Everyone Stay Calm, Ya'll--And Remember Why Brexit Is The Correct Path Forward

This video from Daniel Hannan, filmed at Oxford Union earlier this year, is an eloquent reminder of what faces the EU -- and the US -- in our present world. Hannan is a solid conservative (lower case 'c') as well as a Tory member of the EU Parliament. This is well worth viewing.

It's fascinating to hear him say the very same things (in his plummy Oxbridge command of English) that The Donald and (to some extent) The Bernie are saying.

Great quotes throughout, and for his command of English and logic.



The Masters of Europe, beginning with Junker and Merkel, are well and goodly enraged by the decision of the British people. They have zero interest in the opinion and wishes of folks on the ground. The Austrians came within a bare whisker of overturning the Establishment politicos, and the French and Spanish are itching to have the opportunity to vote on the question themselves.

Hannan rightly calls the EU a 'cartel', and cartels always lead to poverty and failure, and sometimes war.

So, everybody, stay calm, and stay on course. Ya'll did the right thing, UK cousins, and you will prosper as they stagnate, in every way.

Offer Something Better: Daniel Hannan, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson

If only we could lease Daniel Hannan to serve here--oh well...

But we can pay heed to him.

Donald Trump has become the master at expressing and harnessing the free-floating anger of a great portion of American society. He's really really really good at his craft.

But OS observes this: Great performers and writers are great because they are really really really good at that craft. Why do people buy tickets to hear a favorite performer--likely because that person says what the purchaser wishes he possessed the ability to express himself. Think of James Taylor, Paul Simon, Elton John, Billy Joel, Sting, Beyonce, The Beatles...playwrights such as Neil Simon...actors such as Tom Hanks or Al Pacino or Meryl Streep. We identify because they tell us our own stories, and we all have our own list of favorites. They are valuable and wonderful, but for the most part do not do well at Being In Charge Of Things. They hire managers!

True, Trump is successful in the business of being The Donald, and leveraging it to huge advantage. But this job, The Presidency, may not fit him well.

It is important that someone give voice to the great frustrations that now beset us, and for that--if nothing else--Donald Trump has become a seriously important figure in the culture, and hats off to him.

That does not mean he will make a good President. Does he, as DanHan urges, offer Something Better? OS is not convinced he does, past his ability to articulate anger at this point in history. He may be our modern William Jennings Bryan, who never won the office, but still made a significant impact upon the culture.

OS urges his readers to read Daniel Hannan's essay and then quietly consider what life could look like with Dr. Ben Carson at the helm.

Carson is one of the most successful neurosurgeons in history, which means he has a vigorous intellect, a well-disciplined intellect, and no shortage of courage. Would you be willing to spend your workdays drilling into skulls and spines, knowing even a small mishap could ruin the patient's life?

He knows to how to look at dreadful problems and craft solutions to them. He knows to assemble and work with teams of bright people. He knows that his decisions affect many lives for good and ill. He knows how to think long-term. He knows that, as well as he may prepare, once the patient is opened up, he may have to adjust his plans in accordance with the reality that confronts him. He knows there is a God, and Ben Carson is not Him. He knows that science matters.

He also knows how to deliver really bad news, when what the patient and family most desperately wish to hear is good news. Some patients die, even with the best surgeons on the job. The next President will need that particular ability, OS cautions, as the chickens of the past fifty years or so truly come home to roost.

OS believes Ben Carson offers Something Better, which is why he sends what shekels he can in the good doctor's direction.

As valuable a voice as Donald Trump is, OS is not at all certain he is our best option.

The Poster That Says All That Needs Saying About The EU

Amazing...or not really, these days. DanHan weighs in.

Take a close look at this promotional poster. Notice anything? Alongside the symbols of Christianity, Judaism, Jainism and so on is one of the wickedest emblems humanity has conceived: the hammer and sickle.


For three generations, the badge of the Soviet revolution meant poverty, slavery, torture and death. It adorned the caps of the chekas who came in the night. It opened and closed the propaganda films which hid the famines. It advertised the people's courts where victims of purges and show-trials were condemned. It fluttered over the re-education camps and the gulags. For hundreds of millions of Europeans, it was a symbol of foreign occupation. Hungary, Lithuania and Moldova have banned its use, and various  former communist countries want it to be treated in the same way as Nazi insignia.
Yet here it sits on a poster in the European Commission, advertising the moral deafness of its author (I hope that's what it is, rather than lingering nostalgia). 

