But the Greatest of These Is Freedom, The Consequences of Immigration in Europe, By Hege Storhaug

Introduction By Bruce Bawer (translator from the Norwegian edition.)

In recent decades, as Hege Storhaug notes in these pages, those of us fortunate enough to live in the Western world have enjoyed a degree of freedom unparalleled in human history. This freedom did not come easily. It is the product of centuries of struggle — a product of the Renaissance, of the Protestant Reformation, of the seventeenth-century Enlightenment, and of a long series of hard-won reforms in various countries, of which the most notable and influential were probably the American Revolution and American Declaration of Independence, which in 1776 affirmed the then remarkable notion that human beings — every last one of them — had a right to the pursuit of happiness.

Among the things that freedom frees up are human creativity and innovation. Thus freedom has brought with it a remarkable array of technological developments and cultural achievements as well as unprecedented levels of prosperity. [Read more…]