No, I Don’t Want To Be Like Europe, Paul Krugman
January 12, 2010 / 2:22 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierNo, I don’t want to learn from Europe. And this is why:
5. Although Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are among Europe’s wealthiest countries, as U.S. states they would be between 14.5% and 18% below the U.S. average.
Go read the whole thing. Also this.
These are just financial, quality of life reasons I don’t want to learn from Europe. There are also cultural reasons I don’t want to learn from Europe.
When I visited Washington, D.C. and saw the mind of Thomas Jefferson writ large in the Library of Congress, I knew that I would never be embarrassed about American culture ever again. The Library, along with the D.C. architecture holds knowledge and learning and ideas that vestiges of European monarchies can only dream about.
Go to any major American city and take in the opera or the orchestra. Hell, go to any church in America. You’ll hear the sounds that make up the music of a free life.
Visit New York City and see what upward mobility means. Travel through the rolling, vast plains of the midwest and see the neat farmers fields that feed the world.
I’m not knocking Europe. Paris is the most romantic city in the world, bar none. Britain has history going back thousands of years. I get it.
Still, America’s elites need to stop foisting this b.s. about what America can learn from Europe. The only thing America should be learning is what happens when socialism comes knocking at the door. Europe should be a warning about what NOT to do when you have wealth and prosperity.
Are you sick of being lectured by these guys yet?
One Response to “No, I Don’t Want To Be Like Europe, Paul Krugman”
January 12 2010 / 6:34 pm
Reply
I am with you on the socialism thing, but what I would never do, is deny our beautiful heritage with so many European ideas and places.
Thomas Jefferson, was perhaps the friendliest president to Europe and France our nation has ever known.
The great architecture of DC is European by very definition. Most of the architects who built these wondrous buildings were either European or studied in Europe. If you want to walk streets and feel the awe of what we merely have a sample of, go to Europe.
Knowledge? You mean like the immense libraries of Spain and Italy? We certainly don’t have the market cornered.
Music? The vast majority of the great musicians are from Europe right?
Your overarching point is very valid. We should learn from the mistakes of our neighbors. I just always caution how quick we are to dismiss our heritage and specifically, our friends. There isn’t a single white person here that doesn’t have roots on that continent.
Be against socialism, fine. But there is nothing organically American about those things you mentioned – quite the opposite in fact.
Love ya tons Mel,
Sid