The Bolshevist sigil celebrates the ideology which, in strict numerical terms, must be reckoned the most murderous ever devised by our species. That it can be passed unremarked day after day in the corridors of Brussels is nauseating.

Remember, ya'll. This is the organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. 

This organization drinks from the same philosophical waters as the US Democrat party.

Something terribly wrong is at large.

Romney Picks Ryan: Three Cheers For The Geeks

Think about it, ya'll. If this country ever needed grown-ups in charge, it's now. These past four years have shown us what happens when we hand over management of the Republic to narcissistic children.

Is Romney exciting? No. Which may be a really good thing. He's actually kind of geeky.

Paul Ryan? No thrill up the leg, but he does know how to do math, and honestly folks, that's what we need.

Daniel Hannan, wrting about us from afar, says encouraging words about Ryan, and shares this video:




Since 1992, we've had Bubbah, George Dubyah, and Himself. That's twenty years of serious mismanagement. Time to hire grownups, and see if they can't right the ship.

In the meantime, OS is giving his shekels to conservatives at the state house level, and to conservatives running to unseat leftist incumbents. The state house people are our last line of defense, and it would be good to see a few more like Jesse Jackson Jr depart the scene from Washington.

DanHan: Comes A Point When You Run Out Of Track...

OS watched in horror a few years ago as Clarkson and the boys undertook their ill-advised journey through Florida, across the Gulf Coast, terminating their travels in NawLeenz. It got so ugly, so quickly.

There was, however, a truly funny moment when the boys were told they were to engage in the classic timed quarter-mile straight sprint in their junker cars, on a track that was only a quarter-mile plus about fifty yards. At yard fifty-one lay the ditch full of alligators.

Fahr-'em-up boyz!! And off they went, with brakes that were definitely not up to the task. No one was injured, blessedly, but things ended badly for one of the cars, if memory serves.

This episode is not unlike what we now see happening in both the United States and Europe. February 2012 was the highest monthly deficit this nation has ever recorded, in over two hundred years since the Constitution was ratified. The Senate will not pass a budget. The White House is a runaway freight train.

This can only end badly, and OS, in his darker moments, wonders if perhaps folks in the White House have some sort of train-over-the-cliff moment in mind for us all. It explains their behavior, when nothing else will.

Meanwhile, DanHan (as always) states the case succinctly. OS does wish we could lease this gent for a couple of decades. Sort of a reverse Lend-Lease back to Great Britain. We'll even give them Puerto Rico in the bargain, since we took some islands from them in the 1940's.

'When We Are Optimistic, We Win': Daniel Hannan at CPAC 2012

OS hopes every American (and all who are our friends from around the world) will take time to view this wonderful address by a future Prime Minister of Great Britain.

The Broker At The Local Diner And DanHan Both Come To The Same Conclusion

OS recently treated The Sainted Mrs. OS to Saturday brunch at the local diner on Main Street, and they passed part of their time in conversation with a local broker who has strong family ties in Europe.

OldSamTheBroker told us, 'Europe is headed for a dictatorship, it's inevitable.' There was no joy in his voice.

Daniel Hannan comes to the same conclusion in today's Telegraph.

No joy in his voice, either.

Merkel's campaign for a 'New Europe' echoes much the same propoganda employed in the 1930's and '40's. She's not a crazed messianic little guy with a mustache, to be certain, and there's no intent to equate her with him.

However,  the temptation to reassemble a Greater Europe seems to never lie far from the door. 

By the way, this can only end in tears, math being what it is.

Number 438 (Daniel Hannan) Gives Voice To What The EU Refuses To Hear--'You're About To Find Out'

Need to create a football cheer here, ya'll:

Gimme a big 4! FOOOUR!

Gimme a big 3! THREEEEE!

Gimme a big 8! EEEEIIIIIGGGHHHHT!

Wha'duz'THAT spell?

TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH! TRUTH!




Go, Dan! Go, Dan! Go, Dan!

Daniel Hannan: The EU As Homer Simpson

If we could just amend the Constitution to allow us to lease DanHan for eight years...

His analogy of Homer to the GreatAndGood of Europe is priceless. It applies to the GreatAndGood on this side of the pond as well.

Enjoy--only about a minute long.

Green Shoots Nominee: Timo Soini And True Finns Party

Dan Hannan waxes eloquent about friend Timo Soini, leader of the True Finns, who recently told Europe to take a hike, refusing to bail out its reckless bankers with their taxes.


DanHan refers to Soini's WSJ editorial, which is a cheerful explanation of the pernicious practices that occur when bankers and politicians get together to perform a gang-rape on the citizenry.

