USA becoming too much like Europe?

John Reiniers, writing for the online edition of Hernando Today is rapidly becoming one of my favorite columnists. In his most recent piece he rightly laments that the United States is becoming too much like Europe.

What the average European doesn't realize is that Europe is on the verge of becoming an "authentic" historical Disney World which will be a vacation destination for all those employed in countries which have figured out how to benefit from technology and globalization. The rampant growth of social programs in Europe, such as health care and pensions, if left unchecked, will bankrupt Europe. This is where we are heading.

Reiniers points out that for the last 60 years Europe hasn't had to defend themselves because we've been spending gazillions doing that for them. Instead of having respectable defense budgets, they've funneled that money into socialistic giveaways which are now bankrupting them. Add to that weak willed leaders who are intimidated by demanding constituents and you soon have an untenable situation. The masses demand more freebies and the spineless politicians are afraid to tell them they can no longer afford them, lest they get booted out of office.

Mass opinion has acquired mounting power in this century. It has shown itself to be a dangerous master....Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate... or otherwise manage to manipulate...their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular."

Sadly, we are bereft of wise leaders and even more tragic is the possibility that Americans would reject them if we had them. Pity!

On the horizon is the seemingly inevitable nationalized health care which has proven to be sub-standard and cost-prohibitive wherever it's been tried. That doesn't seem to matter to insistent politicos who create problems in order to solve them. Unfortunately, whenever politicians enact solutions to problems they created, the unintended (or maybe even intended) consequences are always more severe than they were before they started jacking around with the status quo.

We shouldn't ever aspire to be like Europe. They are overtaxed, energy dependent, unproductive, decaying and representative of the past...proof that socialism doesn't ultimately work.

America doesn't need to go down that road, but it may take a national epiphany of some sort for us to realize otherwise. Who knows what it's going to take, but it probably won't be a pleasant epiphany.

Be sure to read the entire piece. Reiniers seems to have a pretty good handle on European and American trends.