from The National Review, Beggars and Choosers by Kevin Williamson:

The presence of Greece in the Eurozone is the result of a lie: The Greeks pretended to get their deficits and debt under control, and the Europeans pretended to believe them. That was the first act. In the second act, after the advent of the current crisis, the Greeks pretended to enact fiscal reforms, and the Europeans pretended to believe them. Political logic is, not coincidentally, lawyer logic — which is to say, it substitutes consensus for reality. If enough people (jurors, voters) are convinced that your position is the correct one, then you “win.” Maybe the election turns out your way, as with Tsipras and the referendum. Maybe political consensus prevents your opponents from enacting their favored policies, just as conservatives have for decades been frustrated in their efforts to enact entitlement reform by cheap and dishonest images of grandmothers being pushed over cliffs. Maybe O. J. Simpson walks.

Politics is negotiation. Reality is non-negotiable. The Greeks were not one euro (or drachma!) better off after their weekend temper tantrum; if anything, they were worse off, as attested to by the spectacle of the citizens of a civilized, high-income, European country stockpiling sugar and flour like denizens of some backward war zone. In the homeland of political philosophy, political discourse has been reduced to an infantile bawl on the part of the people — the eternal “I Want!” — and the parental version from the leadership: “Because I Said So!”

The Greek people spent part of the weekend in the streets celebrating their status as international deadbeat. They spent the rest of the weekend hoarding food, fuel, and medicine in preparation for the manmade disaster they have inflicted upon themselves.

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