The costly U.S. defense umbrella has protected Western Europeans since 1945 from first the Eastern Bloc, and today the Russian Federation. Europe has also disproportionately profited from the huge, open U.S. economy. These factors have given Europeans the luxury of experimenting in all manner of government waste, inefficiency and moral relativity, from wind farms to free health care to 30-hour work weeks to 30-day vacations and gay marriage.
Sadly, the American Left views Europe as a model without acknowledging the fact that without the U.S. Europeans would all be speaking either German or Russian.