Tuesday, May 27, 2008

VDH In Europe

I have tried to visit various places in Europe each year since 9/11, and am currently leading a tour of battlefields here, ancient and modern, and things seem this season a tiny bit different. In a completely unscientific manner,after listening to various Europeans talk on politics, America, etc., a very funny thing impression seems to follow: while we are engaged in a campaign that may end up taking the country very much to the left in the sense of higher taxes, more government, and more foreign policy led by international consensus, the Europeans seem to be questioning the welfare state more than ever, and seem more pro-American than ever before.
In another completely unscientific observation, there are very few mothers with small children to be seen, very little new housing construction, and a lot of traffic jams, despite $9 a gallon gasoline.Europe still seems very much a society of the elderly and the thirty something single person.