Thankfulness At Home And Abroad

Mark Steyn is a delightfully snarky Canadian who is has a conservative outsider's take on many facets of American life. In a recent column, Steyn takes square aim at how much of the world views America, suggesting that they should all be thankful for what we've done.

Steyn points out that although the pace of life is fast in America, we are one of the oldest constitutional democracies on the planet, and in that we rely heavily on a tradition longer than almost everyone else:

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.

Steyn illustrates how even those who would destroy the foundations of American tradition use that very argument to do so:

I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.

In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there's no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide's usually up to your neck.

According to Steyn, here's where America differs from Europe:

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.

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.

Finally, he warns against America following Europe's example:

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.

It is extremely illuminating to have someone outside the U.S. put so fine a point on the things that make America great. The things that Steyn describes in Europe are all the results of socialism run wild. We don't have to guess what will happen if socialism gets implemented here in America; we can look at our neighbors across the pond and see exactly what we'll get!

So, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, let's realize how truly blessed we are to be living in America in 2007, and let's hang onto the things that got us to where we are today.

There's my two cents.