The zeal with which Czech officials in the European Union promote democracy and human rights across the globe to the annoyance of Brussels types says more about the Union than about the Czechs (“Czechs with Few Mates,” September 1, 2007). These values, supposedly central to the Union, are little more than window dressing, just as it itself is little more than a glorified international trade arrangement. I can only hope that the Czech officials are prodding the Union in the spirit of Jaroslaw Hašek’s good soldier Szwejk, rather than out of misguided idealism. Sadly, the Austro-Hungarian Empire that Hašek parodied about a century ago was much closer to the ideals so dear to the Czech officials than is ever likely to be the case with the European Union.