Why isn’t Europe as great as it once was? On “The Andrew Klavan Show” Tuesday, host Andrew Klavan explained that one of the reasons Europe has declined is its adoption of socialism. In even more dramatic fashion, Central and South America are feeling the devastating consequences of a more aggressive socialism. With the rise of “Democratic Socialism” in the U.S., Klavan asked, are we next?
“Europe as it was, the great Europe, the thing we think about when we think about Europe — it’s dead, it’s gone,” said Klavan. “The Europe of Michelangelo, the Europe of Mozart, the Europe of Shakespeare, the Europe of John Locke, the Europe that changed the world, that Europe is gone.” While it may experience some form of “rebirth,” like Greece through the Roman Empire, he said, “right now Europe is dead, and the reason it’s dead and the way it died is socialism.”
The reason socialism destroys countries, he said, is that it “takes God out of the equation.”
“Socialism kills countries, it takes God out of the equation — and without God countries die,” he said. “It takes 70 years — for 70 years everybody’s happy because decadence is great, especially for the elite, decadence really works well for the elite. But finally after 70 years, about a generation, you have a country that’s bled of its spirit, bled of its history, estranged from its history, estranged from its patriotism. Nothing important is coming out of Europe any more, and like I said, it may reinvent itself, but socialism is what does it.”
Video and transcript below:
Europe as it was, the great Europe, the thing we think about when we think about Europe — it’s dead, it’s gone. The Europe of Michelangelo, the Europe of Mozart, the Europe of Shakespeare, the Europe of John Locke, the Europe that changed the world, that Europe is gone. It may have another new birth like Greece did after the Greek Empire fell, it became sort of a client state of Rome, but it still was feeding Roman intellect, the great doctors came from Greece, that may happen to Europe in a new Imperial age — which I actually do foresee coming, though not for a while. That may happen to Europe, but right now Europe is dead, and the reason it’s dead and the way it died is socialism.
Socialism kills countries, it takes God out of the equation — and without God countries die. It takes 70 years — for 70 years everybody’s happy because decadence is great, especially for the elite, decadence really works well for the elite. But finally after 70 years, about a generation, you have a country that’s bled of its spirit, bled of its history, estranged from its history, estranged from its patriotism. Nothing important is coming out of Europe any more, and like I said, it may reinvent itself, but socialism is what does it.
While this is happening, I mean this is the crazy thing, the Democrats are now moving to the left – they are becoming socialists. Now some people are warning against it, Joe Lieberman had a piece I think in The Wall Street Journal where he said “don’t vote for Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you know they’re trying to stop the slide, but that’s where the action is, that’s where the power is. What’s really interesting to me about this is that the people who are screaming about Russia collusion, Mary O’Grady had a piece about this yesterday, I think the people who are screaming about Russia collusion – the Democrats – are the same people who have supported the place where Russia is really harming us. Russia isn’t harming us with hacking and all this. I mean they do some damage, but come on, that’s not what really affects our elections. They’re not really very powerful, Russia’s not really very powerful in Europe. The one place where you can still see a lot of Russian influence is in Central and South America, and there they have been very destructive. Usually they work through Cuba, and remember how the left was cheering when Obama went to Cuba? “Oh how wonderful!” Barbara Walters went over and said “Fidel Castro, what a lovely guy.” You know, one of the reporters, the lefty reporter, was sleeping with Castro. I mean this guy has a worse record of locking up journalists and locking up dissidents than even Putin has, and Putin’s record is bad, but Putin is supporting Castro’s efforts in South America and Central America. We know what’s happening with Venezuela, they’re basically on the verge of absolute collapse. The inflation rate is a gazillion percent or whatever it is, their money is becoming worthless, the people are eating, you know, catching animals to eat in the street, they’re eating garbage, and this is a country where lunch grows on the trees pal. This is a country that should be thriving, it had oil, it had everything, and while everybody was applauding it fell apart.
But now Nicaragua is also one of these governments, these socialist governments have been implanted by and supported by Cuba, which is in turn supported by Russia. If you want to talk about Russian meddling, if you want to talk about Russian collusion, that’s where it’s going on. In Nicaragua right now, Daniel Ortega – and let’s remember Daniel Ortega was the sweetheart of the left, okay, do not forget this. Bernie Sanders loved him some Daniel Ortega, Bill de Blasio in New York loved him some Daniel Ortega, John Kerry loved Daniel Ortega. Listen, on the right in South and Central America there have been tyrants, so sometimes the United States has found itself supporting tyrants to keep the Communists out, and that was especially important during the Cold War, right, because Russia was trying to take the place over, take the world over. That was the point of the Soviet Union’s slave Empire — it was to enslave the entire world so even when we had to support bad guys like we did with the Contras, we were supporting them to keep the Communists out.
You know if you go back, and some people don’t remember Ronald Reagan, we think of him as this terrific president which he was, but his worst scandal was this thing called the Iran-Contra scandal. It’s still unclear whether Reagan himself had anything to do with it, but people in his administration were trying to funnel arms to the Contras in Nicaragua to keep Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas out. The reason they had to break the law to do it was the Democrats had passed a law saying “you cannot support this government, we want Daniel Ortega in there.” Again, both sides were bad, but the Communists were worse because the Communists were the long arm of the Soviet Union. That’s why we were doing it, the Democrats were supporting it, they still supported Ortega. Three months ago, Nicaragua exploded. Is this being covered? No of course not, and Ortega has set loose his forces, they call them the “paramilitaries” — when you hear “paramilitary” these are his guys, there was a tax increase. But you know what it is, it’s Ortega is constructing a regime that will last past his death. He’s gonna hand it on to his wife, he’s basically becoming King.
When I talk about socialism being slavery, that’s not hyperbole. Because I understand you think, “well it works in some countries.” It’s always slavery, and all ideas eventually expand to fulfill their own logic. When you say that the money you save, the time you spent working belongs to the state, ultimately the state becomes everything. It usually takes about 70 years, but usually it becomes a tyranny.