What, Me Worry?

What, me work?

So you want to be like Europe?

The Democrats certainly believe that's an area to emulate and, because of this, you must realize they will do their best to ensure its policies and beliefs become those of this country.

Except for one little teeny-weeny problem: Europe doesn't work. Literally and figuratively. A little wordplay there.

Let's take Germany for example. I would suspect that Germany rather typifies societal and governmental norms in the European Union. And Germany is beginning to suffer from the exact things that Democrats believe we need in the United States.

I would highly suggest you read this complete article from der Spiegel, Germany's premiere publication now online. As you might suspect much of the German media leans a tad to the left yet, despite that, this kind of article was published in their "mainstream media."

The situation is that critical. Here are excerpts. To wit:

Faced with poor job prospects, high taxes and an intrusive bureaucracy, more and more Germans are choosing to emigrate. Most of those who leave, though, are highly qualified -- which could mean devastating economic consequences.

The consequences for the United States, if we are listening, are absolutely enormous.

They are tired of living in country where landing a job is like playing the lottery, a country where not even half of citizens live from gainful employment and a country in which even academics in their mid-40s are already considered problem cases when it comes to job placement. In other words, they are fed up with living in a country where all opportunities already seem to be taken: opportunities to succeed in one's career, to own property and to achieve prosperity.

Stop right there. What might be the largest difference between Europe and the United States? Would that be the actual ownership of property? Home ownership? An actual investment in not only one's job, one's culture on all levels to include religion but an investment in what some call hard or physical assets? When one owns something, doesn't that person tend to take better care of that in which they have a greater investment -- again, on all levels?

I would submit they do. Further:

Nowadays doctors are moving to Norway, engineers to the United States and agricultural experts to New Zealand. Germany is becoming a net exporter of people.

Who will pay for all services, when no one works in order to pay for demanded entitlements?

The country's pension system is losing contributors just as vast numbers of baby-boomers are gradually entering retirement. The demographic crisis is getting worse, especially when one considers that deaths outnumbered births by 144,000 in 2005, and that this gap is continuing to widen.

In the United States, self-considered "elite" and "progressive" cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have the fewest number of children in the nation, per capita.

When you have a goal, when you work for that goal and when you achieve that goal and can keep it and hold it, your investment in that goal is total and complete. You are invested in your country, your local state or entity and, equally important, your community. Those who have achieved nothing not obtained on the coattails of others lack this appreciation for work and investment. And I submit that there you have Europe. People primarily live in apartments. They are subsidized and supported to a great degree by their government(s).

Read this again: ". . .a country where not even half of citizens live from gainful employment." Did you process that? More than half of Germany's citizens are "on the dole." And of that massive number, are they all paraplegics? Blind? Not even remotely.

To a degree Europeans are correct: the United States is lagging behind them. We have not yet experienced, societally and culturally the negative aspects of their collective Western culture. And they have made and are making huge mistakes -- finally to the point where there are public admissions of societal and cultural bankruptcy. To have something like this article actually written, approved by editorial staff and then printed for all in Europe to read bespeaks volumes.

The Europeans took a path and finally, bit by bit, they are becoming cognizant of their series of mistakes. With government. With entitlements. With immigration. With over-regulation. With losing sight of long term goals. With even having goals. When people cannot benefit from the fruits of their labors, what motivation is there to even wish to work? That is, further, in my estimation, a killing of the very human soul.

But it is not just the highly qualified who are finding the courage to try their luck in another country. More and more average citizens -- many of them in financial straits at home -- are finding the courage to make a fresh start. They iron laundry in hotels in Austria's Southern Tyrol resort region, wait tables in restaurants in Italy and cook dumplings in Austria's Stubai Valley. Nothing is beneath them, and anything is better than collecting unemployment in Germany.

The virtual killing of the human soul: ". . .anything is better than collecting unemployment in Germany."

We need to look at this so-called "European Model" and learn from its mistakes.

Because if we do not, we are destined to repeat their mistakes on our domestic soil. And we are well on our way to duplicating their erroneous path. A path, they are finally acknowledging, that is literally and figuratively unworkable -- and wrong.

BZ