Published: January 14, 2012
QUELLE horreur! One of the uglier revelations about President Obama emerging from the Republican primaries is that he is trying to turn the United States into Europe.
“He wants us to turn into a European-style welfare state,” warned Mitt Romney. Countless versions of that horrific vision creep into Romney’s speeches, suggesting that it would “poison the very spirit of America.”
Rick Santorum agrees, fretting that Obama is “trying to impose some sort of European socialism on the United States.”
Who knew? Our president is plotting to turn us into Europeans. Imagine:
It’s a languid morning in Peoria, as a husband and wife are having breakfast. “You’re sure you don’t want eggs and bacon?” the wife asks. “Oh, no, I prefer these croissants,” the husband replies. “They have a lovely je ne sais quoi.”
He dips the croissant into his café au-lait and chews it with zest. “What do you want to do this evening?” he asks. “Now that we’re only working 35 hours a week, we have so much more time. You want to go to the new Bond film?”
“I’d rather go to a subtitled art film,” she suggests. “Or watch a pretentious intellectual television show.”
“I hear Kim Kardashian is launching a reality TV show where she discusses philosophy and global politics with Bernard-Henri Lévy,” he muses. “Oh, chérie, that reminds me, let’s take advantage of the new pétanque channel and host a super-boules party.”
“Parfait! And we must work out our vacation, now that we can take all of August off. Instead of a weekend watching ultimate fighting in Vegas, let’s go on a monthlong wine country tour.”
“How romantic!” he exclaims. “I used to worry about getting sick on the road. But now that we have universal health care, no problem!”
Look out: another term of Obama, and we’ll all greet each other with double pecks on the cheek.
Yet there is something serious going on. The Republican candidates unleash these attacks on Obama because so many Americans have in mind a caricature of Europe as an effete, failed socialist system. As Romney puts it: “Europe isn’t working in Europe. It’s not going to work here.”
(Monsieur Romney is getting his comeuppance. Newt Gingrich has released an attack ad, called “The French Connection,” showing clips of Romney speaking the language of Paris. The scandalized narrator warns: “Just like John Kerry, he speaks French!”)
But the basic notion of Europe as a failure is a dangerous misconception. The reality is far more complicated.
Read the rest here.
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“If Europe was as anticapitalist as Americans assume, its companies would be collapsing. But there are 172 European corporations among the Fortune Global 500, compared with just 133 from the United States.”
Except that Europe combined is almost 3 times bigger than the United States. I’d hardly call that a triumphant victory.
My other favorite:
“Europe gets some important things right. It has addressed energy issues and climate change far more seriously than America has.”
This comment only makes sense if you believe that climate change and renewable energy are important. Personally, I’m ashamed we’re pissing away as much money as we are on industrializing production of insufficient energy technology. I’d rather not waste even more.
I hate these juxtapositions. You just can’t compare a place like the Netherlands to a place like the U.S. The Netherlands are composed of 80% natural, ethnic Dutch.
Yeah, real good parallel there to the U.S. which has huge ethnic diversity.
Yes we are not as advanced in our immigrant hating ways as you folks over in America. If you go to a large city in France, Germany or Italy you will head a multitude of languages and see a wide variety of immigrants from inside the EU and from Africa and the Middle East.
I would think in light of the disastrous financial situation that is the US deficit you would be trying to be a little more like Germany, not less.
I’d happily be more like Germany. Although I’m not wearing lederhosen.
Saying “be more like Europe” doesn’t just mean you pick out the best of bread and show it off. Being more like Europe also means being more like Greece, or France, or Italy, or Spain…
But anyway, I’d guess in five more months, I’ll be glad I’m not Germany too.
Wait, I’m pretty confused; where does hating immigrants come into play here? The Dutch comment was not racist; I was simply pointing out that a homogenous society is going to have different problems than a hetergenous society.
The U.S.’s diversity and consistently high levels of immigration make it more difficult to maintain high wealth levels and such.
When you get an influx of million+ people who come here with nothing in their name, yeah, it fucks with your stats a little bit…
TJWP has a warped sense of America, primarily because he isn’t American. Plus, he is very young, which enables him to have firm convictions which are grounded in nothing but his few years of life experiences.
I can see my comment has been interpreted as I intended. Perhaps I really do need to keep adding the (joke) parenthesis to the end of non-serious comments.
Also don’t knock lederhosen, they are surprisingly comfortable and warm, speaking from my Octoberfest experiences.
Gotcha, TJWP, I didn’t get the joke.
How can an article claim that high unemployment due to strict labor laws is a problem facing Europe, but a few paragraphs later say that French workers average 300 hours a year less than Americans and pass it off as a good thing?
LeftCoast, you should know, when reading liberal ideology disguised as fact, you have to only feel…feel…who it feels soooooooooo good. You are not allowed to actually think. It ruins it.