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Today in History: the Miracle of Dunkirk

On June 4, 1940 Winston Churchill gave one of his most iconic speeches to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was in this speech that Churchill famously stated that the British Empire would fight their Nazi German enemy anywhere, including “on the beaches” of the speech’s informal title. Since May 26, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had been doing just that across the English Channel in the little French coastal town of Dunkirk.

On May 10, 1940, following the end of the tactical staring contest know as the “Phony War”, the German Wehrmacht began its invasion of France. German military planning kicked into high-gear with the execution of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) that called for a decisive punch through Belgium, bypassing France’s vaunted Maginot Line.

The German war machine took British and French military strategists by surprise as their armored units pushed deep into the Ardennes forest, thought to be impassable to those very units that were now steaming through it.  The speed with which Case Yellow was executed saw the British Expeditionary Force quickly cut off from the sizable portion of the French Army as German Panzer divisions took initiative and drove for the French coast.

As the BEF fell back into France from its ever worsening situation in Belgium, the Wehrmacht tightened the noose around the British and its stranded French, Belgian and smaller contingents of Polish and Dutch allies. Pockets of resistance were quickly strangled by closing German Panzers.

The remnants of the First French Army did achieve limited success however, holding several German divisions at Lille for a number of days, even counterattacking and capturing a German general. The defense at Lille provided the forces headed for Dunkirk much needed time and reprieve from the full weight of the German army grouped against them.

As the Wehrmacht closed, the British Expeditionary Forced staged a chaotic strategic retreat into the city of Dunkirk itself, their last line of defense. With the BEF’s back to the sea the German general in command, Georg von Küchler planned for a final punch through all-out offensive on Dunkirk, June 1st, a rare day of flyable weather.

However, unbeknownst to General von Küchler, due to the inclement weather that plagued the German operation, the British War Office had already begun to execute a daring operation to evacuate the entirety of the BEF from Dunkirk. The British government called on any ocean-going vessel, big or small to aid in evacuation. Over 900 vessels answered the call, ranging from French and Royal Navy warships to fishing vessels and private pleasure craft.

By June 3 the remaining members of the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated. The War Office declared the mission a success and called the Royal Navy back to Dover. However, Churchill demanded that they return to Dunkirk to rescue the remaining French holdouts who had volunteered to perform a rearguard action for the evacuating British soldiers.

So, on June 4, 1940, the Royal Navy returned, and over 26,000 more French soldiers were evacuated on the last day of the operation. The French brought the total number rescued to 338,226 men out of nearly 400,000 British, French, Belgian, Polish and Dutch soldiers that had thought the city of Dunkirk would be their last stand.

Later that same day, when the Germans finally entered the city of Dunkirk, they soon realized their embarrassing error. The evacuees were welcomed as heroes on their arrival in Great Britain and providing a much needed boost of moral amongst the allies in their darkest year of war. It had truly been a miracle.

France would fall by the end of the month.

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Responding to criticism of his notorious push to outlaw the sale of large sodas in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg penned a defensive op-ed for USA Today, in which he completely fails to appreciate why he’s become a national laughing stock, as well as the living symbol of the creepy nanny state:

The initial reaction to our proposed portion cap on sugary beverages follows a now familiar pattern. But here are the key points. The increase in sugary drink consumption is the largest single cause of the rise in calories in the American diet in the last 40 years. Many studies show consumption of these beverages is linked to weight gain and obesity, and more recently, diabetes and heart disease.

Other studies show that people given larger portions simply consume more without noticing it or reducing calorie consumption at subsequent meals. And portion sizes of sugary drinks have ballooned drastically over the last 50 years, from 12 ounces to 32 ounces for a large beverage at a typical fast-food restaurant, not as a result of consumer demand but because of corporate decisions.

Together, these facts strongly suggest that if people are served smaller portion sizes of sugary drinks, they will consume less, gain less weight and be healthier — and we may just start to reverse the catastrophic epidemic of obesity.

What all of the Mayor’s favorite studies do not suggest is any reason why a politician should assert the power to over-rule the free choice of his constituents, in the name of saving their fat butts from the depredations of their empty little minds.  Nor does anything in the Mayor’s defense suggest a limit to his benevolent tyranny.  In what other ways can this self-appointed crusader against corporate greed and individual folly step into the lives of his subjects, to impose his prescriptions for a healthy lifestyle?

