should celebrate its independence (Mark Steyn in The National Post)

.... "When men cease to believe in God," said G. K. Chesterton, "they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything!" The anything most of the Western world's non-believers believe in is government: the age of church-and-state has been superseded by the era of state-as-church. In Europe, they're happy to have cast off the supposed stultifying oppressiveness of religion for a world in which the EU regulates every aspect of life from "xenophobia" to the curvature of bananas. The fact that the most religious nation in the West is also the most powerful militarily, economically and culturally may be sheerest coincidence, so let's just say that separating church from state wound up strengthening the vitality of religion in America.

That's what makes the Establishment Clause an early declaration of the self-restraint of U.S. government. After all, if the government gets to pick the bishops, it's a safe bet they'll get to pick everyone else, too -- as Mr. Blair does, and M. Chrétien, too. Out in Alberta at last week's G8 summit, there was a striking difference between Mr. Bush and his chums as they batted around how many gazillions of dollars to lavish on Africa: if Chrétien or Schroeder or Chirac says X billion, X billion it is; but President Bush can only give what Congress approves. Kofi Annan, having endured eight years of meaningless promises from Bill Clinton at these international gabfests, went so far as to express his impatience at the way these rip-roaring schemes by the global elite wind up getting stalled because of the votes of obscure Senators from Missouri and North Dakota. M. Chrétien is so exquisitely imperial a Prime Minister he thought nothing of tying explicitly the money earmarked for Africa to his own continuation in office, but, alas for the convenience of Secretary-General Annan, America is not a one-man state....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/05/02 06:02:51 PM
Categorized as Classic.