The U.S. State Department has long been respected for its venerable tradition of thoughtful and sound policy analysis \u2014 an intellectual legacy that traces back to George F. Kennan\u2019s famous \u201cLong Telegram\u201d from Moscow in 1946, later published anonymously under X in Foreign Affairs in 1947. <\/p>\n
History goes on <\/strong><\/p>\n Apparently deeming himself in that tradition, Samuel D. Samson, Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), has published a paper on the U.S. State Department\u2019s official Substack channel.<\/a> <\/p>\n In it, he takes aim at Europe for it having \u201cdeveloped into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.\u201d <\/p>\n Follow-up on Vance <\/strong><\/p>\n Samson\u2019s starting point is U.S. Vice President Vance\u2019s<\/a> address at this year\u2019s Munich Security Conference, in which he warned: \u201cWhat I worry about is the threat from within \u2014 the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.\u201d <\/p>\n At the core, Samson criticizes Europe for undermining its intellectual and cultural legacy tracing back to Athens and Rome. <\/p>\n He particularly worries about today\u2019s Europe for discrediting \u201cthe thought of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and other European heavyweights who recognized that all men possess natural rights that no government can arbitrate or deny.\u201d <\/p>\n At the same time, he emphasizes that the United States remains indebted to Europe for its foundational impact on the Declaration of Independence. <\/p>\n Has Europe lost its way? <\/strong><\/p>\n But, says Samson, Europe has lost its way. Despite enduring \u201ctwo devastating world wars,\u201d it has, in his view, \u201csought a grand transformation \u2014 a world that would transcend the divisiveness of nationality and creed to usher in an era of unprecedented peace.\u201d To its own detriment, Europe is said to have abandoned the anchors of nationhood, culture and tradition. <\/p>\n Samson goes on to state that this attempt at \u201cglobal liberalism promised what Francis Fukuyama famously called the \u2018end of history,\u2018 the ultimate innovation in political life.\u201d <\/p>\n It seems far-fetched to proclaim an ultimate innovation in any realm of human experience. Equally plausible \u2014 if not more so \u2014 is the notion that history does not end until the last human being has made their final case. <\/p>\n Until then, it is worth revisiting, from time to time, the central assertion regarding natural rights in the Declaration of Independence: \u201cWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\u201d <\/p>\n What do the \u201cheavyweights\u201d say? <\/strong><\/p>\n To make his case, Samson cites Thomas Aquinas who, writing in the medieval era, famously asserted: \u201cGood is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.\u201d <\/p>\n For Aquinas, what is good reflects God\u2019s eternal law, in which rational beings participate through reason. Crucially, reason is not confined to human subjectivity \u2014 it is grounded in something beyond man. <\/p>\n Those who live according to reason, he believed, may ultimately find themselves vindicated \u2014 if not on Earth, then on Judgment Day. <\/p>\n Hijacking Hobbes \u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n Hobbes, Locke and Kant \u2014 three other philosophical heavyweights \u2014 shift the focus from God to man. They begin not with eternal law, but with human nature and social necessity. <\/p>\n Hobbes grounds rights in the instinct for self-preservation. In his view, the need to escape the chaos of the state of nature \u2014 where life is \u201csolitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short\u201d \u2014 leads to the formation of government through strict, hierarchical contracts. <\/p>\n \u2026 and Locke <\/strong><\/p>\n Locke, arguably the most influential thinker behind the Declaration of Independence, flips this idea. For him, government does not exist to restrain human brutishness but to protect certain basic and equal interests: Life, liberty and property (with the human body as the original form of property). <\/p>\n The Founding Fathers extended this faculty to Happiness. Locke\u2019s vision, unlike Hobbes\u2019s, is not rooted in fear but in the potential of human beings to live freely and justly under the rule of law. <\/p>\n Accordingly, the Constitution of the United States is designed to protect individual endowments. These rights are not granted by society. Rather, they are inherent. Their significance emerges when individuals come together to recognize and regulate them through the framework of government. <\/p>\n Enter Kant <\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, Immanuel Kant reintroduces natural law with a mystical undertone that echoes Aquinas: \u201cAct only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.\u201d <\/p>\n Both thinkers are rooted in reason. For both, morality is objective, and both aim to distinguish what is good from what is to be avoided. Moreover, each recognizes a good that transcends the individual \u2014 Aquinas in the Kingdom of God and Kant in the moral state. <\/p>\n This philosophical lineage \u2014 stretching from divine law to rational self-governance \u2014 forms the bedrock of modern democratic institutions, and it is precisely this depth of tradition that Samson\u2019s critique fails to acknowledge. <\/p>\n States are different today <\/strong><\/p>\n Most European states \u2014 with the exceptions of England and Switzerland \u2014 were reconstituted or newly formed after the Second World War. They reflect a blend of individual national traditions and the practical need to cooperate in the pursuit of peace and prosperity. <\/p>\n Historically, Europe has reinvented itself more frequently than any other continent. Its democratic tradition has served as a model for the world. <\/p>\n Example: Germany <\/strong><\/p>\n For example, the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) of the Federal Republic of Germany, drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War, became influential well beyond Europe. <\/p>\n Its principles helped shape the constitutional frameworks of countries as diverse as South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and several nations in South America. <\/p>\n As is typical in European history, constitutions are living documents \u2014 products of both historical development and present necessity. They represent an ongoing effort to channel Kant\u2019s ideal of individual reason into a shared framework of governance. <\/p>\n In stark contrast to Europe, the U.S. tradition is to consider the constitution as more or less set in stone. <\/p>\n Samuel Samson\u2019s analysis of Europe is misguided <\/strong><\/p>\n With this in mind, Samuel Samson\u2019s assertion that \u201cEurope has developed into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance\u201d is, with all due respect, misguided. <\/p>\n He criticizes France for convicting Marine Le Pen of fraud, a ruling that currently prevents her from running for president in the next election. <\/p>\n