This is an adaptation of remarks made at the University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary on November 30, 2022.
It is an honor to be at the University of Public Service in this great city. Few people in The West are as courageous and determined as those from Budapest and other parts of Hungary.
Although it might seem absurd for an American to visit Hungary to lecture others about the civil war between globalist elites, sovereign peoples of democratic countries, it may be a reasonable thing to do. It might also be asked, “What are Americans for?” As a Texan, that question is not meant to be a jibe but a compliment.
In either case, the answer is yes. Americans stand for freedom to govern themselves, and that is what they are always going to do. The nation-state is history’s greatest bulwark for freedom across continents, centuries and time. Every nation’s greatest defense against foreign enemies is its national sovereignty. It is protected by its own national politics, and supported by a unique national cultural.
The nation-state is fighting for its survival today, just as it was yesterday. You know that Hungary isn’t just on the frontlines of this conflict. It is the salient, the tip of a spear, pushing forward into hostile territory, surrounded by three sides, in the hope that allies will emerge and reinforce their flanks.
The American people must be allied with these allies. As the European nation-state goes, so will it go around the globe. Your freedom and independence back home are very closely tied to ours. The same forces that are threatening Hungary’s sovereignty now have their sights on America’s future. The question is not whether the current campaign against Hungary’s nationhood is a rehearsal for a future attack on Washington or whether The West is united here to defend the values that made us The West.
Surficially, two main adversaries are at the heart of the 21st-century nation-state. One side is the enemy above . These supranational organizations indict nation-states for being parochial special interest obstructing capital H History’s march towards global “unity.”
The enemy below is on the other hand. These are the woke propagandists, who see the nation-state inflicting an artificial usurpation of people’s loyalty to their tribal, racial, gender and class identity groups.
These are not two separate attacks on cultural diversity and political democracy. These are two distinct attacks on political democracy and cultural diversity that have been coordinated by one pincer movement ,led jointly by the same enemy — an entitled coalition of globalist elites whose messianic ambitions can only be matched by their self-regard. The woke totalitarians of Brussels are the largest cabal of globalist elites. They use the trope “European unity” as a weapon against common sense and traditional values.
Both supranational organizations and woke activists have the same goal: to erode the political authority independent nation-states hold and transfer that power to foreign, unelected bureaucracies free from patriotic sympathy and the rigors democratic accountability.
These aims were not secretive at the time Leftist elites. Wilson’s League of Nations and Mussolini’s fascism and Hitler’s Fascism and Soviet Communism proudly spoke out about their global imperial plans. Each was hailed by progressive elites as the “wave of the future.” Every fashionable intellectual knew that a centralized management system of society by educated cosmopolitans would be the end of History.
However, these dreams were quickly destroyed or worse, made into nightmares.
Their progressive-elite cheerleaders should have been discredited for many generations by the butcher’s bill that represented 20th century totalitarian imperialism. One of the perks to controlling the news media and entertainment industry, as well as the education system, is the freedom to never apologize.
Progressive totalitarians today who have failed to win the authority of nation states by force or persuasion now rely on a subtler, more dangerous tactic called gradual insinuation. The global Left was unable to achieve what they did with invasions and armies. They now try with treaties and bureaucrats.
This is “The European Union seen from Washington, D.C.”
The EU is the most dangerous and aggressive enemy of the nation state anywhere in the world. The EU was created in the aftermath of World War II and at the dawning of the Cold War as a way to stop another continental conflict.
After all, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had already joined western Europe in a mutual defense agreement to stop Soviet expansion. Arguments for a “common marketplace” — free trade and passport-free travel as well as a permanent venue for multilateral communications — were all very convincing.
Problem is, progressive ideologues have never stopped wanting power that transcends nation-state sovereignty. They had the chance to play the long game with the EU. It had to first reframe the mistakes it made in recent years. So, Europe’s cultural institutions created a story that claimed World War II was caused in part by nationalism. This is the story that’s told in schools, newsrooms and parliaments across Europe.
It’s a fairytale.
Adolf Hitler wasn’t a nationalist. He was as imperialist and naked as any other tyrant to have ever breathed. He ignored national borders and resented the sovereignty of national nations. He also tore up all treaties signed by other nation-states, including his own. The Empire of Japan held a similar view on the other side of this world. It is clear from history that Benito Mussolini was only concerned about himself and not Italy.
The World War II nationalists — Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle as well as Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — were the victor . Even in Moscow, the home of Lenin’s “Communist International”, Russian morale demanded that Josef Stalin’s imperialistic regime rebrand “The Great Patriotic War” against Germany.
The real villains in World War II weren’t the nationalists but the imperialists. They were the sworn enemies to independent nation-states and were Germany and Japan prior and during the war and the Soviet Union at its final end.
The heroes were the nationalists. They were the victors. They are to be praised.
Left-wing centralizing imperialists didn’t change sides after the war. They just took tacks. They discovered that nationalism was not a barrier to peace and prosperity, despite being reluctant. They.
So, progressives from both sides began their “long march across the institutions”: the academy, media, corporations and government agencies.
The EU was seen by the Americans as an economic and political complement to NATO’s security alliance. According to the official motto, a Europe “United in Diversity” was an asset in the Cold War. The EU was not something Americans thought about more than the ease of traveling.
You know that the EU’s professional bureaucracy, and their allies within elite enclaves of the public and private sector across the West, had other plans. Brussels views itself as the capital of the future United States of Europe, a vision that is unconstrained by the constitutional limits on the central government’s power.
There are many issues that could change, including trade, immigration and carbon emissions. The talking points change constantly. Monday, “Europe must be one.” Tuesday, it’s about “human rights.” Thursday, it’s climate change, which is too large for any one country to tackle. It’s neighborly reciprocity on Friday.
