2012 Annual Dinner October 15, 2012 | Bellevue, Washington

Keynote speaker and Columbia Award recipient Daniel Hannan

hank you very much ladies and symptom — a symptom of the peace president, Ronald Regan. Neither Tgentlemen. Thank you to the that was born out of the defeat of fas- would be in a position now to accept an Washington Policy Center. As well as cism, the spread of democracy and the award. But the third figure is still there. acknowledging this award, I suppose NATO alliance. It was her 87th birthday earlier this I’m going to be the only employee of week; she was looking fantastic. What the European Union you see this week, And who made those things happen? about a Nobel Peace Prize for Margaret so I’m going to thank you all for the Which unrecognized country was it that Thatcher? Nobel Prize! was sending its young men overseas de- cade after decade, first of all to fight the Let me just go back a moment to the How do I go about crafting adequate Nazi menace, then to keep Europe free Al Gore one, 2007. What really leapt words to express what I feel about the and democratic and then eventually to off the page at me when I was looking award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the contribute to the liberation of hundreds at that was who the other candidates European Union? I tried to imagine of millions of people from communist were. Let me tell you the story of the how the committee would have de- tyranny? Yours was the biggest contin- runner up if you like, and some of you cided — this is a dark time of year in gent, my friends; we had, I think, the will be familiar with this, but for those Scandinavia, the afternoons are pretty second biggest and I like to think in the who are not, does anyone know who I gloomy, the weather is turning bad, United Kingdom we acknowledge our mean by Irena Sendler? maybe they were sitting there with a lot debt to you, our friends and allies. We of schnapps, possibly watching one of have some countries in the neighbor- Irena Sendler was a young Polish those gloomy crime dramas that they’re hood that have a slightly different view, woman when the Nazis moved into so keen on, and they were trying to that have almost a pathological need to Warsaw. She was a Polish Catholic and cheer themselves up somehow, “What bite the hand that freed them. she lived through the occupation, and are we going to do to show everyone she displayed a heroism that is hum- we have a sense of humor? I mean, how If we were serious about honoring bling even by the awesome standards of do you trump Al Gore and then Barack the right people with this Nobel Peace her generation. She repeatedly risked Obama? Ah, I’ve got it!” Prize, what about honoring the people her life to smuggle babies and young who brought an end to the communist children out of the Warsaw ghetto. And so we have this extraordinary tyranny which, in crude mathemati- She would place Jewish children with spectacle of the E.U. winning this cal terms, must be reckoned the most Christian families, and she would give award in the year when the process murderous system of government ever them assumed identities. She kept a of European integration has brought devised by human intelligence? What list of who they were and who their violence and unrest to the capital cities about recognizing those titanic figures parents were, hoping that after the of Europe and has condemned millions who brought liberation to the people war she would be able to reunite them. of people to poverty, emigration and who’d been enslaved by Marxism? In practice, of course, almost all the misery. How can you beat that? There’s parents perished in Treblinka. only one way they can trump it. Next There were three people, two of year, they could give the E.U. the prize whom have now passed, who were Irena Sendler was captured by the for economics! instrumental in that liberation. One Gestapo and tortured, but she wouldn’t was Pope John Paul II, who posited give up her list. She was then busted out Just analyze for a moment, just think something better, toured behind the by the partisan resistance, she was res- about what we’re saying when we say Iron Curtain and held out a promise cued from Nazi capture — and this is that the E.U. deserves the prize for of something better than people could the really incredible bit — she changed peace in Europe. The E.U. is not so see around them. One of them was, her name and went back to smuggling much a cause of peace in Europe as a of course, your greatest 20th century out the children.