“Under our proposal,” writes Bloomberg, “people could still choose to drink as much soda as they want. If 16 ounces (promoted as enough for three people in the 1950s!) is not enough, people could purchase two portions.  Is that too much an inconvenience to reverse a national health catastrophe?”

Since when is a politician’s notion of acceptable “inconvenience” supposed to be the limit of government power?  On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of another city, Indianapolis, to cheat certain homeowners because they were foolish enough to pay a huge sewer assessment up front, while those who chose long-term payment plans found the balance of their debt forgiven after just one year.  The Supreme Court ruling said that requiring the city to treat all residents equally, by refunding overpayments or collecting the full outstanding debts it decided to forgive, would prove unacceptably inconvenient for the government.  It looks as if the people are supposed to be far more worried about inconveniencing government than vice versa.

Bloomberg’s soda ban is just one sobering reminder that independence and responsibility are inextricably linked.  If people don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions, they must sacrifice their liberty as well.

This is the great challenge facing the European Union, where some member states have discovered that international welfare comes with strings attached.  Independence must be sacrificed to centralized authority in Brussels (which, as some in Greece, Spain, and Italy are grumbling, appears to be located right next to Berlin) before more bailout money will be tendered.  Those on both sides of this argument have reasonable points.  Who wants to give up national sovereignty to a trans-national bureaucracy, forever placing important aspects of civic life beyond the reach of local voters?  But why should the European Union finance further life support for dying governments that feel free to discard austerity measures, at the pleasure of their restless populations?

In the United States, liberals have spent generations selling the illusion of “independence” without responsibility – the promise of government benefits provided at no great cost to individual liberty.  This illusion shattered forever when the American Left finally achieved its dream of government-controlled health care.  The true cost of dependency could no longer be concealed.  The Catholic Church is no longer free to follow its religious conscience.  Contrary to President Obama’s assurances, you don’t get to keep your old plan if you liked it.

The War on Obesity is still fairly young, as political crusades go, but it has spotlighted the loss of liberty that inevitably accompanies dependence.  If the government is to be held accountable for financing your health care, it must have power over your life, in order to keep those socialized costs down.  Once the basic premise of socialism is accepted, and everyone is collectively obliged to pay for everyone else, this only makes sense.  Why should healthy people be forced to subsidize the poor lifestyle choices of soda-swilling, fast-food-gobbling couch potatoes?

The government is in the process of outlawing risk, by forcing some citizens to bail out others.  President Obama openly rails against the notion of government abandoning its hapless citizens to face the consequences of their actions, decrying his opponents’ putative “you’re-on-your-own economics.”  When central power overrides the judgment of the free marketplace, the result is a dissolution of consequence, which means diminished responsibility… and the contraction of liberty.  A free man is responsible for his choices.  A servant has neither choices nor responsibility.

“Rather than wringing our hands about the obesity epidemic, we in New York City are once again taking action to improve the lives of our residents,” declares Chief Nurse Bloomberg.  “History will likely bear out that once the controversy dies down, we will look back and wonder why we did not do this sooner.”

More to the point, there will eventually be no purpose in complaining about it, because you’ll never get your lost choices back.  You will be expected to grow comfortable with a more limited range of motion, within the perpetually shrinking cage your betters have designed for you.  You will become steadily less responsible for your life, and the lives of your children, which is very soothing.  You’ll also be less free, by definition, as your “unacceptable” choices are taken away.  It is widely assumed that Americans are no longer the sort of people who grow angry over such things.

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Eight years ago, the city of Indianapolis decided to implement a new payment plan for sewer hookups.  A major project to connect about 180 homes to the city’s sewage system left homeowners looking at a $9,278 assessment.  A few of them chose to pay the full assessment up front, but the city also offered installment plans, allowing payments to be made monthly, for up to 30 years.

As it turns out, the 30-year installment plan was a very wise choice, while people who paid up front got utterly and totally screwed.  As the Washington Post explains:

The very next year, the city changed its mind about how to pay for new sewage projects, reasoning that the old method discouraged people from abandoning septic systems for the healthier city sewage lines. By that point, some people had paid as little as $309, and more than a quarter of affected properties had paid less than $1,000.

