New World Disorder
Javier Milei mocks Spain's Socialist Elites
“I am convinced today more than ever, that the ideas and values that brought the human species to the top are in danger and need to be defended from the siege of the damned and cancerous socialism.”
~ Javier Milei, May 2024
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World: Mermaid Beach, Australia...
Whoa! What do we have here? An international diplomatic spat between Argentina and Spain?
¡Que jugoso!
On the one side stands Pedro Sánchez, prime minister of Spain and head of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). On the other, Javier Gerardo Milei, well-known to readers of these Notes as the head of La Libertad Avanza party (LLA) in Argentina.
Libertarians facing off against socialists... individualism versus collectivism... Old World versus New World... storming back from the End of the World...
The whole thing reads a bit like a midday telenovela, with insults flying across the net and emotions running high among charismatic, generally good looking, very well-dressed people.
Of course, it would be all too easy to focus on the purely superficial, to get mired in all the cheap name calling and loose slander...
...so that’s exactly where we’ll begin.
“Damned Socialists”
The bubbling brouhaha came to a head this past weekend, when Sr. Milei was delivering a speech to the opposition Vox party in the Spanish capital of Madrid. Standing against Sánchez’s incumbent socialists, Vox (which means “voice” in Latin) is typically portrayed by the mainstream media as “ultra-far-extreme-hard-right-wing.”
Their leader, Santiago Abascal, has defined his party as “antifascist, anti-Nazi and anticommunist.” Naturally, the media has described him as all of these things, and plenty more besides. (Abascal promotes economic liberalism, including a chainsaw-esque reduction in public spending, and believes climate change to be “the greatest swindle in history,” among other sensible positions.)
After an affectionate introduction by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (with whom Milei has appeared in other telenovela-style media episodes), El León launched into a speech delivered in his textbook, iconoclastic style, indicting socialists for everything from relatively minor crimes and misdemeanors through to the tragic death toll on their hands over the course of the 20th century. Thus spake Milei (translated from the speech):
“Socialism, that ideology that is painted with an altruistic patina, basically hides the worst of the human being which is envy, hatred, resentment, unequal treatment before the law.
“And if necessary murder, because never forget that the damned socialists murdered 150 million human beings.”
Triggered!
The speech contained shades of Milei’s anti-globalist WEF delivery from last year, as well as his more recent appearance at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles, both of which sent the frangible leftards haunting the popular presses running for Big Brother’s tepid embrace. Among the highly triggering concepts: freedom, individual rights, private property, personal responsibility... and perhaps worst of all, demonstrable, historical facts. Milei:
“Until approximately 1800, the world's GDP per capita remained practically constant, but from the 19th century onward and as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the GDP per capita not only increased, but did so exponentially, multiplying by more than 20 times and generating an explosion of wealth that lifted 90% of the world's population out of poverty, even when the population multiplied by 8 times...
[...]
“There is no country in the history of mankind that has embraced the ideas of freedom and has not experienced an explosion of growth and prosperity for all.
“On the contrary, whenever socialism has been tried, not only in Argentina but everywhere in the world, it has been an economic failure, a social failure, a cultural failure, and on many occasions a failure imposed on piles and piles of corpses.”
Pulling no punches, Sr. Milei had a few words for the woke brigade, too...
“To all those who think they are saving the world by having an overarching State, with high taxes, with gender quotas and punishing entrepreneurs, I say:
“Do you know what is best for workers? Let them freely agree on a contract with their employers.
“Do you know what is best for women? To stop treating them as victims who need special care.
“I ask myself, do the socialists consider women as inferior beings to be granting them privileges?
“I ask the socialists, is it not enough to be equal before the law?”
“The Path to Prosperity”
And to the emotional hemophiliacs, waiting on the edge of their unisex toilet seats for just the right moment to express maximum offense, Milei came armed with a statement brimming with that most reliable socialist Kryptonite: optimism...
“I want to make a commitment to all of you and tell you that I will not fail you.
“I will lead by example and show the world that a government with our ideas can succeed.
“And the feats that our government accomplishes in Argentina will be a testimony and a proclamation of the capitalist paradigm of free enterprise.
