>No. I know plenty about what Europe has been doing in the last 50 years. My issue is that you have repeatedly offered Europe up as an unconditional role model for us poor, ignorant Americans to aspire to. My posts to you have been an attempt to (a) demonstrate that Europe has a history of failed politics, (b) illustrate that what you think works there may not work here, and (c) that I don't think your system of government (choose a country) works very well either. Here's an article you might find interesting:
>http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18719/article_detail.asp. I'll warn you now that it's from a conservative magazine, but you've already claimed that studying the opposition is a good thing.

Having an extra night of thoughts on this document (yes, I tend to think about these kind of issues), the following comments.

Yes it is true that we have to deal with unemployment but that in itself is not our biggest problem. The conditions between the US and europe are totally different. In general, if you have a job here in europe, you don't fall in the poverty category. You've got health insurance, enough to eat, can send your kids to school, etc. The situation in the US is totally different. One could have two job, working a 60 hours a week and still fall in the poverty category with no health insurance, etc.

In holland, we do have a problem in motivating some people to get to work (why should I work for that few extra bucks while I'm happy with the live I live right now). In the US this is a neccesity. Anyways we are working on that issue. We are solving problems as we encounter them.

In germany for example, the issue is different. It still wrestles with the union of west and east germany in 1990?. As in other eastern europe countries it has to deal with its communistic inheritance and build up their economies. Those countries will have the strongest rise in economy in europe, just because of the european union.

I don't know too much about the situation in france, but it is clear that there are some issues that cannot be sustained on the long term. For example the subsidies to farmers is one that almost every other EU country objects to.

Scandanivian countries have the best economies and best quality of life ratings in the world. I don't really know much negative to say about those countries.

Also a lot of european countries still are wrestling with their colonial past (the US does not have those issues) where they still have a more or less open door for low skilled people to come in to their countries. The riots in France, as you have been referring to a couple of times really have to do with a failed integration policy (In the US it is far more simple: Adapt or you will have no better live in the US). In holland we cannot say we have a successfull one, but we at least identified problems and try to adress them. In france it was totally ignored.

For the somewhat more positive sidenotes in your link, I don't really understand the mentioning of the UK as doing better in europe than other european countries. I don't see this back in the stats. Not any mentioning of the scandanavian countries as well. Hell not even a word about the euro currency and the developments of the european union. I also do not agree on the things said of the netherlands as unemployment rates might be lower, we also have a category of disabled people that is utterly high and in the past has been used as the garbage bin for people who could/would like not to work. The article just does not mention that at all. All in all a pretty useless paper that IMO is more intended as propaganda. It is curious that just those countries who supported the war in iraq come out best (Yes the netherlands politically supported the war).

We as europe have to deal with a hell lot of different cultures. From arabs to north africans, turks and jews. Not seldomly they amongst eachother they have an axe to grind and those issues are a reality on european ground. We are searching for ways to let europe deal with this issues in a civilised way. It is for this reason that europe does not like of stirring up things with muscle talk in our backyard (Note that if some day turkey is joining the EU, iraq *IS* our backyard).

But the bottom line is that the americans more focus on material wealth, resulting in a "live to work" atitude, while european more strive for a "Work to live" attitude. There are also some pretty remarkable stats about productivity and its relation to working hours. It seems that though, some european countries have an 36-40 hour working week (The netherlands for example) they do the same amount of work as one with a 50 hour working week. This has first been noticed by comparing productivity in Japan with the productivity in some european countries.

My conclusion is that europe is a united europe under construction. There still is a lot of work to be done, but a lot has been acomplished already. The forming of an european union government, the introduction of the euro, the free trading zones are examples of that. This has been constructed almost invisible to the US and european citizens as well. The foundation however is significantly different than the american one. More emphasizing on the well beeing of its citizens rather than on sole econmical factors. If you read the literature of Jeremy Rifkin you'll get an impression on how it is different.

In the construction of this all, europe takes a far more practical approach rather than idealogical (such in the US) in solving certain problems. In the US you'll see as I mentioned earlier that they start with an idealogic principle and search how problems can be solved within it. Examples in case are Sexual education, gay marriage. Every problem is thought in categories of good or bad. Strong religion has a bad root in here.

Anyways, there are a lot of dynamic and interesting processes going on in europe, for bilding a better society risen from the ashes of WWII. It is progressing at such speed that the citizens cannot keep up. Hence the rejection of the european constituation by France and The Netherlands. It simply takes time to absorb all changes.

If we look at the US, I don't see any comparable progression. In stead I see static conservatism and the rise of religion throwing you back in time in certain aspects. I might be having a too negative view on that, but it is certain that its nothing compared to what is happening in europe.

Walter,