Fear and Rejection

Post by **sbp** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:44 am

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/02/opini ... le_popular

Forgive me for making a blunt and obvious point, but events in Western Europe are slowly discrediting large swaths of American liberalism.

Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline.

Western Europeans seem to be suffering a crisis of confidence. Election results, whether in North Rhine-Westphalia or across France and the Netherlands, reveal electorates who have lost faith in their leaders, who are anxious about declining quality of life, who feel extraordinarily vulnerable to foreign competition - from the Chinese, the Americans, the Turks, even the Polish plumbers.

Anybody who has lived in Europe knows how delicious European life can be. But it is not the absolute standard of living that determines a people's morale, but the momentum. It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward - where expectations are high - than it is to live in an affluent country that is looking back.

Right now, Europeans seem to look to the future with more fear than hope. As Anatole Kaletsky noted in The Times of London, in continental Europe "unemployment has been stuck between 8 and 11 percent since 1991 and growth has reached 3 percent only once in those 14 years."

The Western European standard of living is about a third lower than the American standard of living, and it's sliding. European output per capita is less than that of 46 of the 50 American states and about on par with Arkansas. There is little prospect of robust growth returning any time soon.

Once it was plausible to argue that the European quality of life made up for the economic underperformance, but those arguments look more and more strained, in part because demographic trends make even the current conditions unsustainable. Europe's population is aging and shrinking. By 2040, the European median age will be around 50. Nearly a third of the population will be over 65. Public spending on retirees will have to grow by a third, sending Europe into a vicious spiral of higher taxes and less growth.

This is the context for the French "no" vote on the E.U. constitution. This is the psychology of stagnation that shaped voter perceptions. It wasn't mostly the constitution itself voters were rejecting. Polls reveal they were articulating a broader malaise. The highest "no" votes came from the most vulnerable, from workers and the industrial north. The "no" campaign united the fearful right, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, with the fearful left, led by the Communists.

Influenced by anxiety about the future, every faction across the political spectrum found something to feel menaced by. For the Socialist left, it was the threat of economic liberalization. For parts of the right, it was the threat of Turkey. For populists, it was the condescension of the Brussels elite. For others, it was the prospect of a centralized European superstate. Many of these fears were mutually exclusive. The only commonality was fear itself, the desire to hang on to what they have in the face of change and tumult all around.

The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don't know how to sustain it.

Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.

This is the chief problem with the welfare state, which has nothing to do with the success or efficiency of any individual program. The liberal project of the postwar era has bred a stultifying conservatism, a fear of dynamic flexibility, a greater concern for guarding what exists than for creating what doesn't.

That's a truth that applies just as much on this side of the pond.

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:31 pm

GRRRH! LIBERARS BAD! BADDD!!!

TheSovereign · Post by **TheSovereign** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:38 pm

Originally posted by UberNeuman
GRRRH! LIBERARS BAD! BADDD!!!

ill buy that for a dollar!

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:45 pm

ill buy that for a dollar!

GRRRH! STUPIDITY EVEN WORSE!!!

Post by **sbp** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 8:31 pm

Originally thread crapped by UberNeuman
GRRRH! LIBERARS BAD! BADDD!!!

Since you are so bothered by one whole post per week in this subforum, contact blade so the access masks of your member account can be changed to make this subforum disappear. Also do the same for LMandrake who is another that has recently been unable to show courtesy. Or, better yet, since this situation is so bad make a request to have the political subforum shut down.

You would think at a time when PCA Forums increasingly hurts for traffic threads would be encouraged, not discouraged.

hame

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 8:39 pm

Um, no. It's a forum. You made a comment. I made a comment - that what forums are about - it's give and take...

Everyone isn't going to agree on everything - so don't whine when someone doesn't agree with your viewpoint...

And I'm not LMandrake's daddy, so please don't complain to me about him...

Post by **sbp** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:26 pm

Originally posted by UberNeuman
Um, no. It's a forum. You made a comment. I made a comment - that what forums are about - it's give and take...

Everyone isn't going to agree on everything - so don't whine when someone doesn't agree with your viewpoint...

And I'm not LMandrake's daddy, so please don't complain to me about him...

Such an AnandTechish view. Must be too much of a problem to pass up a thread that doesn't get your interest.

Hey don't want to take the time to actually discuss the issue? Make some lame kneejerk of a comment-that's really conductive to a give-and-take dialogue.

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:37 pm

I'm sorry. I was wrong. You never offered a comment of your own... You just posted an op-ed piece, then didn't like what I posted which in my opinion summed up what the op-ed piece was...

Lmandrake · Post by **Lmandrake** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 11:03 pm

If Uber was my daddy, he'd be REALLY old (and a great grandfather too).

sbp, I apologized for my last bit of rudeness. Several participants in that thread seemed to think my apology was gracious and well thought out.

http://www.pcabusers.com/forums/showthr ... adid=39804

I am sorry that you evidently still feel hurt. Perhaps I am missing something. If there is an outstanding issue between us, there is always PM, email, etc. This would be better than dropping my name in a thread.

You have a right to post what you want. But the history of PCA political forums does not bode well for the idea that any real exchange of ideas will take place. Perhaps its sad that this has happened, but we all know who is going to post for one side, who will post for the other, and where it all ends up.

So maybe we should talk about stuff we know, like computers. New things we have done like jumping out of airplanes and the little things that make life intermittently marvelous - like baseball, blowing stuff up and those two little pockets bracketing the lower spine of a shapely woman...

TheSovereign · Post by **TheSovereign** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:03 am

<starts song by smashmouth and starts singing>
..... why can't we be friends, why cant we be friends.....

actually i all of u alot and
GRRRH! STUPIDITY EVEN WORSE!!!
u dun hurted my feeling! i demand reparations and apologies
actually my question is what possible constructive thing did u expect to get from that?

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 9:30 pm

Well, to be blut - I think you're stupid... And I've been the only one in this post to offer an opinon to the op-ed piece that was posted....

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:24 pm

Well, to be blut - I think you're stupid.

That is not being blunt that is being rude....do we really need to go there?

UberNeuman · Post by **UberNeuman** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:50 pm

To be blunt, is to be rude.... That would be the point...

Anyone want to offer a comment/opinon on the posted op-ed piece...

Red Dawn · Post by **Red Dawn** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:54 am

I would offer an opinion if I cared but since I don't I won't

TheSovereign · Post by **TheSovereign** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:38 am

Originally posted by UberNeuman
To be blunt, is to be rude.... That would be the point...

Anyone want to offer a comment/opinon on the posted op-ed piece...

well i dont think your stupid, i think your incredibly gullable and naive
to let yourself be fooled into thinking that throwing money at everything will fix it
to think that presidents who gave nuclear material to N. Korea are better than those who wish to take it away
to think that people should be able to believe what they want even if it includes killing people who dont follow

you sir are extremely naive... and its so sad that in todays world of truth you choose to live in the matrix
unfortunatly u werent the target of one of those abortions your'e totally for
due to "thintelligence" of people like you, who believe they are so much smarter than others the world is near an utter mess
you the unimaginative gullable and naive thinking your'e compassionate and understanding when in reality your'e just a sucker

sincerely "stupid"