

But von der Leyen’s bravado will fall on the shoulders of ordinary Europeans in the form of higher energy costs and diminished competitiveness. Based on Eurostat data and average consumption a typical EU household saw its energy bill rise from about ~€1,500/year in 2020 to ~€2,380/year in 2025. And of course, her decisiveness is all for show, since the EU is still buying Russian hydrocarbons, only with some extra middlemen layers and at extra cost. For example, India’s fuel sales to Europe jumped by around 137% since the imposition of sanctions on Russia.
But refusing to buy any evil hydrocarbons from Russia is only the start of where the mad Eurotard leaders want to go. In a recent media interview, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul all but committed Germany to starting World War III for Ukraine: “Next week Russia either bows… or we enter the war directly. And if it turns into a world war then let it be for Ukraine.” Wadepuhl outcrazied even his predecessor Annalena Baerbock who famously said, “I will put Ukraine first no matter what my German voters think or how hard their life gets.”
German people and other Europeans might beg to differ, but the fanatical zealots in Euorpe’s political class are taking increasingly aggressive steps to censor all dissent, silence opposition and drive the continent over the edge of war. Why they would be doing that is not a great mystery: clearly, it is out of their devotion to democracy, freedom and human rights. But exactly who is behind the suicidal agenda is harder to discern.
This spartan defense against Persia is analogous to our situation today. Spartans consider these late-empire Persians to be corrupt and degenerate power-mongers, seeking to stamp out freedom and sovereignty. And let's be frank about our situation in the West. We stand at a very real precipice. Facing dangers of a sort never before experienced by our predecessors, and must now answer that weightiest of questions, to be or not to be.
We stand on the brink of collapse. We either find a means of cultivating and harnessing inspired leadership once again, in that Marcus Aurelius mold, Those that see power not as a privilege, or as a means of personal gain, or as an end in and of itself, but as the greatest of responsibilities, as a burden thoughtfully born by a fatherly nature at the head of a household towards a meaningful end. Or, we cede our world and its future to the merely ambitious and the forces they ultimately serve. A rootless and clamoring merchant class, stamping out culture and race and exceptional uniqueness of any and every kind, and finally human spirit itself, in the service of profit margins couched in false ideals as their cover. Men who seek the destruction of everything natural, conceptions of family, hierarchy, masculinity and femininity, gender itself, and wage a war against everything lofty and exceptional and beautiful. Because these ideas are so foreign to their small and cynical nature. They seek a world without depth or peaks, but rather that even keel of petty materialism, each generation a bit smaller and more tame and more easily controllable than the last.
So which way, Western man? Will the future be controlled by the pioneering, adventurous, heroic and courageous? Those always seeking new shores and Horizons, seeking to create, explore, expand, improve, instill order and structure and purpose? Or will this world become a marketplace ruled by the dollar and thus ruled by the masters of the dollar? This is our crossroads. After decades of shrinking, of being constrained and restrained, perhaps it's time to stand again, to break free of these fetters and once again become independent and fully formed human beings. If we're not capable of channeling that discipline, that back-to-basics clarity of mind, and that courage to face all obstacles and challenges, no matter how daunting they may seem, this world will become a very, very dark place. The Spartans made their choice to stand with unbended knee, loud enough to echo down through the generations. What will be our echo?