Eurofascism? Can such things be? (From L'Ombre de l'Olivier, via Stephen Green.)

Here's what happened:

The European Court has quietly brushed aside 50 years of international case law in a landmark judgment on press freedom, ruling that Brussels does not have to comply with European human rights codes.

In a judgment with profound implications for civil liberties, Euro-judges backed efforts by the European Commission to obtain the computers, address books, telephone records and 1,000 pages of notes seized by Belgian police - on EU instructions - from Hans-Martin Tillack, the former Brussels correspondent of Germany's Stern magazine.

It is a test case of whether the European Court will adhere to the democratic freedoms and liberal principles upheld for the last half-century by Europe's top rights watchdog, the non-EU Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, or whether it will pursue a more authoritarian line as it grows in power.

It turns out Rifkin (an old colleague from Kerry's antiwar days) thinks the European Union is a model for America. He's written a book called The European Dream. From the book description:

With the dawn of the European Union, Europe has become an economic superpower in its own right-its GDP now surpasses that of the United States. Europe has achieved newfound dominance not by single-mindedly driving up stock prices, expanding working hours, and pressing every household into a double- wage-earner conundrum. Instead, the New Europe relies on market networks that place cooperation above competition; promotes a new sense of citizenship that extols the well-being of the whole person and the community rather than the dominant individual; and recognizes the necessity of deep play and leisure to create a better, more productive, and healthier workforce.

From the medieval era to modernity, Rifkin delves deeply into the history of Europe, and eventually America, to show how the continent has succeeded in slowly and steadily developing a more adaptive, sensible way of working and living. In The European Dream, Rifkin posits a dawning truth that only the most jingoistic can ignore: Europe's flexible, communitarian model of society, business, and citizenship is better suited to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the European Dream may come to define the new century as the American Dream defined the century now past.

Europe has a long history with the Better Way, and they're obviously way ahead of us.

It's interesting that the supporters of this nonsense are so quick to describe others as "fascists...."

We've seen their dream before, and it wasn't very pretty.

(I think I'll stick with the American Dream.)

NOTE: Justin has more on Rifkin here, and discussed his new book here.

UPDATE (10/21/04): In a piece called "We Are the World," Belmont Club's Wretchard analyzes this mindset:

NATO and the United Nations appear to be touchstones for the Democratic nominee, not just the troublesome hurdles that they appear to be to President Bush. In speeches over the years, Kerry repeatedly has denounced unilateral action.

Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."

This will be cause for joy among those who feel that on principle, America should subsume its national interest to a wider set of imperatives. 'America joins the world', 'No longer alone' is the ticket. The argument is based on a rejection of American "exceptionalism", and indeed the exceptionalism of any individual country or culture. If all cultures are equally valid then the US Constitution is nothing special; simply one arrangement among many and in fact perforce subordinate to a Universal Charter, in the way that a subset is necessarily contained in the superset. Any distaste is written off as sentimental attachment; a false ethnocentrism that will eventually join anthrocentrism and geocentrism in the wastebasket of old ideas. To necessity is added the force of inevitability. Iraq becomes a modern day Scopes Trial, the last hurrah of an insupportable conceit.

Nor is there anything to be alarmed at, we are assured. 'One World' may be a goal, but a distant goal, comfortably arrived at in stages. Nothing will be missed. Nothing essential really. It will all happen so gradually as to be imperceptible, except to bigots, who are always noticing something. The process will consist of a slow expansion of international understandings and a gradual diminution of individual action. Nations will habituate themselves to deferring to a Higher Good until it becomes unthinkable to do otherwise. We can take our time -- provided, and this is essential -- provided there are no questions about the eventual destination. It is breathtaking as a concept, and might be described as a second American Revolution; one we are witnessing now.