Camp Followers

November 14, 2007
6:01 AM CST

On one of my sojourns along a train of thought on the Intarweb, I wandered onto a branch line, and stumbled across the Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest") party of Belgium—generally regarded as a far-rightwing ultra-nationalist political party, and one which the Belgians have been moving heaven and earth to make disappear, either by laws or by financial strangulation.

It occurred to me, as I perused the VB’s political agenda, that very few of the planks made me nervous—but there are many caveats to that statement, and I’ll get to them in a moment.

It also occurred to me that there’s a lesson to be learned by studying the VB, and applying the lessons to the Ron Paul Movement. I’ll get to that in a moment, too.

First, however, let me give you all a quick summary of the VB’s main positions. (I’ve ignored some of the more parochial issues, by the way.)

• Independence for Flanders.—I’ve discussed this before, but basically, the VB wants to move away from the French-speaking (and French mentality of) Wallonia.
  
  
• Abolition of administrative and educational facilities for French speakers (translations on demand, bilingual road signs, teaching in French in primary schools) in the six municipalities that occupy the narrow area of Flanders territory between the southern boundary of Brussels and the border of Wallonia— This is one of the problems you get when you have an officially-bilingual country (see Rants passim).
  
  
• Deportation of all economic immigrants who fail to assimilate. Those immigrants who want political rights (the rights to vote, to hold elective office, and to hold civil service jobs) should apply for naturalization and forsake their foreign nationality.—Remember that non-citizens may vote in certain elections in Belgium. What the VB demands, reasonably I think, is that if you want to act like a citizen and get all the rights and benefits of being a citizen, you should become one, with all that entails.
  
  
• Opposition to the “Islamisation of Europe”, which Vlaams Belang views as a frightening historical process.—Here’s where it starts to get sticky. What VB is seeing is the disappearance of European (and specifically Belgian) customs and mores, and unending accommodation of Muslim demands by the Belgian authorities. It’s how they want to do this blocking that gives people the willies (see below).
  
  
• Blocking Turkey from joining the European Union.—They’re not alone. Opposition to Turkey’s joining the EU is found across the political spectrum, in lots of EU countries.
  
  
• Reform of the European Union by advocating a small European government and devolution of power to the Regions, so that competition between regions would lead to lower taxes.—Once again, not much to argue with there. VB regards the EU government as a “monster state”, and they’re not altogether wrong.
  
  
• Full and unconditional amnesty for people convicted after World War II for collaboration with Nazi Germany.—At first glance, this seems stupid, and wrong. VB claims, however, that the de-Nazification process in Belgium was often used as a figleaf to settle old political scores. I’m not going to comment, other than to say that I’m all for executing old Nazis, as long as they are genuinely old Nazis. VB does, however, have a point in that other EU countries, like Holland and France, have already passed such amnesty laws.
  
  
• Emulating the Dutch and German model, extend the law of self-defense to the defense of home, shop and property.—Right now, the Belgian model of self-defense is more like the British one, where the criminal may get a more favorable hearing from the courts than the victim. I’d prefer that the Belgians had a law of self-defense more like Florida’s, but that’s just me.
  
  
• Increased child benefits, including provisions which allow one parent, if both employed, to remain at home for the benefit of education for their child or children.—Can’t argue with this one. (I could argue against the principle of “benefits” per se, but Belgium already has one of the most liberal of benefit systems, so what VB recommends is simply the transference of money from one pocket to the other.)
  
  
• Opposition to the law enabling same-sex marriage, and opposition to the law proposal enabling adoption by same-sex couples.—Absolutely no argument from me on either (see Rants passim).
  
  
• Abortion to be allowed only in the case of rape or for medical reasons. Vlaams Belang wants to take care of unexpected pregnancies by an elaborated attendance and a relaxation of the adoption and foster parents laws.—Not much to argue with there, either. I’m a little more liberal than they are on the issue, but not that much more.
  
  
• Preservation of the current education system, which was rated by the 2003 Pisa Report as the best out of those reviewed.—Here’s where it starts to get really sticky. Basically, if you are a Flemish or French speaker, you will do well in Belgian schools. If you are not (the equivalent of ESL here in the U.S.), you do terribly, because the system insists on Flemish and French fluency. See where this is heading?
  
  
• Repeal of anti-racism and anti-discrimination legislation on the grounds of free speech.—At first glance, this sounds reasonable, especially as Belgium has some really stupid laws about “racist” speech, and overly-broad ones concerning discrimination, too. But as with the above, this is heading towards a dark path.
  
  
• Repeal the 2003 Belgian nuclear power exit by 2025 legislation.—This legislation was dreamed up by the Luddite anti-nuke morons, and basically says that using nuclear power is okay, but Belgium just shouldn’t generate nuclear power—basically, making Belgium dependent on France for their electricity. For the life of me, I can’t see much wrong with the VB position.
  
  
• Free market economic policies, such as limiting government intervention. It also advocates a simplified tax system, the flat tax, combined for social purposes with a significant zero taxation threshold to exempt low incomes from taxation.—Absolutely no problem with this one. Wish we could do some of that over here.
  
