Europeanizing America

Thursday, May 7, 2009 3:45 PM

Pondering the fact that Obama's popularity poll ratings are not falling rapidly (today's Rasmussen "strongly approve" percentage was 38) I've been wondering why. It then dawned on me that a whole host of outrages can be excused by the simple claim that Obama is bringing to America many things that are taken for granted in "Europe." (Why the quotation marks? Read on.)

Among well-educated Americans, "Europe" is seen as a sort of playground, a nice place to visit. In "Europe" you can have croissants and caffe lattes, enjoy rich food eaten slowly, visit picturesque castles and old cities, observe quaint folk customs, and take comfort in the fact that "everybody" has "free medical care" and a benevolent caring government. You can legally smoke weed in Amsterdam, kids can drink wine in France, gays can get married in parts of "Europe," and American expatriates had a ball there between the two World Wars.

What's not to like about "Europe?" In fact, the allegation that only cranks, paranoids, and right-wing extremists would criticize Barack Obama begins to make some sense if one views Obama's policy agenda as merely Europeanizing the retro backwater that America has become. Are we "extremists" overreacting to what is merely a benign cultural shift whose time has come? Well, as Cab Calloway used to sing, "It ain't necessarily so."

Let's start with the quotation marks. "Europe" is a big place. Poland, Belarus, Macedonia, Estonia, and Malta are as much part of Europe as France, Italy, and the UK. Half of Europe, the Eastern half, lived under the Soviet yoke for 50+ years and is a lot more wary of grad-school Marxism than, say, Italy. The Balkans experienced Islamic expansion since 1453 and bitter struggles between the Latin and Greek churches.

It's not all bookstalls on the Seine or Belgian waffles. When Americans idealize Europe, then, they are really thinking of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the parts of Scandinavia (wherever they might be) where Muslims are not rioting over cartoons.

Then there is the whole "Marxism" issue. Back in the 1950's the word "communist" was truly frightening to mainstream Americans, but to Generations X and Y it might now appear quaint, like the terms "Tory" or "Whig." Europeans, as we all know, are "socialists," (except for Bernie Sanders, they call themselves "Progressives" in the USA) and the conventional wisdom is that a socialist is kind of like a cross between a social worker and Santa Claus. What's there to fear? Only an extremist, and a right-wing one at that, would call Obama a Marxist (or so argue the mainstream media.)

So, the Obama fans say, and believe, "let's let American become more European". We already have lattes and croissants for breakfast; let's get the legal dope and the free medical care too. (Well, you won't get the legal dope from Obama, but that's another story.)

So why not Europeanize America and be done with it? I'll answer that by dropping two names: Mark Steyn and Robert Spencer. Take some time out to go on YouTube and watch some of their videos. Like this one.

As Mark Steyn points out, Europe is not going to be Europe much longer in terms of population and culture. The Italians, Russians, and many other historic European nationalities are not having enough babies to grow their population, which means those populations will dwindle away. What will replace them? Muslims. The age-old Muslim dream of all of Europe as a Muslim nation is going to be realized. Not maybe, not if, but when. Certainly there will be resistance. Maybe Serbia, Greece, and Spain will tap into their historical memories and slow down the process. Maybe some Europeans will "be fruitful and multiply" and compete demographically with Islam, but don't count on it.

And that's why the other name I dropped is Robert Spencer. His blog is called "Jihad Watch" because he keeps his eye on jihad. I wrote earlier about the four kinds of jihad, but the kind that is energizing the angry, unemployed Muslim youth of Western Europe is the jihad of the sword. Can Barack Obama talk them out of their anger? Can Barack Obama see to it that they get well-paying, satisfying jobs? Can Barack Obama persuade them that jihad of the sword is a dead end, and they should choose jihad of the heart instead? Barack Obama can't even talk Pakistani mujahideen out of jihad of the sword. Why would he have more success in London, the suburbs of Paris, or Germany?

So visit Europe now, Americans. Drink your lattes, eat your croissants. I know, the dollar is weak and won't go far, but soon it might be too late. It's already too late for Michael Savage.

And think hard about the idea of Europeanizing the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson thought about it, and George Washington did too. Yes, I know they owned slaves, but they were not complete idiots.