“This will not be a miracle, but the necessary consequence of the exercise of the right ideas.
“Because freedom is the only viable path to prosperity.”
Of course, all of this was promptly jettisoned to the cutting room floor of newspapers and network television channels around the world when Milei dared make a passing remark aimed in the direction of Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez. Mid-flight during a rant against the “globalist elites” and “the type of people clinging to power and the level of abuse that generates,” Milei alluded to Sra. Gomez. “When you have a corrupt wife, let's say, it gets dirty.”
Cue fainting couch feminists, wokists, socialists, collectivists and brittle-hearted tyrants across the globe.
Javier Milei triggers diplomatic row after calling Spanish PM’s wife ‘corrupt’ ~ whined our favorite pinko rag, the Financial Times
Milei’s verbal attack against Spanish PM’s wife sparks diplomatic spat with Argentina ~ from El Pais
Spain demands apology after PM's wife called 'corrupt' ~ bleated the BBC
Lost amid the headline hyperventilations was the minor detail that, last month, Sra. Gomez was indeed at the center of a corruption scandal after a public worker’s union filed a complaint against the president’s wife. Prosecutors have since asked for the case to be dismissed, though rumors still swirl regarding charges of influence peddling. For his part, Prime Minister Sánchez relieved himself of administrative duties for a week to “pause and think” about “whether I should continue to lead the government or renounce this honor.”
We have little doubt the Spanish legal system is doing what such systems around the world are designed to do (protect the powerful and prosecute the powerless), but regardless of the guilt or innocence of the prime minister’s wife, we can say for sure that Pedro Sánchez never learned the children’s song…
“Los palos y las piedras pueden romperme los huesos, pero las palabras nunca me harán daño. (Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me).”
In what might fairly be described as a monumental hissy fit, Sánchez’s government recalled Spain’s ambassador to Argentina and threatened it would “take any measures deemed necessary to defend our sovereignty.”
Hmm... the lady doth protest too much, wethinks.
Hypersensitive Hypocrites
As usual, those rushing to “be offended” have no problem screeching dull-minded insults themselves. During the Argentina election, Prime Minister Sánchez repeatedly referred to Sr. Milei as, in no particular order, a “fascist,” a “xenophobic, ultra-right racist,” as well as a “science denier” and a “misogynist.” Member’s of Sánchez’s socialist gang also inveighed at will against the Argentine candidate, even going so far as to suggest he was “on drugs.”
Asked whether he would be issuing that apology to Sr. Sánchez, Sr. Milei responded exactly as expected, calling him an “arrogant socialist” with an “inferiority complex” and recommended he see a psychologist.
Later, on X, Milei announced he would return to Madrid on June 21 to receive an award from a liberal think tank, Instituto Juan de Mariana.
“We will see how deep the totalitarianism runs in his blood … We will see if his great inferiority complex allows the Spanish liberals to award me in person.”
As we say in Argentina, “Nunca un día aburrido (Never a dull day).”
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. Might unpopular ideas – free markets, civil liberties, common sense – be enjoying a resurgence… even in the woke West?
Might thoughtful individuals be ready to ditch the ‘statist quo’ in favor of a more peaceful, voluntary existence?
Might citizens be ready to shrug off the illusion of choice proffered by their would-be political leaders and their puerile porters in the mainstream press?
Such a reality might be closer than you think. Already, millions of people in hundreds of countries have tuned out of state propaganda, meant only to divide, conquer and impoverish people.
How do we know?
Well, we don’t… but we have reason to be cautiously optimistic. Even these humble Notes now reach dear readers in all 50 states across the US… and in 130 countries around the world. Not bad, given that we only just kicked off this year.
Of course, the ideas of freedom, liberty and independence are not going to spread themselves. And that’s where our dear members come in. Thanks to their support, we are able to remain fully independent… which means no advertisements, no bosses and no bias.
Just free markets, free minds and free people… all the time.
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At last,a spark of common sense in a world leader.I pray he survives.
I am hopeful that Sr. Milei has a top notch security detail and wears 3 layers of body armor. As he himself noted, socialists are vicious, and he is definitely a threat.