Faux Utopia

During the last two presidential election cycles, we've been treated to various celebrities caterwauling about the state of America, how it's has decayed, "how this isn't the America I know!" and various other cries of indignation. Alec Baldwin said he'd move to France if Bush won in 2000, but never made good on the promise. Johnny Depp and Pierre Salinger did. Salinger is dead now, but Depp is alive and well. He's also leaving France due to the riots. I'm a fan of his work, but I think as a person he's a jerk-off. I also think he's a weak-ass American. But I'm sure he'll find his way back to Malibu or Tribeca soon enough. Ugh.

One of the ancillary benefits of the recent riots in France is that it has revealed that the socialist paradise of France is nothing more than an illusion. In the last two years, France has endured a heatwave that killed well over 10,000 elderly citizens of its republic, and more recently, went through a two-week violent gyration, courtesy of its disenfranchised North African (and mostly muslim) youth, who are currently enduring an unemployment rate of 30 plus percent for those under the age of 30. More than anything, what these two events have underlined is that socialism does not and cannot work. As for the first event, it has proven Alexis de Tocqueville's theory that, "once one becomes dependent on the government for survival, he is already dead". In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of senior citizens that live in Florida and Arizona, and like the heatwave that swept across France in the summer of 2003, temperatures routinely reach upwards of 100 degrees. But unlike France, everyone has an air conditioner, and thus do not fry to death. Why don't they have air conditioners in France? Chances are because a.) they don't have them in great supply because they're a protectionist government and don't allow a great deal of competition in their markets, thus curtailing emergency access to a large supply of them, and b.) their populace has grown so dependent on their government that they were rendered useless to themselves when their government couldn't come through for them. (Sidenote: It is still a source of amazement that this story didn't make headlines here in the States. If this isn't an example of liberal bias in the print press, I don't know what is.)

As for the riots, I applaud the muslim youths for their acts. It's high time somebody stuck it to the French, who can rightly be called the most racist society in Europe. Once again, protectionism and anti-free market policies have rendered jobs scarce in the private sector, and government jobs go to caucasian French, not North African ones. Proof once again that free enterprise is the most democratic mechanism in the world. France is dying, as is the rest of Western Europe. If they want to get themselves off life support and on their feet, they should abandon this ridiculous European Union idea, turn Europe into a free trade zone, destroy all the protectionism regulations, and open up their markets to foreign competition. Needless to say, they won't do that, but that's fine for us, so long as we don't have to bail them out a third (fourth, if you count the Cold War) time with our own blood and treasure.