Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> I am speculating; and I thank you for your interesting
> observations. But historically there has been a pattern
> of political extremism in Europe that American has been
> thankfully spared. I don't think that you can deny that.
>
> Yet certain campaigns---in World War II it was total
> mobilization, and now it's anti-cigarette smoking---
> animate the American public in ways that don't seem to
> happen in Europe. (Not even Germany converted their economy
> to full mobilization, according to what I've read, in World
> War II.) So there is something going on.
You are confusing extreme motivations (i.e. profound) with extreme
actions. Europeans do, in fact, get radically extreme maybe not over
silly things, but with silly solutions to profound problems: i.e.: a)
Crime is rising, so we need to disarm all the law abiding people, b)
Jews are prosperous business people and well educated and generally
smart, which contradicts our Odinist tradition of teutonic superiority,
so we need to kill them all to set things right, c) Serbs, Croats, and
Muslims are generally disagreeable people, so obviously they need to
kill each other off until there is no more disagreement, d) The US's
free market economy makes products more efficiently and cheaper than we
do, so obviously we need to shame and trick them into ratifying an
economy crippling 'Global Warming' treaty that we ourselves won't ratify
because we know it will REALLY cripple our socialist economies, e)
people tend to dislike oppressive, overbearing government, so obviously
we need to construct a nationwide surveillance system to keep an eye on
every citizen 24 hours a day.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:41 MDT