Posted on 06/23/2008 9:06:48 PM PDT by jazusamo
If anyone suggested that Tiger Woods should try to be more like other golfers, people would question the sanity of whoever made that suggestion.
Why should Tiger Woods try to be more like Phil Mickelson? If Tiger turned around and tried to golf left-handed, like Mickelson, he probably wouldn't be as good as Mickelson, much less as good as he is golfing the way he does right-handed.
Yet there are those who think that the United States should follow policies more like those in Europe, often with no stronger reason than the fact that Europeans follow such policies. For some Americans, it is considered chic to be like Europeans.
If Europeans have higher minimum wage laws and more welfare state benefits, then we should have higher minimum wage laws and more welfare state benefits, according to such people. If Europeans restrict pharmaceutical companies' patents and profits, then we should do the same.
Some Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court even seem to think that they should incorporate ideas from European laws in interpreting American laws.
Before we start imitating someone, we should first find out whether the results that they get are better than the results that we get. Across a very wide spectrum, the United States has been doing better than Europe for a very long time.
By comparison with most of the rest of the world, Europe is doing fine. But they are like Phil Mickelson, not Tiger Woods.
Minimum wage laws have the same effects in Europe as they have had in other places around the world. They price many low-skilled and inexperienced workers out of a job.
Because minimum wage laws are more generous in Europe than in the United States, they lead to chronically higher rates of unemployment in general and longer periods of unemployment than in the United States-- but especially among younger, less experienced and less skilled workers.
Unemployment rates of 20 percent or more for young workers are common in a number of European countries. Among workers who are both younger and minority workers, such as young Muslims in France, unemployment rates are estimated at about 40 percent.
The American minimum wage laws do enough damage without our imitating European minimum wage laws. The last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate in the United States was 1930.
The next year, the first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was passed. One of its sponsors explicitly stated that the purpose was to keep blacks from taking jobs from whites.
No one says things like that any more-- which is a shame, because the effect of a minimum wage law does not depend on what anybody says. Blacks in general, and younger blacks in particular, are the biggest losers from such laws, just as younger and minority workers are in Europe.
Those Americans who are pushing us toward the kinds of policies that Europeans impose on pharmaceutical companies show not the slightest interest in what the consequences of such laws have been.
One consequence is that even European pharmaceutical companies do much of their research and development of new medications in the United States, in order to take advantage of American patent protections and freedom from price controls.
These are the very policies that the European imitators want us to change.
It is not a coincidence that such a high proportion of the major pharmaceutical drugs are developed in the United States. If we kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as the Europeans have done, both we and the Europeans-- as well as the rest of the world -- will be worse off, because there are few other places for such medications to be developed.
There are a lot of diseases still waiting for a cure, or even for relief for those suffering from those diseases. People stricken with these diseases will pay the price for blind imitation of Europe.
The United States leads the world in too many areas for us to start imitating those who are trailing behind.
And now brother Jaz, I bid you good evening. :)
Yes he is! G’Night, Smooth. :)
“For some Americans, it is considered chic to be like Europeans. “
I’m sorry, but this just brings out the redneck in me. That’s all I’ll say (for now.)
You don’t have to say it, I know exactly what you mean. :)
BUMP!
That is, until they had to fork over most of the paycheck to the Euro taxman. Then it wouldn't be so chic anymore.
“....The next year, the first federal minimum wage law, the Davis-Bacon Act, was passed. One of its sponsors explicitly stated that the purpose was to keep blacks from taking jobs from whites....”
Should be repeated often and loudly!!
I don't like the "performance enhancement" aspect, and I hope sports is rid of it, soon. But without it, it would still be "perform or go". Nobody wants to watch a .180 hitter.
Politics is full of .180 hitters.
mark
bttt
Ain't it the truth. Many are good at scamming and that's it.
I’m sure imitating European governments and their politics, is the furthrest thing from the minds of most of the people on this forum. After all, one of the primary reasons America and the American Government was born, was because good men fled Europe (and other places) to find freedom and establish it for their children. Why, after all these years, would Americans want to imitate nations our ancestors escaped?
Absolutely, anyone on this forum wanting to imitate Europeans doesn’t belong here, period. The leftists in our country won’t be satisfied until we have regressed to the level of Europe.
The left wants to take it well beyond the kind of socialism Europe currently enjoys, I assure you. : )
The only thing I want from Europe is the Beer. To be more specific, dark lagers. To me, that is all they have to offer.
Thank God for Mr. Thomas Sowell - another excellent column. Thanks for posting.
It all has to do with hubris. I was just talking with a friend yesterday who is baffled by the whole concept. She's a naturalized US citizen, who grew up in communist Poland. She doesn't understand how or why it is that young US citizens seem to want to institute economic systems that were so oppressive. All she can figure is that from the outside, these systems look "fair," and from their hubris they believe that there's nothing wrong with the ideas: It's just that the people who put those ideas into action were flawed. That if only THEY could be the ones in charge, everything would work right, THIS TIME! Never mind that every time they've ever been put to use, those ideas have made a wreck of the society.
Mark
I've been thinking about Dr. Sowell's article since early morning, in back brain.
Blacks accuse other blacks who do well in school as "acting white". As in imitating whites. Well, doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that when one gets an education, one does far better in life. So, in reverse, I suppose radical blacks posit that there's such a "right thing" as acting "black". As tho skin color should predict behavior.
If so, why do blacks gets so upset when it is statistically and abundantly clear that blacks are committing the most crime in the culture.
Could it be that some blacks are "imitating" in acting as "blacks"?
Imitation can be a form of flattery. But it can also lead one into a bad place.
Trying to imitate the Jones has always led to debt. And trying to "act" black or to act "white" is as silly a notion as I've ever heard.
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