When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the bailouts of euro-zone member states. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. Unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body.

To understand the real nature and purpose of the bailouts, we first have to understand who really benefits from them.

At the risk of being accused of populism, we'll begin with the obvious: It is not the little guy who benefits. He is being milked and lied to in order to keep the insolvent system running. He is paid less and taxed more to provide the money needed to keep this Ponzi scheme going. Meanwhile, a symbiosis has developed between politicians and banks: Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.

In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Instead of accepting losses on unsound investments—which would have led to the probable collapse of some banks—it was decided to transfer the losses to taxpayers via loans, guarantees and opaque constructs such as the European Financial Stability Fund.

In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Soini understands, and states, the obvious. Why won't our politicians do likewise?

Further, he notes:

This is not just about economics. People feel betrayed. In Ireland, the incoming parties to the new government promised to hold senior bondholders responsible, but under pressure they succumbed, leaving their voters with a sense of disenfranchisement. The elites in Brussels have said that Finland must honor its commitments to its European partners, but Brussels is silent on whether national politicians should honor their commitments to their own voters.

This is not just about economics.

Green Shoots nomination for Timo, ya'll. He gets it. Here's hoping Finland ends up being the real-life Mouse That Roared. All it take for a Ponzi scheme to collapse is for one of the victims to scream bloody murder and refuse to play. After that, it's just a matter of time.

Daniel Hannan: You Deserve Better, Cousins...

OS is certain that Establishment thought in the UK finds Dan Hannan infuriating. Which means he's probably correct in his assessments of the situation, on the whole.

This latest essay in the Wall Street Journal will probably only fuel their anger.

On a U.S. talk-radio show recently, I was asked what I thought about the notion that Barack Obama had been born in Kenya. "Pah!" I replied. "Your president was plainly born in Brussels."

American conservatives have struggled to press the president's policies into a meaningful narrative. Is he a socialist? No, at least not in the sense of wanting the state to own key industries. Is he a straightforward New Deal big spender, in the model of FDR and LBJ? Not exactly.

My guess is that, if anything, Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do. He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

He is not pursuing a set of random initiatives but a program of comprehensive Europeanization: European health care, European welfare, European carbon taxes, European day care, European college education, even a European foreign policy, based on engagement with supranational technocracies, nuclear disarmament and a reluctance to deploy forces overseas.

He's spot-on, once again. The whole article is well worth the time spent.

His Telegraph blog can be found here.

Sense of Events: Obama is neither Kenyan nor Hawaiian

Sense of Events: Obama is neither Kenyan nor Hawaiian

Donald Sensing is dead on target, answering the final question of OS's previous post.

Pearson's Resignation As Head Of UKIP: Perhaps We Could Lease Him?

Dan Hannan is one of the most skilled writers out there, and OS is cheering for him to move into 10 Downing Street one fine day, for the sake of us all.

His thoughts on the resignation of Lord Pearson from the leadership of the UKIP are good food for thought, on both sides of the pond.

We truly do need more Pearsons, and not one more Barney Frank, in our public life.

Years ago, as Lady Thatcher retired, there was tongue-in-cheek comment that we here in the US should lease her for eight years service in the White House. Whatever the rent, we should pay. Solve the UK's deficit of payments, and put our house in order at the same stroke.

So, how do we lease Pearson? And Hannan? Obviously not for President, since they're not native-born US citizens, but for some role in our public life, somewhere beside the talking-head and lecture circuit.

“Sometimes, the word ‘voluntary’ is a little complicated...': Cass Sundstein, Obama's Minister Of Information

Daniel Hannan (you DO read Daniel Hannan, don't you?), wryly noted Cass Sundstein's latest quote:

“The site’s of one point of view agree to provide links to sites of the other point of view. So if you’re reading a conservative magazine, they would provide a link to a liberal site. And vice versa, just to make it easy for people to access to competing views.

Or maybe a popup on your screen that would show you an advertisement or maybe even a quick argument for a competing view.

If we could get voluntary arrangements in that direction, it would be great and if we can’t get voluntary arrangements maybe Congress should hold hearings about mandates.”

When queried on the word 'voluntary', his response was (wait for it!)...

“Sometimes, the word ‘voluntary’ is a little complicated…”

Here's a more complete account, to which the great Hannan refers.

Now, this, friends and neighbors is something to raise unshirted hell about.

