HOMERUN:

The Ostrich Position: European anti-Americanism reflects a deeper malaise. (PAUL JOHNSON, October 17, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

Americans have been angered by the hostile attitude of some Europeans to U.S. efforts to take the war against terrorism to its countries of origin in the Middle East--a recent example of which was the suggestion, by Nobel jurors, that Jimmy Carter deserved the Peace Prize for his opposition to war with Iraq. They are puzzled by European irrationalism and weakness. They wonder, too, how the Continental economies can sustain double-digit unemployment for years on end. But the causes for all this are deep-rooted. There is no longer a "sick man of Europe." The whole of Europe is sick.

We have to remember that twice in the 20th century, Europe came close to committing suicide by wars that in retrospect seem senseless. These were followed by a Cold War that imprisoned much of Europe in a cage of fear. In this process, Europe, a collection of vigorous peoples who pushed forward the frontiers of civilization for a thousand years and created the modern world, learned to opt for a safety-first existence in which comforts and short-term security became the object of policy. They sought a cozy Utopia, with risk and pain eliminated.

Fifty years ago, the drive to unite Europe was seen as a daring adventure, not only burying ancient enmities but creating a new kind of enterprise society that would bring unparalleled prosperity. The project has degenerated into a defense of cradle-to-grave social-security system whose demands take priority over the market.

Under the EU's constant demands for "social protection," European societies have become a paradise for bureaucrats, trade unionists, centrist politicians and those businessmen who prefer to work under government protection. They offer little to original minds and risk-taking entrepreneurs. The fundamental assumptions of the drive to unite the continent are now half a century out of date and the EU's rigid, ultraconservative structure makes it incapable of taking in new ideas or even dumping such manifest archaisms as the Common Agricultural Policy.

This is the best column we've seen in a long time, on the dire and largely undiscussed problems that face the West. He hits upon virtually every theme we've been discussing here--with the exception of Evolution--and ties them all together into one devastating portrait of a dying Europe. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 17, 2002 10:16 AM