Under the new financing scheme, the outstanding payments were forgiven, but the city denied refunds to those who paid in full.

Thirty-one homeowners sued for the refund and won in lower state courts. The Indiana Supreme Court, however, upheld the city’s decision as rational.

The new payment plan involved a much lower up-front cost for all homeowners of only $2,500.  The rest of the cost was folded into slightly higher rates and fees.  This makes sense from the standpoint of persuading residents to hook up to the city sewer system, because even when a $9000 assessment is spread over a 30-year installment plan, the total sum still causes many people to recoil.  Of course, they’re not really paying any less under the new system – in fact, if those elevated sewer fees remain in place forever, long-term residents would eventually end up paying more – but they won’t feel bad, because the bulk of the cost is hidden from them.  Much of modern government operates according to this principle.

The United States Supreme Court settled the matter in a 6-3 decision today, upholding the Indiana Supreme Court and telling the poor saps who forked over the $9,278 up front to consider it an expensive lesson in the folly of surrendering a single nickel to the government before it’s absolutely necessary to do so.

The fleeced homeowners argued for relief under the Equal Protection Clause, since it’s manifestly unfair to charge one person nine thousand dollars for the exact same service his neighbor obtained for just over three hundred bucks.  That sounded reasonable to Justices Roberts, Alito, and Scalia, but the rest of the Supreme Court decided it was simply too much to ask the city government to either issue refunds to those who paid up front, or maintain parallel payment systems for its old and new projects.  They had a “rational basis” for giving those early payers the shaft, as Justice Steven Breyer explained in the majority opinion.

There were also concerns that ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would open the floodgates for countless other aggrieved taxpayers to seek redress for unequal treatment by official bodies… and we can’t have that, because much of government relies on arbitrarily treating groups of citizens unequally, just as it depends on the ability to hide its true cost from them.

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At the end of last week, with just a few days to go before the recall elections of Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, people across Wisconsin complained of receiving ominous postcards, described by the Janesville Gazette as follows:

The mailing includes a note to “Dear Registered Voter” which says, in part: “Look at the list below: Are there neighbors on this list you know? Call them or knock on their door before Election Day, and ask them to go vote on Tuesday, June 5. After the June 5th election, public records will tell everyone who voted and who didn’t. Do your civic duty—vote and remind your neighbors to vote.”

The mailing goes on to list the recipient’s name, address and whether he or she voted in November 2008 and November 2010. The same information is provided for 12 neighbors.

The information does not say—and could not say—how those people voted, of course.

(Emphases mine.)  This came from a union group, of course – specifically, the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund.  A somewhat less ominous, but more blatantly partisan version of the card says, “Scott Walker won in 2010 because too many people stayed home! Two years ago, more than half a million Wisconsinites who supported Obama (in 2008) failed to vote in the 2010 election. And that’s how Gov. Scott Walker got elected.”  Since President Obama decided not to risk his political capital by campaigning against Walker in the state, this is the closed the unions could come to swiping a little of his faded presidential glamour for their effort.

The information used to compile these sinister little “insufficiently motivated citizen” lists is available for sale by the state to anyone who ponies up $12,500.  In theory, the purpose of the list is to allow the public to review it, and if they find “someone who has died or is under Department of Corrections supervision after being convicted of a felony, they could alert authorities of the voting fraud,” as the Gazette puts it.

I’m from Florida, where a simple attempt to verify the legitimacy of 2,600 suspicious voters has been blown up into a national civil-rights crisis, so you’ll have to excuse me for a moment while I laugh myself sick.  Any organization that tried to use those $12,500 voter registration lists for the high-minded purpose described by the Gazette would be hounded unto the ends of the Earth and destroyed.

But union-allied political groups can put such information to Orwellian use with veiled “we know where you live” threats, and it’s just fine.  A spokesman for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board described it as “just a little over the top,” and the Gazette interviewed a local resident who complained that the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund “went and published my personal information to people I don’t know without my permission,” but there hasn’t been anything like the national outcry that would erupt if a private organization made a serious effort to combat voter fraud by checking a list of registered voters for suspicious names.

There’s something deeply offensive about the idea of enlisting door-knocking vigilantes to guilt-trip people into voting.  Free people have the right to withhold their vote.  It’s one thing to issue public calls to civic responsibility, but quite another to deliver personalized demands door-to-door.