Who is the leader of the West? Or at least of conservatives and classical liberals? You could argue that it’s Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic. Did you catch his address at the U.N.? It was completely unusual — for the U.N., that is. It was completely usual for Klaus. He touched many important bases, but have just two excerpts:
“The first issue is the worldwide economic crisis and the methods to overcome it. I am afraid we are moving in a wrong direction. The anti-crisis measures that have been proposed and already partly implemented follow from the assumption that the crisis was a failure of markets and that the right way out is more regulation of markets. This is a mistaken assumption.”
And Excerpt No. 2:
“This is the time for international organizations, including the United Nations, to reduce their expenditures, make their administrations thinner, and leave the solutions to the governments of the member states which are directly accountable to the citizens of their countries.”
A reporter for Radio Prague said, “Mr. Klaus’s address once again cast him as something of a black sheep.” Here’s to the black sheep, and may he never join that dull, dumb herd.