| Saturday, January 19, 2002 |
01:59 - To Europe With Love, from USS Clueless
http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/01/fog0000000185.shtml
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USS Clueless has had just about enough of the European US-bashing and helpful advice that we've been hearing lately, and Captain den Beste gives them a piece of his mind.
The Twentieth Century is a tapestry of European failure and American success. If there's any arrogance here, it's the one held in the capitols of Europe where they still think of the US as some sort of rambunctious teenager who is strong but stupid and needs to be led by older and wiser heads. Experience proves otherwise. We've made our mistakes, but we haven't set off two world wars. That honor goes to our good friends in the UK, Germany and France, who don't seem to understand why the US isn't eager to follow their advice.
The whole post is full of stuff like that-- it's a whirlwind historical tour of the past century from the perspective of someone who has seen international tensions decline steadily over the past few decades to the point where nobody really remembers what the world climate was following WWII, or what the Americans' purpose was in occupying Europe. He's seen the post-war hair-trigger watchfulness dissolve into petty self-satisfied sniping at American commercial success and cultural imperialism and fat loud tourists who don't learn the local language wherever they go. And this does not please him.
Give it a read. It's pretty good stuff.
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