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| Europe |
| U.S. to Europe: "Hi. Are you nuts?" |
| 2004-11-12 |
| EFL. Hat tip: Rand Simberg. Hi. Are you nuts? Forgive me for being so blunt, but your reaction to our reelection of President Bush has been so outrageous that I'm wondering if you have quite literally lost your minds. No need to wonder, Herb. They have. One of Britain's largest newspapers ran a headline asking "How Can 59 Million Americans Be So Dumb?", and commentators in France all seemed to use the same word — bizarre -- to explain the election's outcome to their readers. In Germany the editors of Die Tageszeitung responded to our vote by writing that "Bush belongs at a war tribunal — not in the White House." And on a London radio talk show last week one Jeremy Hardy described our President and those of us who voted for him as "stupid, crazy, ignorant, bellicose Christian fundamentalists." Well, in my case at least, the "bellicose" part is right. But Jeremy, honey, if the best you can do is 1 out of 6, might I suggest you don't go into the wagering business? Of course, you are entitled to whatever views about us that you care to hold. (And lucky for you we Americans aren't like so many of the Muslims on your own continent; as the late Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh just discovered, make one nasty crack about them and you're likely to get six bullets pumped into your head and a knife plunged into your chest.) But before you write us off as just a bunch of sweaty, hairy-chested, Bible-thumping morons who are more likely to break their fast by dipping a Krispy Kreme into a diet cola than a biscotti into an espresso — and who inexplicably have won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined, host 25 or 30 of the world's finest universities and five or six of the world's best symphonies, produce wines that win prizes at your own tasting competitions, have built the world's most vibrant economy, are the world's only military superpower and, so to speak in our spare time, have landed on the moon and sent our robots to Mars — Righteous bitch-slap! may I suggest you stop frothing at the mouth long enough to consider just what are these ideas we hold that you find so silly and repugnant? *snip* Your rate of marriage is at an all-time low, and the number of abortions in Europe is at an all-time high. Indeed, your birth rates are so far below replacement levels that in 30 years or so there will be 70 million fewer Europeans alive than are alive today. Europe is literally dying. And of the children you do manage to produce, all too few will be raised in stable, two-parent households. Your economy is stagnant because your government regulators make it just about impossible for your entrepreneurs to succeed — except by fleeing to the United States, where we welcome them and celebrate their success. And your armed forces are a joke. With the notable exception of Great Britain, you no longer have the military strength to defend yourselves. Alas, you no longer have the will to defend yourselves. What worries me even more than all this is your willful blindness. That's the problem in a nutshell. You refuse to see that it is you, not we Americans, who have abandoned Western Civilization. It's worrisome because, to tell you the truth, we need each other. Western Civilization today is under siege, from radical Islam on the outside and from our own selfish hedonism within. It's going to take all of our effort, our talent, our creativity and, above all, our will to pull through. So take a good, hard look at yourselves and see what your own future will be if you don't change course. And please, stop sneering at America long enough to understand it. After all, Western Civilization was your gift to us, and you ought to be proud of what we Americans have made of it. Lots more at the link - read it all. It would be nice if the Euros would listen, but I'm not holding my breath. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut |
| #6 Tom, did you have to invoke the name of the mouth-breathing one? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-11-12 3:19:50 PM |
| #5 TW - Thank the bloggers I steal them from! :-D (I try to) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-11-12 2:36:23 PM |
| #4 Barbara, you've been posting some very interesting articles lately. Thanks! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2004-11-12 2:15:58 PM |
| #3 When did you start using a cover, com? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-12 12:59:52 PM |
| #2 I would have started the essay with "Dear Aris,". |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-11-12 12:52:12 PM |
| #1 I would agree with everything but the "selfish hedonism" part. Granted, the Euros screw up selfish hedonism, but a lot of Americans do it right, and to considerable profit. Even at our most swinish, we still consistently do it better than they do. Take the Internet, for example. A virtual "Wild West" of bad behavior, with minimal taxation, supervision or government control. Surely the apex of selfish hedonism (and liberty.) |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-11-12 12:48:15 PM |