{"id":79218,"date":"2002-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/the-new-gleichschaltung\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T08:32:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:32:16","slug":"the-new-gleichschaltung","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/article\/the-new-gleichschaltung\/","title":{"rendered":"The new Gleichschaltung"},"content":{"rendered":"

L<\/font>ast month, we reported in this space on the European Union\u2019s so-called \u201cdocument police.\u201d This new-age constabulary can walk without warning, and without a warrant, into any business in search of evidence of \u201cprice fixing and abuse of market power.\u201d As if this proto-totalitarian policy were not bad enough, the EU<\/font>\u2019s anti-trust investigators are seeking to expand their powers. For example, they want to be able to search\u2014again without warning or a warrant\u2014the homes of business executives suspected of malfeasance and to question employees without granting them the right to remain silent or the right to an attorney.<\/p>\n

T<\/font>his is hardly the only ominous news coming out of Brussels these days. If the unelected bureaucrats running the EU<\/font> get their way, the document police will soon be joined by a brigade of thought police. As was recently reported in The Daily Telegraph<\/i>, Brussels is proposing to make racism and xenophobia crimes that would carry a prison sentence of two or more years. The draft proposal defines \u201cracism\u201d and \u201cxenophobia\u201d as harboring \u201can aversion\u201d to people based on \u201crace, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin.\u201d What counts as \u201can aversion\u201d? That\u2019s for the bureaucrats\u2014or perhaps the police\u2014to decide. It will also criminalize any attempt to \u201ctrivialize\u201d or deny the atrocities committed by the Nazis.<\/p>\n

N<\/font>or is that all. The Telegraph<\/i> also reported that Europe is attempting to \u201charmonize\u201d its laws so that police can arrest and try citizens of the fifteen-member states anywhere in the EU<\/font>. So if you are British and you say something nasty about the French while on vacation in Greece, you might wind up in a Greek jail for two \u201cor more\u201d years. Since the EU<\/font> made it illegal for journalists to criticize its policies a year or two ago, it is not clear what sort of debate this latest piece of totalitarian legislation will spark. Of course, this is not the first time that Europe has attempted to \u201charmonize\u201d its laws. Beginning in 1933, there was a concerted effort to \u201charmonize\u201d not only the laws but also all of social life. The German word for the process was Gleichschaltung.<\/i> That time the effort came out of Berlin. It almost worked. It took the combined military might of England, the United States, and the Soviet Union to stop that earlier push for \u201charmony.\u201d It is anyone\u2019s guess what it will take to stop this new, Brussels-based effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the thought police in Brussels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2188,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tags":[635],"department_id":[553],"issue":[3089],"section":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fd9fbaa0408","label":"Authors","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_647e2b3c6941d","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"array","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"page_number":{"simple_value_formatted":1,"value_formatted":1,"value":"1","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_647e2bc0c860c","label":"Page 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