ON EUROPE
I've been very critical of "the Europeans" on this blog. A few words to put this in context.

Europe is a fascinating and beautiful continent-- much more so, frankly, than North America. There are only two art forms in which Americans have made the leading contribution: music (pop, rock, jazz) and film. In architecture, painting, novels, poetry, classical music, sculpture, etc. the Europeans are far more interesting. The same goes for most intellectual disciplines, such as philosophy.

As a history aficionado, I'm enamored of Europe and its history, of the fantastic variety of polities and personalities that fill the corridors of Europe's past, of all that has been believed and achieved among the many nations of that marvel-producing peninsula of the Afro-Eurasian land mass.

Americans sometimes claim that anti-Americanism appears because foreigners envy our wealth and power. I'm ready to admit that my anti-Europeanism is partly because I envy the Europeans, getting to live amidst all of that marvellous history, those richly storied lands, which have left behind such a beautiful architectural and cultural legacy. I don't like American cities half as well as European ones. And I'd probably jump at the chance to live in Europe if I could. I can't, because non-EU citizens face restrictions on their right to work in Europe, but in this respect America is (unfortunately) equally guilty.

But I have a lot of doubts about Europe's present trajectory. Their welfare states are unsustainable (though America's Social Security program is little better), their agricultural subsidies are a disgrace (America is guilty here but not quite as much), the rise of racism and anti-immigrant populism is disturbing, and on the other hand I don't like the EU much: democratic deficit is an inevitable result of an ideologically driven leadership to pursue the "European" project whether the people like it or not. Europe is on the wrong track in a whole lot of ways.