Only political suckers really believed that the European Union would listen to the voters after they decisively voted against its bizarre draft Constitution last May. The EU is a piece of bureaucratic imperialism that has built up an unstoppable head of steam over thirty years. It has never bothered with democratic procedures. After the No vote, not a thing really changed. In fact,  the voters' disapproval of the Constitution just freed up the bureaucrats to do what they wanted to anyway. This is all part of the very bizarre Disney World of Europolitics.

Yesterday The Telegraph of London reported that:

"Children as young as eight are being taught that the controversial European Constitution is up and running — even though it has been rejected by voters.

More than 100,000 copies of a textbook claiming the constitution will help the EU run "like clockwork" have been distributed to primary school children on the continent.

... The teaching material, entitled 'Europe, My Home,' features two children, Lea and Thomas, who are guided through the complexities of the EU by a character called Good Father Houpette.

"You will be astonished by what I will tell you," Father Houpette tells them. "You will see that the EU is a necessity." [snip]

There is no mention of the fact that the constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters.

"Some people might argue that the constitution is dead," said Willy Helin, head of the (EU) commission's embassy to Belgium. "But it is still on the table. The only thing that has been decided is that there will be a period of reflection.""

Yes, that's what we thought.

Again and again we are just astonished with the complete passivity and — let's call it like it is — the willful stupidity of the voters of Europe.

Whatever freedoms they have ever had are simply slipping away, and few people care. Already people have been arrested in Britain for saying politically incorrect words in public.

And yet, Europe's dictatorial elites keep stumbling from one gigantic mistake to the next. Its most socialist economies are in steep decline, and its demographic trends will lead to disaster long before global warming raises temperatures by more than a single degree. 

The peoples of Europe are constantly bombarded by self—serving lies from the elites, which are swallowed whole. The EU's own auditing agency has never approved a single budget because so much fraud and abuse is built in that the money is simply not traceable. 

The French riots exposed widespread social rot that everyone in France already knew about. But Brigitte Bardot was hauled into court and fined a few years ago for calling attention to it in public.

Telling the truth is Streng Verboten, and the voters keep electing parties that do nothing but lie to them.

So it's hardly a surprise that the EU is teaching propaganda to young children.  The trouble is that ultimately, reality always smacks wishful thinking in the face. We don't know when and how the European project, in its current dictatorial form, will come to grief. Perhaps when Iran's nuclear weapons are within range of Paris and Berlin, and Europe suddenly discovers  why it likes America again. Or perhaps, as Mark Steyn believes, Europe is simply on its way out, as native population grow older without having children, and unassimilated immigrants take over.

James Lewis is a frequent contributor.