That Has Been Decided In Brussels

John D'Aloia Jr.

John D'Aloia Jr. is a retired navy captain and a submarine commander. He is a columnist for several newspapers in Kansas.

The Irish are not alone in finding their freedoms being eroded by European Union bureaucrats. An Irish newspaper editorial quoted the Finish deputy ambassador to the EU, a member of the EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives, as saying:

The greater part of legislation entering into force in my country is something that has been decided in Brussels.

The editor noted that the Irish parliament was becoming a rubber stamp for EU decisions. He said:

By trusting our politicians and voting for complex treaties that we did not understand, we surrendered our right to govern ourselves in vast areas of our lives. And our national media, unfortunately, have done precious little to keep us informed about what was at stake.

Sound familiar? It should. The handing over of Irish and Finish sovereignty to the EU by Irish and Finish politicians is no different than the attempt by American politicians to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the UN. Those who are ready to embrace a supranational entity are found worldwide; but they have the same ultimate goal, the creation of a Guardian-run world government. Freedom, natural rights, and a belief in God are anathema to them (relativism is their theology,) yet they know full well that any attempt to impose their political and social agenda in one fell swoop would meet resistance. They are thus willing to take incremental steps, making use of smokescreens such as multiculturalism, abortion, diversity, ecology, and the primacy of critters to break down cultural and religious barriers to the advancement of their cause. A step forward, half a step back worries them not. They are confident that time, apathy, materialistic prosperity, a growing dependency on government, and the baser aspects of the human condition are on their side.

In the U.S. they advance their scheme by eroding Founding Principles and the plain language reading of the Constitution as they centralize power in Washington and ratify ensnaring treaties. Tocqueville, writing in 1835 about the American experience, called what is going on today a despotism, albeit one that appears to be solicitous of citizens' welfare. Tocqueville nailed it when he wrote:

The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling.

Meddling-does not that word well describe much of what fills the volumes upon volumes of statute books at each level of government and smothers individual initiative and responsibility. Tocqueville also wrote:

It cannot be repeated too often that nothing is more fertile in prodigies than the art of being free: but there is nothing more arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty. Such is not the case with despotic institutions: despotism often promises to make amends for a thousand previous ills; it supports the right, it protects the oppressed, and it maintains public order. The nation is lulled by the temporary prosperity which accrues to it, until it is roused to a sense of its own misery.

Benjamin Franklin scorned those who would be so lulled. He wrote:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.

This past week the federal government meddled again, taking another bite out of freedom when it decreed that it, and it alone will control the use of smallpox vaccine. On one hand, we are told that smallpox is probably in the Jihadistanis' arsenal, but then we are told we do not have the freedom to decide for ourselves if we want to protect ourselves in the war against terrorism. If you are old enough, you probably got a smallpox shot, and it was your choice, not the feds. Small pox's high mortality was worth the risk. Today, the feds say that they will administer the vaccine only after there is an outbreak. They express a concern about the number of deaths that will occur just as a result of giving the shots. The estimates are that if everyone in the country were vaccinated, there would be 180 deaths. A Wall Street Journal editorial noted that this many deaths occur every day and a half in the United States from a risk voluntarily taken-riding in a car.

If smallpox is a viable threat, does it not make sense to let citizens protect themselves now, not hope that shots can be administered after an attack is made but before people are infected? What are the odds that the Leviathan that mismanages the Post Office, cannot keep track of $17 billion, and cannot protect our borders will be able to implement an immediate and effective vaccine program amidst the fog-of-war that will follow a smallpox attack? The actions and reactions following the mailing of a few anthrax-laden letters do not create a warm and fuzzy feeling.