I have created a new category called French Bashing. The next few days I will be going back and finding my posts related to that category and add 'em to it.
Steven Den Beste is probably one of the most intelligent and best writers in the Blogosphere. Also, I have written him on occasion and he has always taken the time to respond which also makes him a great guy in my book. He even published one of my letters and commented on it. We share many views altho' I am a bit more conservative or libertarian (with a small l) than he is. Thus, even tho' I'm not one to gloat (yeah. That'll be the day), I'm glad to see that one of his latest posts agrees with an e-mail I sent to him a while back:
In regards to France being against the war, possibly it is because of their large Muslim population and the fear of riots and terrorism. Chirac has to know that we are going to war no matter what France says. Maybe he thinks that if he opposes the war, the Muslims will not riot. I think I read somewhere that Muslims make up 20% of the population.
His reply that if that were the case, the French would be stationing soldiers and police around the Muslim neighborhoods in anticipation of that made sense at the time. Being an engineer, he was basing his opinion on facts in evidence at the time. Little did he realize that not only were the French good at surrendering to other nations, they were even better at surrendering to their own citizens.
I think I'm older than Den Beste and have been observing the French and their backstabbing duplicity much longer than he has. I remember growing up in the 50's and asking my father why the French hated us so much. His reply was that it was human nature to hate someone to whom you owe a lot. After all, we saved their asses in two world wars (three counting the Cold War). Yeah. Yeah. I know, they helped us out in the Revolutionary War but that was more to hinder England that it was to help us, but we were grateful. And we were a damn sight more grateful to them than they have ever been to us. We paid our debt in WWI and our soldiers said when entering WWI, 'Lafayette, we are here!'
We had many brave young Americans die on the beaches of Normandy to free France from Germany. And we spent a lot of money rebuilding France after WWII. We also rebuilt Germany. Has there ever been a country in the history of this planet that has spent so much money rebuilding the economies of defeated enemies? And these were economies that would later compete with us.
And of course,, that trend continues. While we were waging war in Afghanistan, we were dropping food to the citizens. Right behind our troops in Iraq were aid trucks with food and water.
But back to France. France is like an old whore who time has passed by. She likes to think that if she puts on enough makeup and foundation garments and the room is dark, she can still be successful. But all the makeup and girdles cannot hide the fact that she is an old washed up whore.
As Den Beste points out
Since the American revolution, France has been convulsed by political unrest and has gone through several kings and two emperors, not to mention five republics and two periods of foreign military occupation (or three or four, depending on how you count).
Hey Matthew, if you're still around, do you understand now why we Americans hate being lectured to by the French? Your last years of glory were in the 19th Century. France has been putting on makeup and trying to convince the world that she is still beautiful but everyone knows that France is a washed up old whore that will sell herself to anyone for anything as long as the price is right.
The economy sucks. Business is shackled by gummint mandates. More Den Beste:
So, for instance, it's nearly impossible under French labor law to lay employees off during an economic downturn. The theory behind this was that it would lead to a larger workforce. The reality is that it forces businessmen to tune their hiring for the worst economic conditions they might face instead of the best ones, and thus they don't aggressively hire during booms for fear of being stuck with excess employees during a bust.
The French economy is nearly stagnant. Most of the job creation during the last 25 years has been in government employment, not in the private sector. Taxes are too high and the regulatory burden too great; entrepreneurs are being given no incentive to create jobs, and as a result they aren't doing it.
The French gummint's response was to mandate a 35 hour (or was it 32 hour?)work week hoping that would make companies hire more workers.
Listen to me carefully. Socialism has eventually failed everywhere it has been tried.
France is now trying to accomplish politically via the European Union, what it failed to do militarily during the 19th Century. What the rest of Europe fails to realize (Listen up Tony Blair) is if France does come to dominate the European Union, it will take all of Europe down the drain with it.
Back during the Cold War, the United States was in favor of the EU because a European super state would have been a good defense against the Soviet Union and would have also been a good European counterweight to the Soviets. Now, however, with the growing socialism in Europe, the EU has a real good chance of being another Soviet Union but without a military. The bad thing is France does have nuclear weapons and a radical Islamic state with nukes is a nightmare.
Maybe all this talk about invading France next wouldn't be a bad idea.
Hey Brian, I just did a whole post without once saying fuck.
Posted by denny at April 19, 2003 01:08 PM Category: French Bashing