EWuropeans Wondering If Americans Are Just Dumb

The Chicago Tribune ^ | 11/07/04 | Tom Hundley

[lsilver5]

Simon Schama divides us into two nations. One America is a perimeter, lying on the oceans or the fuzzy boundary with the Canadian lakes, and is porous and outward-looking. The other America is continental and landlocked, its roots of obstinate self-belief buried deep beneath the bluegrass and high corn. It is time we called these two Americas something other than Republican and Democrat. How about "Godly America" and "Worldly America?" Godly America is "mythic, messianic, conversionary, given to acts of public witness. Worldly America is a lot more like Europe. It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world. While 11 U.S. states voted to reject any notion of gay marriage, almost every state in Europe is moving to embrace the idea. While U.S. conservatives dream of the day when the Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, publicly funded abortions are taken for granted in most of Europe. In America, capital punishment has flourished. In Europe, the abolition of the death penalty is a prerequisite for membership in the European Union. When the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they took pains to erect a high wall between church and state. The new American majority wants to lower the wall. Meanwhile, the EU fought to keepfree of any references to God or religion. What Europeans seem to dislike about Bush is not that he is faithful to his wife but the "moral certainty" of his pronouncements. For Europeans as well as Americans, this election was a milestone. "Europeans have to open their eyes to the fact that the U.S. today is rather a different place than what it used to be," Now deal with it. America has spoken, the rest of the world should listen.

[hinckley buzzard]

OK, it would beat working! I've been working on the perspective of being at the center, and these fools, together with their media flacks, being peripheral. It really works to counteract their narcissistic assumptions.

[valkyrieanne]

Yes, well, Europe is going to turn into the People's Republic of Europistan in about 20 years. How smart is that?

[vannrox]

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