|
27 Sep 09 – Reader Ron de Haan thought I’d like this speech that
Czech President Vaclav Klaus gave to the United Nations last week.
“Klaus is a climate skeptic, a great defender of individual freedom
and he distrusts socialist governments,” says de Haan.
“He survived the Second World War and the time his country was
locked behind the Iron Curtain when it was run by the USSR tells the
truth and I applaud him for doing that because it takes courage
these days to do so.”
Speech to the United Nations by Czech President
Vaclav Klaus
23 Sep 09 – (Excerpts) – “This year, in our part of the world, we
commemorate twenty years after the fall of communism, after the moment,
when my country – together with other states of Central and Eastern
Europe – regained freedom and sovereignty.
"In the twenty years that have passed since these historic events, we
succeeded in building a stable political democracy, as well as in
transforming our economic system into a functioning free market economy.
I am mentioning this because I believe that this experience of ours is
relevant for the undergoing discussions about how to solve the economic
problems the world is facing today.
"We are meeting at a time when the world is in one of the deepest
economic crises since the Second World War. We see the first signals
that the economic crisis has reached its bottom or has come close to it.
"It would be a tragic mistake to fundamentally impair economic freedom
in favor of state or supra-state regulation just now. The long-term
experience tells us that it is thanks to the free markets and free
entrepreneurship that we can enjoy the current material welfare and
economic progress.
"Business cycles, accompanied by economic
downturns, recessions and crises, did exist, do exist and will exist in
the future. In spite of them, the world has been – at least in the last
two centuries – characterized primarily by economic growth and growing
prosperity.
"When looking for an appropriate reaction to the problems connected
with the current crisis, we should build on the idea that the crisis was
basically a failure of governments, not markets.
"Let us not delude ourselves that the economic
cycle and its consequences can be prevented by the more extensive
government regulation or by aiming at global governance of the world
economy. (Bold lettering is as shown on Václav Klaus’s web page.)
"I do, however, want to emphasize that the measures proposed to combat
climate change represent another heavy burden, for both the developed
countries which are falling into deep fiscal deficits now as well as for
developing countries and this is in a situation when the rich countries,
often pushing this agenda at international forums, are losing their
ability to compensate the poorer countries for the impact of these
additional costs."
See entire
speech:
http://www.klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=LxCCCtslQLUe
Thanks to Ron de Haan for this link
Also read Klaus’s book Blue Planet in Green Shackles.
See also
Czech president - U.N. climate meeting was “propagandistic”
|