-1- What does it say about the values of The writer Charles Lamb made the But there is another reason why I’m our society that we value her achieve- wonderful observation that there’s no intruding into your election, and it’s ment less than making a film about sweeter pleasure in life than to do a that no British subject can be indifferent global warming? If Al Gore had any good deed by stealth and then have it to the fortunes of this republic. We’ve decency he would have been hanging discovered by accident. I thought of been through too much together. We’re his head in shame at the idea that he that phrase when it emerged that Mitt tied by common sentiment and habit, was on the same paper as her, let alone Romney had given away 30% of his by blood and speech, and we have been rushing to collect the ward. Irena income. How many of you would give almost from the beginning. Sendler died the following year, modest away 30% of your income to charity and humble to the end. She said, “I and then fight to keep the informa- John Adams was the first American never use the word ‘hero’ — there was tion secret? (That’s a stupid question ambassador to the court of George III, so much more I could have done.” because obviously you’re not going to and when he presented his credentials tell me now, you’re fighting to keep it he made a handsome and affecting Compare that to the attitude of Al a secret!) But you get the point if you speech which ended with the hope Gore, who I heard from only as recently like doing the right thing rather than that we restored the old good nature as the last debate, explaining that the advertising your virtue by saying that and old good humor between peoples reason the president hadn’t performed the government is going to be doing the who, though separated by an ocean was because he was possibly suffering right thing. and under different governments, had from the altitude sickness in Colorado. nonetheless the same language, similar (That came as a real revelation to me. Now why am I butting in to your religion and kindred blood. I thought he was coming down from election? I’m not a U.S. citizen (as we Olympus; he would be suffering the heard from Scott earlier that was settled Mitt Romney gave an updated other way around!) at Yorktown). Why am I coming and version of that when he came to the expressing a view about the forthcom- United Kingdom. He spoke in a very What an extraordinary measure of ing election? Well there are two reasons, complimentary way. I thought the how our age, our generation, values my friends. The first is this: If you owe foreign policy trip he did — the U.K., the moralistic over the moral, values a debt of $16 trillion — before we even Poland, Israel trip — was exactly what holding the right opinions over doing get into these unfunded liabilities which we wanted to hear. These were three the right thing. were making the hairs rise on the backs traditional allies of the U.S. which have of our necks earlier — $16 trillion alone been slighted and scorned by the pres- This is surely the challenge we face is an inconceivable sum. The human ent administration. I can’t remember a as conservatives — whatever country brain is not capable of envisaging worse time to have been a traditional we’re in — this is what we’re up numbers that big. This is off the scale friend to this country. against: This pervasive modern sense of any government indebtedness in that the best thing you can do is not to up until this moment. There was a moment just before Mitt work tirelessly for charity or to serve When the debt gets to that size, it’s not Romney arrived in the U.K. when one your country in uniform or repeatedly just your problem anymore, it becomes of his aides was quoted as saying, “We to risk your life to rescue the children of a global problem. And at that stage I have in common an Anglo-Saxon strangers, but to hold the right opinions think we all have a legitimate interest in heritage.” I don’t know whether this about immigration and multicultural- wanting a U.S. government that can live was a big rowel on this side of the ism. Or conversely, that the worst thing within its means. Atlantic, but it was in the U.K. The left you can do is not to fiddle your taxes or pretended to get terribly upset. They’re cheat on your husband or wife or betray I had the pleasure of attending the really good at that, aren’t they, this the people who have been kindest to Republican Convention in Tampa at the affected outrage? “I am shocked.” The you, but to hold the wrong opinions end of August. And I watched a lot of Obama campaign put out a statement about multinational corporations. people try to convince me that this was saying, “This is shockingly offensive.” the right ticket. You know what I found Now I’ve been in politics long enough And that, it seems to me, is a danger- the single most convincing moment to know that when anybody says that ous attitude in individuals. But in gov- of the whole convention? There was a they don’t really mean it; if you’re really ernment it becomes a tragic attitude for video which had Mitt Romney’s family, offended you don’t say, “I am offended.” the nation concerned, because the way his sons talking about what he was (Just trust me on that one, I’m a profes- you advertise your virtue as a lawmaker like as a dad when they were kids, and sional at this.) is by spending other people’s money. one of the sons said, “Whenever we And that, it seems to me, is the choice needed pocket money we had to go to There was this whole nonsense about that we face the world over. That’s the our mother because that guy is so tight.” affecting to understand it as a racial essence of what distinguishes us from That was the moment where I thought, thing, “He’s emphasizing Obama’s the statists. And you face your version “Right, that’s the guy! If I know nothing otherness.” Even the dimmest Romney of the choice in three weeks’ time. else about him, given the state of U.S. aide must be aware that Anglo-Saxons finances, that is the only recommenda- are a minority of the U.S. elector- tion you need.” ate; that would be a silly thing to say.

