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Steyn, MVDG On Us, Them

UPDATE: Speaking of Europe, latest contribution to western civilization … eco-porn.  

MVDG, off whacking cowboy diplomacy for the moment, points his six-shooter at Euro-Irrationality. Steyn, a laugh-riot, as usual. And dead-on, re American traditionalism and Euro-fadism:

Europeans think of this country as “the New World” in part because it has an eternal newness, which is noisy and distracting. Who would ever have thought you could have ready-to-eat pizza faxed directly to your iPod?

And just when you think you’re on top of the general trend of novelty, it veers off in an entirely different direction: Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress “Gimme a cuppa joe” and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato.

…

But Americans aren’t novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.

We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany’s constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy’s only to the 1940s, and Belgium’s goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it’s not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France’s, Germany’s, Italy’s or Spain’s constitution, it’s older than all of them put together.

Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent’s governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they’re so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.

If you’re going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.

…

I don’t believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.

In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there’s no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide’s usually up to your neck.

So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they’ve been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere.

…

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It’s not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.

…

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.

Welcome, Stumblers, et al. I’m thankful to see you.  Got any Thanksgiving plans? Not only is Cheney Obama’s weird uncle 10 times removed, this guy thinks they’re a foreign policy dream team. Talk about sleepwalking through history. Don’t Swift-Boat me, bro!

Topics: America, Europe

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:38 am on Sunday, November 18, 2007

3 Responses to “Steyn, MVDG On Us, Them”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   November 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

   The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France’s, Germany’s, Italy’s or Spain’s constitution, it’s older than all of them put together.

   Steyn makes a very good point that I sort of knew, but never really thought about.

2. The Irrationality of Europe « The Van Der Galiën Gazette Says:
   November 18th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

   [...] More at Jules Crittenden’s place. [...]

3. Brian H Says:
   November 20th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

   For a split second, when first reading that great Steyn piece, I misread “plump and prosperous” as “plump and pompous”. Heh. Works either way, or both.

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