Autumn 1989 was one of the most exciting times in decades. The Berlin Wall, symbol of communist tyranny, was pulled down, bringing freedom to East Germany. Other Eastern European “satellite” states of the Soviet Union — Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary among them — also achieved their freedom. People who had been enslaved under communism for 40 […]
Environment lesser issue to worry about
Freedom New Mexico Political and economic realities threaten the Obama administration and the European Union’s mutual quest to combat global warming. Temperatures aren’t helping much, either. Globally the warming trend effectively ended more than a decade ago. These inconvenient facts don’t bode well for December’s climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where campaigners against global warming […]
European tax laws inhibit growth
By Walter Williams: Syndicated columnist Some Americans look to European countries such as France, Germany and its Scandinavian neighbors and suggest that we adopt some of their economic policies. I agree, we should look at Europe for the lessons they can teach us. Dr. Daniel Mitchell, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, does just that […]
Self-censorship threatening Europe
By Mona Charen: Syndicated columnist As Danish embassies and European Union offices smolder in Beirut, Damascus, Gaza and Tehran — the result of a junior varsity jihad — the time could not be more apt for Bruce Bawer’s “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,” due out at the end […]
Russian gas cutoff shrewd political move
Freedom Newspapers To some people the decision by Russia last week to cut off natural gas to Ukraine for what ended up being 48 hours was simply mysterious. To others it was essentially a commercial transaction, with Russia (or its 51-percent state-owned natural gas monopoly) simply getting more money from the Ukraine. Still others saw […]
Christianity integral part of culture
By Mona Charen They stood in a line that stretched at least a mile, sometimes 30 abreast. Huddled in blankets in the evening cold, and gratefully accepting bottled water from priests patrolling the line during the hot daylight hours, the mourners — who wanted one last glimpse of Pope John Paul II — waited patiently […]
Idealism needs to be tempered with realism
CNJ staff After two years of rough going with our friends in Europe, President Bush’s trip there this week has begun smoothing things over. He doesn’t have the mischievous charm of former President Clinton, but Bush still has impressed Europeans with his own Texas quasi-cowboy persona. These things are not trivial in international relations. On […]
European Union is not growing old gracefully
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a certain sort of proud U.S. triumphalism was in vogue in intellectual circles. Our victory in the Cold War was seen as proof that after a long struggle between competing worldviews, American values had emerged supreme, and we were on our way to a planet in which liberal […]