A Letter of Warning to America

    I was out hiking this week on the Big Dry Creek Trail in Westminster while listening to an audio book by Daniel Hannan.  The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America is a timely warning to America of how the embracing of socialism and communism threatens to pull democracy and freedom back into a condition of serf and master. Hannan argues forcefully and passionately that Americans must not go down the road to European Union–style social democracy.  He warns that the Road to Serfdom is paved with liberal good intentions, but it leads into a blind alley where prosperity is mugged and freedom is lost. 

    Frederick Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" explained to the Western democracies that increased government economic planning is inconsistent with individual freedom. It was a brilliant work from 1944 which is still relevant today. Hannan's "New Road to Serfdom" doesn't try to copy or update Hayek, rather it's like a letter from a British friend saying that we Americans are on the path toward decline, and America is becoming less American and more like the failing Europeans.  Hannan builds upon Hayek's thesis in that he brings the process into the present day citing very recent specific examples of the steps which Hayek describes in general terms, among them the government takeover of the health care system, massive debt, and the acquisition, by government, of other key parts of the economy (e.g., banking and manufacturing). He also compares these recent developments in the United States with those in Britain over the last 70 years. Hannan's work is an unequivocal renewal of Giorgio de Santillana's warning that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

    Hannan was elected to the European Parliament in 1999, at the age of 27, and has been re-elected twice.  Given his disdain for the European Union, he must spend a lot of time arguing with his colleagues. He also writes a blog for the British Daily Telegraph newspaper. Like the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, Daniel Hannan comes to interrupt the American Dream.  As he himself states, "I have been a Member of the European Parliament for eleven years. I am living in your future. Let me tell you a few things about it."

    This book is a compare and contrast book between the United States and Europe. Probably the main theme of this book is the difference between centralized government in Europe versus decentralized government America.  He is talking to us 'from' the place our liberals set as the destination for America. He is already there, and he can see how we are fast approaching, therefore the warning. In the UK, as elsewhere, the European Union (EU) government in Belgium is increasingly setting policies that the national governments then carry out. Hanna says, "My own country is now largely administered, not by MPs or local councilors, but by what we call quangos: Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organizations." 

    Most of the British, French, Germans, etc. lack interest in their EU government; even worse, they have lost confidence in their national governments. The situation has gone so far - with isolated exceptions, such as Switzerland, which remains happily independent - as to be irreversible.  Europeans now accept declining birth rates, massive immigration, and the growth of increasingly disaffected ethnic groups that live off the welfare state while seeking to disrupt and topple it.   I was surprised to learn that British citizens no longer are able to vote for judges, sheriffs, school officials, etc.   They are all appointed now, and impossible to remove. Hannan cites numerous of examples of such socialist policies that have had hugely detrimental impact on the countries within the EU.  

    Hannan's thesis is that with the election of Barack Obama as President in 2008, America has moved radically toward European political ideals and therefore away from its founding heritage. Hannan warns that "The United States is Europeanizing its health care system, its tax rates, its day care, its welfare rules, its approach to global warming, its foreign policy, its federal structure, its unemployment rate."  By so doing, we are risking the integrity of our unique identity in the world. Hannan warns, "Europeanization is incompatible with the vision of the founders and the spirit of the republic. Americans are embracing all the things their ancestors were so keen to get away from: high taxes, unelected bureaucrats, pettifogging rules."  Hannan describes the preference of the "political class" for expanding the size and reach of government, while inevitably undermining private initiative. The British have taken entitlements to beyond extreme, destroying their country.   Hannan clearly makes his point of warning where the US may be heading. He describes the medical nightmares in the future if Obamacare is not rescinded.  It’s a breathtaking account of what will take place in our health care system if we do not stand and reject the similar policies of Europe that have failed spectacularly. 

    Hannan talks in some detail about multicultralism which is described as so hurtful to a society in that it slows down the market place of ideas.   He says that England used to be a country that was open to competing ideas and even if they disagreed with them allowed people the ability to speak them. Now they have committees telling what can and can’t be said.  I wasn’t surprised to hear that the average European has disdain for the American Christian Right. Liberals over there have been attacking conservatives and Christians for much longer than in the states.  However, there are severe implications for those who speak out against Islamism and its Sharia Law.