  
• Reform of the pension system based upon investment funds instead of the present redistribution system.—This would be a version of the “Chilean” model they want to install. I should point out that the current U.S. Social Security program is a redistributionist one (current obligations are met by current income from taxes), so once again, I can’t argue with the VB position at all, especially as their pension system is the worst in Europe, fiscally speaking.
  
  
• Abolition of the Belgian trade unions’ unique pay counter function for unemployment benefits, to step up the trade unions’ global interest in creating employment.—This is a sop to the VB’s major constituency (see below). I don’t agree with it, but I can see why they espouse it.
  
  

Here’s what you should know about the VB’s supporters. Apart from the Flemish nationalists, who are found across the socio-economic spectrum, the main source of VB’s support comes from low-income workers, who are the ones most threatened by the influx of cheap foreign labor from both within the EU (Eastern Europe) and without (Muslim countries, especially Turkey, if they get into the EU). It’s job protection, pure and simple. (I should point out that South African apartheid was also supported by a similar group (who were not all Afrikaners), for more or less the same reasons.)

But if you look at the above, you might easily think that I am a supporter of Vlaams Belang. I’m not, even though some of their positions are extremely attractive, because I have a sneaking suspicion that the enactment and enforcement of their policies would not be so pretty.

Okay, so that’s the end of the Belgian political lesson. Now it’s time for a local one.

As you’ve seen, the problem with the VB is that their policies seem reasonable, and indeed a lot are praiseworthy, empirically speaking.

However, it should be noted that their banner has also attracted a whole slew of really unsavory people—real Nazis, skinheads, racist thugs and the like—who have used the VB’s oh-so-reasonable platform to mask their own agenda.

If by now you’ve noted the parallels between this situation and that pertaining to Ron Paul’s campaign, go to the head of the class.

Paul’s platform is also appealing, on so many levels, if you look at them empirically.

• Strong support for the Second Amendment, and a strictly-constructionist approach to the Constitution in general.—No argument from me on most of that, especially the 2A part.
  
  
• Disdain for the United Nations, and suspicion of the UN’s motives.—I’ve made no secret that I’d like the U.S. to leave the U.N. (or at least reduce our funding), and the U.N. to move out of America, to (say) Geneva, or Burundi.
  
  
• Disdain for an ever-stronger federal government, and a desire to rein it in.—Yup, few people hate Big Gummint more than I do, and would prefer more power to be devolved downwards—until some state wants to shoot homosexualists or reintroduce slavery.
  
  
• Weariness of “foreign entanglements”, and a fear of “foreign wars”.—Nazzo fast, Guido. I happen to love the idea of foreign wars, when their goal is to depose tyrants, secure strategic minerals for ourselves, protect our trade (whch means the world’s trade) and spread our ideals across the world (call it “Manifest Destiny” if you want). And my support for Israel is unconditional, and eternal, especially when I regard the people who hate Israel.
  
  
• Desire to “simplify” our monetary system and abolish the Federal Reserve.—Except we can’t go back to the gold standard or the barter system. Even though I agree that a fiat monetary system is flawed, it’s flawed like democracy: bad, except for all the other replacement options.
  
  
• Eliminate income tax and the IRS.—Oh be still, my beating heart. Except, of course, that abolishing the income tax is like stalking Sophia Loren—shouldn’t be done, no matter how desirable the idea seems at the time. I happen to like carrier groups and interstate highways, and without some taxation, we can’t have either.
  
  

So you can see that I, and many Americans, would support some of Paul’s positions, at least in part.

But just as the Belgian Vlaams Belang attracts an unsavory crowd, so too does the Ron Paul movement: anarchists, anti-militarists, nihilists, separatists and so on, all find something to like about Ron Paul, and this motley crowd coexists, for the moment, with constititionalists, moderate libertarians and small-government conservatives who (mistakenly, I think) can be found in the Paul camp.

The biggest difference between the Vlaams Belang and the Ron Paul campaign, however, is that most of the leaders of the VB are not extremists—their positions are defensible, and reasonable—but the plain fact is that ultra-rightwingers are attracted to VB, and are responsible for generating a lot of the opposition to the VB.

In the case of Ron Paul, however, he himself is an extremist nutjob, and so are most of his followers. I’m not going to go into details, but I’ll just point to one of his opinions: the Israel/Zionist “lobby”, the “neocons”, and all the polite little terms he uses to sidestep his belief that the Jooooos run our foreign policy (and the world’s banking system) blah blah blah. Now, Paul may believe that for the purest of motives ("foreign entanglements"), but the fact of the matter is that a huge number of feral anti-Semitic bastards have the same views, just for different reasons.

No matter how seductive his words may sound, in other words, you have to look at the whole picture, and most especially the consequences of having a Paulist as POTUS.

Those consequences would not be pretty, although VB hottie Anke Vandermeesch certainly is.

Voting and Elections