Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 7, 2011

During a recent summit of European leaders in Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented a stark and ominous assessment of the continent?s ever-deepening debt crisis.

?Nobody should take for granted another 50 years of peace and prosperity in Europe,? Merkel observed. ?If the euro fails, Europe fails. We have a historical obligation: To protect by all means Europe?s unification process begun by our forefathers after centuries of hatred and bloodshed.?

The project of European integration actually began three centuries ago. In 1712, a political philosopher named St. Pierre devised a plan for ?perpetual peace.? In his model, political leaders would create what he called a ?European Union? in which heads of state would pool their sovereignty for the dual purpose of preventing international conflict and putting down domestic unrest. That design was embraced by both revolutionaries, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and reactionaries, such as the architects of the system that emerged from the 1815 Congress of Vienna.

Every variation on this system is based upon the idea that centralizing political authority and expanding the power to tax and regulate is the only alternative to bloodshed. Merkel?s warning underscores the growing likelihood that this centuries-old project will end in both tyranny and bloodshed.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.