NY Times • Fear and Rejection

[SnorterLuster]

Fear and Rejection

      By [DAVID BROOKS](http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: June 2, 2005
Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.

Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline.

Link to story below

nytimes.com/2005/06/02/opinion/02brooks.html?hp

 

[Philip_P]

I enjoy Brooks style, but he’s kinda the mushy right equivalent to Friedman’s mushy left. Sure, Europe’s not doing excellently now, but it sure has done well over the last 60 years or so. Going from post WWII devastation to it’s ultra-high standard of living is quite an accomplishment, and would have been impossible without it’s high reliance on economic welfare (chief among them the Marshall Plan). If it’s foundering now, it’s more likely to be a sign that the model needs to be retooled rather than proof that the model is worthless.

One part of the model Europe should probably look at is immigration and nationalism. In this respect, Europe is very illiberal, certainly less than the U.S. In America, it doesn’t matter your creed, culture, race, ancestry, or heritage, you can still be an American. Not really the case in most European countries. Look at the pathetic job France is doing in integrating its Muslim immigrants into national life, for instance. Especially in light of its declining birth rates, Europe needs to rethink its attitude toward immigrants and national identity and adopt a model more “liberal,” more like America’s.

 

[David_Paul]

Liberalism isn’t dead! It is all a matter of passing the right laws. And educating people to like them. We can work 35 hours a week too if Congress would only act.

My complaint concerns electric cars. Congress refuses to act. With battery powered vehicles we would have zero pollution and cheap transportation. Write your congressman today and demand Congress repeal the Second Law of Thermodynamics.