The American counter revolution

The question posed by social scientist Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute's annual dinner this month could hardly have been simpler: Do Americans want the United States to be like Europe?

He asked as someone who admires Europe and Europeans. He asked also because it is becoming increasingly apparent that re-structuring the United States along the lines of the European social democratic model is the change many in the new administration --perhaps including President Obama himself -- believe in.

Murray is convinced that Europeanizing America is a bad idea, and not only because the European model creates chronically "sclerotic economies." More significant, he says, is the fact that embracing the European model means discarding the Founders' revolutionary re-invention of government, and of the relationship between the state and the citizen.

Murray argues this would inevitably "enfeeble" the habits and institutions that have been singularly responsible for making America "robust and vital" -- an exceptional" nation. [snip]

Do a sufficient number of Americans still believe that? More to the point, are we willing to fight for it? There may be no questions of greater consequence asked and answered over the years ahead.

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