-2- They’re even a minority of the U.K. While I’m on the subject of Scott’s he said, “There is a straight line that electorate. Britain is full of people history and our shared history, runs from Runnymede to Philadelphia.” with non-Saxon names (like Hannan). Lexington and Concord, again, is Runnymede is in my constituency, the When the French talk about les Anglo- presented to us as a war between na- place where the Magna Carta was Saxons, when the Spanish talk about tions and so on. What did Paul Revere sealed in 1215. (I’d better say that be- los Anglosajones, what they mean are shout as he went on his famous ride? cause our prime minister was on David people who speak English and believe Everyone knows, like Abraham Lincoln. Letterman a couple weeks ago and he in limited government and private didn’t know what Magna Carta meant, property and free contract and all of the Now think about this: It would have so just to reassure you there are one or values that unite the English-speaking been an odd thing for him to say, “The two of us who still remember. In a way peoples. British are coming,” to a population it tells you something that the British which had never considered itself prime minister needed to be corrected That’s what Mitt Romney was surely anything other than British, right? It on what Magna Carta means.) referring to. He was talking to about would have been a pretty odd thing to this shared heritage of freedom that shout, even at deluded Democrats in The site of the Magna Carta, as I stretches back through your revolution, Massachusetts. What he actually said say, is in the region I represent. It went back through the Glorious Revolution, was, “The Regulars are out,” because unmarked until 1952, when a memo- back through the English Civil War, the word patriot meant they saw them- rial stone was finally erected there by back even before the great charter to selves as defenders of their birthright as the American Bar Association! They that inherited folk right of . freeborn Englishmen against a revolu- understood Hatton Sumners’s point, “A tionary court. straight line runs from Runnymede to The greatest thing our peoples gave Philadelphia.” He went on, “We did to the world, the sublime idea that Tocqueville came out with the most not borrow our liberties from the British emerged so far back that we don’t know beautiful phrase when he said, “The constitution, we paid for them with the when it started — this extraordinary American is the Englishman left to him- blood of our ancestors on the battle- revolutionary concept that the law self.” What happened in this country field.” He concluded, “Our constitution doesn’t come from the government, that was the concentration and consumma- came up from the body of a free people, the law rather is already there binding tion of that tradition of liberty that had but we may lose our capacity for self- the government as it binds the individu- begun in prehistoric times, and that government through its non-exercise.” al; that the king, as the meanest man in reached its highest and purest form the kingdom, must obey a law that was in the old courthouse in Philadelphia. “We may lose our capacity for self- already there — that was our civiliza- That’s why no British politician can government through its non-exercise.” tion’s best export, our supreme gift to be indifferent to the happiness and What does that mean? the happiness of mankind. That is our fortunes of this Republic. shared ideal. And it is in the name of Well, look at what is being done by that ideal that we have stood together I have seen in the country where it this administration. One by one the through the centuries and fought for was first adumbrated that philosophy distinguishing features which set this freedom. derided and traduced and almost de- republic aside from the run of human- feated. I’ve seen powers in my country ity are being extirpated. One by one Scott quoted the very famous ending passing from the elected representative the things which used to betoken the of the Gettysburg Address, and here’s to the standing bureaucracy, from exceptionalism of the are a little example of something that we Westminster to Brussels, from local being harmonized with the rest of the have in common that is sometimes government to the Whitehall machine. world. forgotten. Those words, “government I’ve seen our patrimony cheapened and of the people, by the people, for the lost, and I would always tell myself, “At Power is passing from the 50 states people,” quoted now almost as evidence least it’s secure somewhere, the place to Washington, D.C.; from the elected of U.S. exceptionalism, were not that we exported it to.” The seeds we legislator to the federal czar; from the Abraham Lincoln’s. The audience at took across the Atlantic those hundreds legislative to the executive branch. And the time would have recognized it as a of years ago found fertile soil here with every such