However, no matter what the slogan, the effect is the same: to take away the authority and power of nation-states, and to give it to foreign unelected, unaccountable elites. This is imperialism at its best.
Even so, their empire is alien to the people they want to rule.
Europe has been a geographical entity for approximately 200,000 years. It has been a civilization… but it has been the West for just two or three centuries. During that time, empires, nations, and tribes rose and fell. Despite Europe having many monarchs, the continent has only one King. It is Rome that is the source of Europe’s strength, beauty, unity and spirit.
EU elites behave as if they are ashamed of the Roman Catholic Church and the legacy that European Christendom has left them. It is a sensitive subject. They are proud of Renaissance art but not the subjects. They do not promote religious sites. Officials from the EU discredit the belief system that created the possibility for an EU.
This is comical to the point that they put generic architectural images on euro bill rather than saints, art, cathedrals and art. They pretend that if they don’t look down, the Christian heroes upon whose shoulders they stand will vanish if they agree to not look down.
However, pretend is the key word.
Do not make any mistake. They are not bored with Christianity. They loathe it. They also hate the U.S. Constitution and democracy. To totalitarians, any rival source of power or meaning is an enemy.
Tyrants are not religiously, culturally or politically tolerant. The progressive, totalitarian Left views diversity as a weakness and a heresy. They ostentatiously promote diversity but it is superficial. People who are different, but think the same.
For millennia Europe has been nearly the opposite: peoples with superficial similarities hide a dizzying variety of culture, custom, habit, and history.
C.S. C.S. Lewis’s quote: “ How monotonously alike have all the great conquerors and tyrants been? “
This diversity and each nation’s unique perspectives and cultures are protected by the natural sovereignty of the nation state. This is exactly what the EU seeks to destroy.
The United States is facing a similar problem. The Leftist elites are aggravated by the American people’s appreciation for real diversity. Normal Americans are not bothered by the fact that New York City and Texas have different cultures, food, politics, and foods. This is mocked by the elites, just like in Europe.
For over a century, the American Left has been fighting to centralize Washington’s decision-making and to then transfer any power to the unelected executive bureaucracy and the unelected Supreme Court.
It might seem odd, but it’s a speech to defend nationalism and to abjure the nationalization of politics in my country. It’s not. The Constitution of the United States recognizes diversity. It is not a vain aspiration or an ideological Trojan horse. Our union is founded on the principle of Federalism. In other words, “The American way of living” has as its core principle the commitment to cultural and regional diversity. Our constitutional subsidiarity is a key component of our national solidarity. Because America allows us to be ourselves, we love our country. E pluribus unum.
American conservatives are just as skeptical of the EU and the United Nations as they are of the United Nations and the other international bodies and agreements that the Left enthusiastically supports. The elites’ interests are promoted by these institutions, not ours. This is what most Americans know. This is why American elites from all political spectrum are so disliked. The great political cleavage across the West today is no longer horizontal — left-versus-right — but vertical — the elites-versus-everyone-else.
This is why we are Euro-skeptics. Americans don’t want to share their national sovereignty with Canada and Mexico. We don’t see any reason why the Czechs, Danes, or Portuguese should rely on Brussels. Let globalist progressives convince us that they have great ideas. They can take care of their own business otherwise.
They won’t. The imperialists are always on the move, occupying us as we go about our daily business: raising families, building careers and coaching our children’s baseball teams. It seems like a week passes without some new scheme, some new charter, treaty, or memo of understanding. They are slowly taking away more power from us and adding to it.
The International Criminal Court was created to replace the national criminal justice system.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was created to break the bonds of parental power.
The same applies to each such treaty.
The globalist elites are determined to overthrow national policymaking authority in areas such as carbon emissions, taxation, trade and immigration, taxation, finance, gender expression, the internet, or taxation. Already, the World Trade Organization is attempting to undermine U.S. intellectual-property protections. The Covid pandemic gave the World Health Organization a glimpse of just how much power they have when they want it. They will with ever more spurious reasons.
The United States has woke activists who are openly against free speech, religious liberty and access to banking for religious traditionalists. If given the opportunity, is there any doubt that they would centralize or globalize cancel culture?
Conservative reformers should not be discouraged from creating and expanding alliances that respect national sovereignty, despite the fact that the EU has been misguided. For example, the Three Seas Initiative or the Visegrad Group offer nations the chance to work multilaterally, while respecting the national interests of their respective nation-states.
Treaties or international alliances that offer nation-states collective benefits and ensure national sovereignty are acceptable. NATO is a good example of both.
These are not the types of treaties that EU, UN, and Davos-set advocate. Their true motto is “United In Diversity” but “Divide and Conquer.”
Although their methods might be different, their goal is the exact same as the goose-stepping thugs that have tried to subdue The West. Xerxes. Caesar. The Ottomans. The sociopaths of 1917 and 1789. Bonaparte. Hitler. Putin. Wave after wave of imperialist ambition have crested and crashed into The Rock of The West, only to recede whence they came. Europe is still here.
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It is not a zone of agreements and certainly no chessboard for Brussels bureaucrats. But it is a civilization of nations, nation-states and independent, sovereign states.
Americans are proud of their commitment to these same principles. We are proud to support friends, just like we have done for 246 years. As it was the fight for the 30th anniversary, this is the 21st century’s fight.
The future is not in Paris, Brussels, Berlin or Paris but Warsaw, Budapest and Central and Eastern Europe. If we stand together, Europe, Hungary, and the West can prevail. Francis II Rakoczi said, “With God for Homeland & Freedom.”
