We surrender…

The French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine has accused the US of acting according to self-interest on such issues as Kyoto, globalization, and missile defense. Ummm… no merde we’re going to act according to self-interest. That’s what nations do. Of course, unless we’re saving some ungrateful Frogs from being overrun by the Germans… twice.

The Gaullist gall of M. Védrine is beyond reproach. This is a campaign motived less by a response against "American economic and cultural hegemony" and more about jelousy for the expansive American economy. While the European Union has been doing all it can to subjugate themselves to an unaccountable bureaucracy based in Brussels, the US has enjoyed the kind of freedom only allowed in a system where private enterprise is valued and encouraged. Europe is in a serious decline as the ability to create and maintain wealth is falling to a corrupt system of socialist entitlements. The US should not follow suit just to please those who are fiddling while Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, and Berlin burn.