Sometimes it takes a friend to remind you of who you really are.
Daniel Hannan is a Conservative politician and Minister for the European Parliament (for southeast England). He came to prominence rubbishing Gordon Brown on the floor of the European Parliament. (Actually, the whole raison d'etre of his sitting in that body is to rubbish the EU every time they will let him speak.) The video of this went viral – certainly a first for proceedings of the European Parliament. You should probably watch it.
Hannan has a new book just out – The New Road to Serfdom, A Letter of Warning to America.
His basic thesis is that the Obama Administration has been on a comprehensive program of Europeanization – specifically, adopting those habits of Europe that have been most disastrous: centralization of power, large government, crushing regulation, the anti-Democratic transfer of power to appointed (i.e. unelected) officials. He says, "I am living in your future" – and tells us what we can expect on this path, and why we really might want to choose another one.
I have some beef with the book: it's a little breezy; makes and repeats a number of claims – then instead of adducing facts in support and arguing for the claims, goes off on other tangents; tries to be an indictment of the EU, a defence of America and American democracy, a love letter to America, and a few other things that taken together don't fit in a 180-page book; and shoe-horns in the Tea Party, which really is a bit of evidence that he's wrong about where the U.S. is heading. But he is a fine writer, and an excellent thinker, so the time spent with him is both enjoyable and edifying; and, in its way, this is an important little manifesto.
Here Hannan is on the Hoover Institution/National Review Online's video series. It's a good six minutes, and a good little intro to his Alien-style "Keep away!" broadcast.
