Posted on 11/17/2007 9:40:53 AM PST by goldstategop
So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.
But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.
If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.
That said, Thanksgiving isn't about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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Every morning when I put up my flag, I thank God that my grandparents had the courage and foresight to come to the United States from Germany, England, and Wales, and that I am an American.
I second MS’s sentiments, being the son of refugees from Europe’s most recent totalitarian phases; but Europe has a tendency to project many of its ills onto the US, its benefactor. (Those ills include festering/erupting Islamofascism and an undercurrent of anti-semitism.) There are hopeful signs too (e.g., Sarkozy) but the overall trend is not the direction we’d like to see.
I’m glad my great-grandparents came here, making me third-generation American.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Mark Steyn mentions that America and the world would be in deep doo doo if America copied the europeans and scaled back its military. He also states that the europeans have prospered under America’s protection.
With the recent exception of Sarkozy’s France, europe is just plain ungrateful for what America has offered. Which underscores the fact that none of those european countries has a Thanksgiving Day of its own.
Interesting comment in light of Europe’s (especially Italy’s) imploding demographics. I have to travel there in a few months. My impression thus far is that they have lost something spiritually, perhaps several decades ago. The media and contacts I do have seem to view the US as a place run by religious “extremists” who handle snakes. I expected a more educated and informed view of the US and its religious. Che, on the otherhand, gets plaudits — from European adults. Yikes.
btt
Excuse me, but has Mark Steyn heard about the invasion from the south; the marches in our streets by illegal aliens; the border patrol agents in prison? Has he heard the President call the Minutemen vigilantes?
Someone is out of touch with what's going on around here.
Awesome Mark Steyn BUMP!!!
However, I would always say to my friends - "So ask yourself. What would the world be today if there was no USA? That's not a self proud, arrogant boast. That's a comment on world security - past and present."
There will always be super powers with various agendas. I thank my lucky (50) stars that one like my country is one.
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A friend of mine at work just turned 50. Another friend was giving him a hard time and e-mailing the whole office that “Dave” had just turned 50.
I replied back “In 19 countries in the world, the average person is dead before they hit 50. It’s great that Dave can be happy and healthy when turning 50. It’s great that we live in this country!”
We have much to be thankful for.
My tagline...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Steyn bump
I just found out my American ancestors are decended from the Mayflower groups. Exciting and interesting. Hubby, on the other hand, was third-generation. His people came from Bohemia in the 1850's and 60's. America is such a great place. I'm so proud to be American!
Who are they voting for?
Wonderful article, thanks so much for posting!
I love the way Steyn thinks—and I’m always LOL at the way he writes :)
We truly are blessed. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, for all the factors expressed here and for many other reasons as well. Praise God for blessing America as He has, so graciously.
A joyful and happy Thankshiving to all!
I know my Brit in-laws get a lot of their info from Michael Moore (not to mention the Beeb). Their viewpoint is decidedly left of mine. Nice people, judging from my in-laws, not all foreigners are well-informed. They're as ignorant as many of us Yanks about what's going on in the world.
Mark S...nails it once again.
Fred for President. Mark Steyn for Fred’s Karl Rove.
Yes, it rankles that they deride us while counting on our sacrifice of our finest youths for their survival.
(By the way, I've had the same tagline for months. He must have recycled it, because it's in this column, too.)
One would have never believed Americans would ever give up their personal sovereignty, either, but that's long gone.
Yes, to paraphase Barzini, "Europe is proud of its past. America is proud of its future." Of course, he said that before the leftwing 'rats seized contol of the cultural heights.
Don't you just love Barzini? Thanks for mentioning him. I read both his book about Italy and the one about the U.S.
American taxpayers foot the bill for that opportunity.
That's a "free trade" subsidy in action.
The problem is that these thugs are killing the goose that laid their golden nest eggs.
See tag line.
“I come as one who wishes you
to fulfill completely
your noble destiny
of service to the world.”
Those were the words of Pope John Paul upon his first visit to America.
Splendid and truthfilled tagline you have there, CyberAnt.
Some of my ancestors came from somewhere in Asia, probabl;y about 10,000 years ago. Some came from Western Europe a few hundred years ago. All the same, America really began in 1776.
Knock off the personal insults.
Mark Steyn: Among the greatest Americans ever to be born outside the USA.
Perhaps it is your sense of scale which is out of touch.
There is no invasion happening. An invasion is one nation's incursion into another with the intent of conquering and plundering. These are overwhelmingly destitute people coming for work. Yes, there was one large march in the streets back in March, organized by George Soros, as protected by the 1st Amendment. Yes, there are two Border Patrol agents in prison, out of maybe 12,000, who were convicted of shooting two unarmed men in the backs as they were running into Mexico, but their convictions were meted out by Americans in an American court of law, not by Mexicans. The other 11,998 Border Patrol agents are not in prison, but are on the job. And yes, President Bush did call the general actions of Minutemen 'vigilantes' as if our national sovereignty depended on men sitting in lawn chairs.
Taken as a whole, your apparent contention that Americans no longer believe in national sovereignty is out of touch.
Thanks! But .. I can’t take credit for it - I heard Rush Limbaugh say it and it just struck a cord with me.
It is an invasion. Why? Numbers, concentration over a short time period, the illegality of entry, the sanctioning and the promotion thereof by Mexican authorities and government.
And indeed to your other point, national sovereignity. Many Americans do have a problem understanding what nation-hood means anymore, as they have been inculcated in media, textbooks and teachings to view us as world citizens. Thankfully there is a vibrant and growing number of citizens who DO understand, who have re-educated themselves to those things about law, civics and history which only two generations ago were standard curriculum. In fact, we auto-redactors may now be the majority.
But Americans aren't novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.
Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.
If you're going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.
Obviously, you are a slaver owner.
Well, as far as I’m concerned... Rush has been one of the biggest forces for good in the USA!!!
Perhaps it is just your delirious point of view, but you’re out of your danged gourd there, horny toad!!!
Iowa Speech, Aug. 2007
http://www.theodoresworld.net/archives/2007/08/duncan_hunter_gave_fantastic_s.html
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