    If you want to understand how socialism has failed Europe, Hannan provides frightening examples and warns that it is where we are going if we continue on this path. One thing Hannon said of the EU leadership, "Public opinion is treated as an obstacle to overcome, not a reason to change direction'. This is precisely how Obama, Pelosi and Reid view the opinion of the American majority that disagree with their implementation of government health care.  Hannan brutally and candidly points out the failings of the British socialist system, and then shows how Obama and the socialist progressives are going right down the same dismal path.

    Addressing America with reverence, Hannan suggests that we started out on a better path with a government of enumerated powers and our federalism which provides a distribution of power, as opposed to the centralization of power, and this offers huge economic advantages in additional to personal freedoms.   However, she believes that we now seem to be making the same mistakes that they did. Their present is our future, unless we wake up in time. If we become just like Europe, the world will be the worse for it.  Especially enlightening is Mr. Hannan's in- depth explanation of the function and value of our republican system as it fosters innovation, individualism, and the self interest that drives a free market economy in the face of the tendency for a centralized government to gather in more and more power, and control of virtually everything if left unchecked.  However, we're headed towards an all powerful Federal government, with power increasingly handed over to un-elected "regulatory" bureaucrats appointed by the president;

    Hannan does such an excellent job explaining how our Constitution focuses primarily on individual rights and feedoms and it is there to protect these rights and freedoms from governmental intrusion; at least this was the original intent of our Founders, whereas other democracies' constitutions are not.  You can sense the deep love and respect Hanna has for our Founding Documents and the purest American traditions and spirit. 

    Hannan also does an incredible job explaining why America is so disliked by countries such as Europe. I had expected that is was due to our success as a nation and our power as a super-nation. However, in the end, it is much more simple than that. It comes down to ideology. Mr. Hannan says, "The key component of this ideology is transnational integration, which Euro-diplomats prize above virtually every other goal, including democracy."   We have something that most nations do not have - especially many nations within the EU: Nationalism or patriotism. An innate loyalty, appreciation, and love for our country. 

    I've never read a more succinct and understandable contrast between the American government and the British/European Union governments. I'd never heard of a "quango" before, but I recognize it in the EPA, the new ObamaCare mandates, and all the little czarist fiefdoms appearing across what in America has become an unelected "fourth branch" which is the bureaucracy of unelected functionaries and apparatchiks who make and enforce law independent of the appropriate governing process.  It sounds like a scary future indeed if Americans cede more of their freedoms to unelected bureaucrats and became more like the top-down European model, currently failing across that continent.  Hannan clearly describes the threat to representative democracy facing us today by an overwhelming bureaucracy and a political class in contempt of their voters. 

   Hannan fears that the world is in danger of losing America as a shinning goal towards which to aspire because "the characteristics that once set America apart are being eliminated. The United States is becoming just another country."   Hanna lays out a scary future for the United States if we continue along the path of big government and de-localization (as Europe has), he helps make it clear how we can correct this mistake: by going back to our roots.  Hannan believes America needs to remain America not just for ourselves, but for the entire world to have a real example of a people who dared to live the dream, that the individual really counts, that initiative, risk, and effort are allowed, respected and rewarded, that the power does in fact reside with the People and not some king or tyrant; that there is hope, that men can be trusted with designing, deciding and running their own lives.  All this is needed for the whole world, not just for us, the luckiest people in the planet who citizens of the only truly honorable and principled nation in history.

    I especially liked this closing quote from Mr. Hannan. "So let me close with a heartfelt imprecation, from a Briton who loves his country to Americans who still believe in theirs. Honor the genius of your founders. Respect the most sublime constitution devised by human intelligence. Keep faith with the design that has made you independent. Preserve the freedom of the nation to which, by good fortune and God's grace, you are privileged to belong." 

    It is excellent book from a British fan of America, and I recommend that everyone who loves freedom and self reliance and self responsibility read this book.   I’m thinking this book would make a good Christmas present for my family and friends.