This is something to tell your Congressman about, and your friends, and the folks at church, and the teller at the bank. I mentioned it just now to the sainted Mrs. OS, who is not overtly political, and she was stunned.

Obama and company are going after Freedom of Speech. No doubt about it.

OS notes that he has one regular reader from Washington D.C., and another from the D.C. suburbs. Given that there are a lot of people in that part of the world with computers, he hasn't paid that much attention.

But, just in case he's being monitored for political content, here's a message for that creepy person: Screw you. If you think you and yours are going to get away with it, you're deluded. There will be no place to run and hide that you won't be found, if you attempt to suppress speech.

Screw.

You.

Three Cheers For #365: Daniel Hannan, Keynes, And St. Matthew In The European Parliament

Well, maybe pigs do sprout wings! Dan Hannan speaks kind words about Keynes, which draws a chuckle from the chair, and then proceeds to teach basic economic and political realities from the pages of Holy Scripture, which draws more of a chuckle from the chair--applause and smiles from the folks around him.

Of course, he quoted from the Authorized Version, and referred to Jesus of Nazareth as 'Our Lord', and cheerily assumed the chair knew the story of Jesus being questioned about taxation.

It's a wonderful performance, a classic. You can feel him twist the intellectual knife into the ribs of the Euro, using the eternal truth of the Savior's words.

Priceless.

Hot-damn! If only we could rent this guy out for a couple of decades. He would set us straight, or at least remind us how to be brave in public again, and how to use truth set to words to skewer the socialists.

Hannan's History Lesson On The Tea Party

A bit of a history lesson from Dan Hannan, who lends his Oxford-educated perspective to the Tea Parties: the one in Boston in 1773, the movement that has arisen here in the past year, and the one just underway back in Great Britain.

The American Revolution, in other words, was inspired by British political philosophy and – more to the point – by British political practice. American patriots saw themselves as part of a continuing British tradition, stretching back through the Glorious Revolution, back through the agitations of Pym and Hampden, back even through the Great Charter to the folkright of Anglo-Saxon common law.

We here owe so much to those who risked everything for freedom, the ones who stayed behind when our ancestors debarked for America.

Three cheers, if distant and delayed.  

The Brighton UK Tea Party--SRO And More

Dan Hannan (the man we need to lease for eight years), reports an SRO turnout to the UK's kickoff Tea Party.

Let's hope they have time to rev things up by the May election.  One thing working in their favor is the relatively small geographic size of the UK--about the size of our state of Illinois.

Wishing ya'll well over there.  Take courage. The citizenry have the US Congress sweating bullets in anticipation of November 2010.  A lot of them have bailed out, including the Democrat congressman in this district. This guy wouldn't even announce meetings with constituents in advance last summer, he was that afraid of what he would encounter.

Make your voice heard. It's OK to get a bit loud, just can't be violent. Loud, vociferous, with a sense of humor works well. Laugh those fools out of office.

And this will give you a bit of ammunition...

Revive Lend-Lease: Daniel Hannan For President

Back in the darkest days of WWII, when England stood alone, Roosevelt lacked the Constitutional authority to enter the war without the Congress(those were the days!), and Churchill desperately needed ships for the fleet. The US had spare destroyers, and the British had ports in the Caribbean and Canada. So, a swap was arranged. Destroyers for ports. As all such transactions that occurred between the US and England, it was terribly unequally weighted in the favor of Uncle Sam, but Churchill's back was against the wall. The program was dubbed 'Lend-Lease', and it proved helpful.

Well, OldSouth proposes we right that terrible injustice. We are as desperately in need of sane leadership as England was in need of destroyers. The UK has Dan Hannan.

We've got huge reserves of coal, natural gas, copper, and Disneyworld. Hell's-bells, we'll even throw in Bill and Hilary, a couple of disgraced New York governors, and half of the Screen Actors Guild. They're out of work anyway.

As this little snippet illuminates, Dan Hannan has a lot better understanding of the US Constitution than our PeopleInCharge.

We shouldn't let the fact that he was born in Chile and holds a UK passport be any sort of impediment...

The Tea Party Movement Launches In England This Saturday

This comes to us from Daniel Hannan, who OS hopes to meet one fine day, and convince him to allow the US to lease him for a decade or so. Fond hope...

The Tea Party launches in the UK this weekend.

They're even serving tea, in the great British tradition.

Three cheers from your American cousins!

OS has to go earn his keep...moh' latuh'.

Dan Hannan Visits D.C.

Dan Hannan in fine form!

Little need be added, just a strong encouragement to listen and take his words to heart.