CONSERVATIVE

needs of other family members. This is the traditional
view of family life. But such a view flies in the face of
the transformative and liberationist view of human rights
as promoted by the EU and propagated by the global
governance ideology, which holds that human beings are
radically free to define themselves as they wish, unfettered
by traditional values or family obligations.
The global governancers’ view of human rights
unavoidably undermines the family. Since the only rights
that matter in the EU are the skewed, redefined rights
of women, children, and LGBT persons, they must
necessarily oppose the family. It is the one institution
that militates most effectively against the idolization of
personal choice; and with its preference for local control
and self-government, it stands in the way of the globalist,
top-down view of ‘governance’ that animates the global
governance elites.
Similarly, global governance undermines democratic
sovereignty, especially in a secularist world without truth.
And if truth does not exist, then there can be no restraints
on human institutions—and government power is
unlimited. This means that not only do governments
have unlimited power—in principle—to determine what
human rights are, but it becomes impossible to limit
governance to a certain geographical area or people. And
national sovereignty becomes—again, in principle—
an impermissible limit on the power of global elites to
decide for everyone everywhere what is just and true.
Global governance is thus unmasked to reveal not a
benign effort to improve humanity’s lot but instead as a
voracious power grab—to define truth and justice under
the banner of “universal human rights”.
Liberal democracy or global governance?
At its deepest level, the struggle between liberal
democracy and global governance is a struggle to define
the human person and the purpose of human life. In
broad terms, the ideological roots of liberal democracy
in the West are found in the Judeo-Christian view of an
unchanging human nature embedded in tradition, religion,
and family. But the partisans of global governance come
down on the side of a radically secularist, post-modern
commitment to individual autonomy and the virtually
unlimited malleability of human nature according to each
person’s choice—essentially independent of traditional
institutions and social relations.
We in the West must decide between self-government,
on the one hand, and Fonte’s “slow suicide of liberal
democracy”, on the other. The radical opposition of these
two alternatives goes deeper than garden-variety political
differences—and thus will be harder to overcome. In the
end, the struggle is really about the purpose—the telos—
of politics. It is about opposing worldviews.
The turning away from the Judeo-Christian
worldview to the post-modern secularist worldview
is occurring in the US, too, with political and social
manifestations related to those in the EU. Still, it is not
too late. Reality has begun to force itself upon the EU.
The same goes for the US, although that might not be as
apparent. Providentially, this could end up reinvigorating
the Judeo-Christian tradition. What is needed in the West
is a reformation, a return to humble respect for the truths
and traditions at the root of Western culture, and thus to
the indispensable foundations of self-government.
In Europe, a reformed EU of sovereign nationstates
could be a tremendous force for good. But no one
can build justice, peace, and prosperity on the basis of a
deception. Global governance is a lie, and it will eventually
turn on those who have fallen under its spell. In the end,
democratic sovereignty—based on a humble respect for
truth and recognition of the limits of politics—is the only
basis for realizing the promise of the European idea.
Todd Huizinga is Director of International Outreach at the Acton
Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. He is also a co-founder of the Transatlantic Christian
Council and a Research Fellow at the Paul B. Henry Institute for
the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College in Michigan.
A US diplomat from 1992-2012, he served in Costa Rica and
Ireland, and served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy
in Luxembourg, Political Counselor at the US Mission to the
EU in Brussels, Consul for Political and Economic Affairs at the
US Consulates in Hamburg and Munich, and Consul for Public
Affairs at the US Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. This article is
based on excerpts from his new book, The New Totalitarian
Temptation: Global Governance and the Crisis of
Democracy in Europe, published by Encounter Books.
The European Conservative 7