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Plagues Of The West
The New Ice Age, AIDS, Global Warming, Mad Cow Disease, Millennium Bug, Terrorism, Bio-Terror, Avian Flu, Food Shortages, Petrol Crunch, Credit Crunch. As the news cycle has accelerated, the number of civilisation-threatening Plagues of The West have multiplied accordingly.
A few weeks ago, EURSOC ran a round-up of these crises, pondering how media speculation and government interference combined to cause regular scares. What we didn't ponder, until after a few beers last night, was why this must be.
Every new plague has brought with it more centralisation, more government interference, and now, more Europe.
Energy crisis? So we need a common European policy on fuel. Food shortages? Shows that the Common Agricultural Policy was a great idea, rather than a criminal waste of money all along. Wars in the Middle East? A common defence policy is required. Middle Easterners bringing their wars to our doorsteps? We need a common security policy AND a common immigration policy (the hundreds of thousands of security cameras in Britain are the idea of the UK government... but let's see if the Euros like what they see).
AIDS, BSE, Bird Flu? A common health policy. Flooding / Drought / Heatwave / Freezing (delete as applicable)? A common environmental policy.
And now, the Recession. Of course, to combat that, we need a common economic policy, and, if that doesn't work, or even shows signs of strain as the Eurozone currently exhibits, well then that points to the necessity of a common political policy.
It's a simple enough dialectic, varied only by how dedicatedly "European" certain nations are when the chips are down. Britain tends to obey his master's voice, France pays lips service, while Germany preaches integration while pursuing every man for himself policies like a fat man elbowing women and children out of the way in the race for the lifeboats.
Archbishop Cranmer has noticed this phenomenon too, and today's sermo discusses it. His Grace has left other commentators to deal with the intricacies of the credit crunch in recent days, but having turned his learned eye upon it, there is much matter in what he has to say:
"Cranmer has this feeling over the ‘credit crunch’. Yes, certainly there is some sort of global financial phenomenon going on. A few banks are collapsing, recession looms, house prices are falling, and governments are spewing out billions in bailouts just as they were mass producing Tamiflu (and where has all that been stashed?) (...)
"We have been here before, and we recovered through application, effort, ingenuity and free enterprise which enabled economies to once again thrive and people to feel financially secure. And doubtless we shall be here again, for 'boom and bust' is as natural to capitalism as 'snap, crackle and pop' is to rice krispies. It is only when they are soaked and soggy that they lose their life and vibrancy; and it is only when capitalism is drenched in regulation and artificially controlled through state intervention that it ceases to function as God intended (...)
"But the media love a crisis. In fact, they love a crisis as much as the EU, for each and every day the crisis endures, the only source of information is the media, and the only solution, according to the EU, is more EU. While the media see sales and viewing figures soar, our masters in Brussels pontificate from the political pulpits of the continent the false gospel that nation states are impotent, and salvation is to be found in a Europe-wide coordinated response which only a European government can solve...
"The antidote to the crisis is not state intervention or other Socialist ‘remedies’, for these will only draw out and delay the inevitable. There is pain in surgery, but life has its trials and tribulations. Since a collapse and major realignment are inevitable, it is much better to get it over and done with in a short, sharp shock rather than a long and drawn out affair which only contributes to the ‘creative destruction’ of capitalism....
"But the left-dominated media is instilling into the hearts and minds of the undiscerning majority that the credit crunch is caused by greed, the cause of greed is capitalism, and the causes of capitalism are the evil right wing and the selfish nation state. Thus the only solution is some nebulous third-way ‘multilateral network for a new global economy’, as the President of the World Bank demands....
"No. Continent-wide action and regulation has not brought the solution, and neither will world government. The solutions are found within the sovereign powers of the nation state: each must do as it sees fit, and be freely judged at the ballot box. Some governments will succeed, and some won't. Some financial institutions will go to the wall, and some won’t. Some people’s homes will be repossessed, and some won’t. Some companies will call in the receivers, and some won’t. Some people will lose their jobs, and some won’t. It is not the law of the jungle, but the natural law in a liberal democracy of a healthily functioning market. The rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate must both live or die by the choices they make. Insulating either or both from the consequences of the exercising of their free will not only creates moral hazard; it sustains the left-wing mantra that the State is the comforter, the protector, and the ultimate source of salvation; it perpetuates the myth that the State has supplanted the Word of John’s Gospel - that all things are made by it, and without it was not anything made which was made.
"Or perhaps we simply need a general election, or a war, or the return of bird flu. And then everyone will forget about the credit crunch, for the BBC and The Guardian will once again dictate the prayer lists of the nation’s faithful."
Why does it always take a man of God to see the bigger picture? Perhaps it is because by having an eye on the Eternal one is able to escape the fluctuations of the day to day? Whatever it is, it's working for us.