transfer of power — quotation from John Wycliffe’s pro- and they found a deep root even if however much it’s defended as a one-off, logue to the first translation of the Bible the ancestral tree is now withered and pragmatic response to an emergency — into English. Extraordinary thing, that desiccated. with every such transfer of power, your in the 14th century we’d already come country becomes less American, by up with that notion: Government of the Don’t make a liar out of me. Show which I mean less prosperous, and less people, for the people and by the people. that you still care about it. Show that democratic and less free. It couldn’t have happened in any other there is one place where the flame of language. And it didn’t. That was our British freedom is still secure. The policies currently being pursued shared heritage. by your leaders are not a set of random In 1937 the Texan jurist Hatton that have just been arbitrarily Sumners made the brilliant observation, lashed together on health care, on

-3- Social Security, on nuclear energy, on the people who were for austerity got That was the happiest way to launch carbon taxes; they amount to a compre- flattened in the polls.” a new country. Scott spoke about “the hensive program of Europeanization. other Washington,” meaning the capital. And I know where that road leads. I’m My friends, I am going to answer that Let’s go back to the real Washington a member of the . question in the most politically incor- after whom both this state and that I’ve been working there for 12 years. I rect way that I can: You are not Greeks, capital are named, the one who appears am living in your future! Believe me, my you are not French, and we expect on your state flag. This republic was friends, you’re not going to enjoy it. better of you! founded in an act of extraordinary renunciation: “As the sword was our There is, isn’t there, a double im- You have three weeks to go until the last resort in defense of our liberties,” morality here. On the one hand, our election — to the elections; let’s not said George Washington, “so let it be generation is sustaining a standard of focus on one of them at the expense the first to be laid aside when those living which it’s not prepared to pay for of the others. I think your founders liberties are secure.” by passing on the bill to generations knew what they were doing when yet to come. That is something that’s they put Congress in Article I of your He had that humility, that recognition not happened before in the history of Constitution and the presidency in that there was something bigger than our species. But in doing that there is Article II. It’s Congress that sets the him. He laid aside an imperium that another way in which the future genera- budget. It’s successive legislatures that was beyond the dreams of what others tions are being betrayed. They are being have not lived within their means, and in the world at that time could have cut off from the inheritance which was if you want to begin to restore order imagined. yours from the time of the Constitution, and sanity to your public finances, it or even from the time of Magna Carta has to be through changing the major- You should prove yourselves his or before. The things which set us apart ity in your legislature so that you once heirs. You should honor that vision and are being extirpated. again have people who understand that remain faithful to the republic which it the money is yours rather than the gov- founded. You might say, “Well what are we ernment’s to dispose of as they please. going to do? In the current mood So let me close by pleading with you, people are angry, they’re looking for What single virtue should you look as somebody who’s not just a friend, an people to blame, the candidate who for in a legislator? Only this: That ally of this country, but who sees it as wants to attack the bankers and tax he takes seriously his oath of office; the supreme repository of our common the rich is always going to win.” That that when he promises to defend the values as Anglo-sphere peoples. Honor argument is put to me all the time in Constitution of the United States the vision of your founders. Don’t the European Parliament. It’s put to against all enemies domestic and be the generation that cuts itself off me sometimes here. Somebody said to foreign, he really means it; that he has from its parents and that disinherits its me earlier, “How can an austerity party an appreciation, a modesty, a humility children. Never be afraid to speak to win an election in the current climate? to recognize that he is passing through and for the soul of this nation of which, Look at what happened in Greece,” he an institution that is bigger than he is; by good fortune and God’s grace, you said, “look at what happened in France; and that he is your servant and not your are privileged to be part of. ruler.

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