The smug pomposity of Western Europe in the face of overwhelming data that show a rapidly collapsing culture and society is fascinating to behold. Birth rates among natives are far below replacement, church attendance has cratered, tax rates are onerous, crime is exploding, Churches are being burned or turned into mosques, free speech is now at the mercy of increasingly totalitarian governments, and on and on.
But they have “free” (but rationed) healthcare, and their trains are lovely and fast and mostly on time! Oh…lots of vacation too!
Apparently, being able to get around on nice trains trumps the loss of freedom, the lack of purchasing power to own an automobile (freedom’s conveyance), Muslim rape gangs, life in tiny apartments with no air conditioning, minuscule appliances, sclerotic municipal services, and all the other complexities of an overweening regulatory and administrative state.
Here is a typical exchange between the Bien Pensant and a proud American. It is everything you expect!
X is currently full of Europeans trying to tell Americans how much better life in Europe is.
One of the constant refrains is “Our government makes sure we get XX days of vacation yearly.”
Euros do not realize that is not the flex they think it is.
To us Americans it reeks of…— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 9, 2025
I have a bit of experience with living in America, and had the opportunity to live in Paris for several months, in an upscale neighborhood far from the crime and the Islamic hordes in the midst of their conquest. And I can tell you unequivocally that life in America is better.
Do you know why those hip Parisians shop every day for food on their quaint and lovely streets filled with wonderful food shops? Because their f*cking kitchens are tiny, and their toy refrigerators don’t hold enough for more than a day or two of cooking! Do you know why they are…to be polite…rather odoriferous? Because they sweat all the time (remember; no A/C!), their access to clothes washing is problematic, and their bathrooms are a joke, with hand-held showers and poor water pressure.
If you want good service in a store or a restaurant, don’t bother. That wonderful living wage that they pay waiters translates into disinterested and mediocre service. And in stores? Hah! Good luck. Buying a box of band-aids can take 15 minutes. And their vaunted socialized and “free” medical care is strictly rationed, and only the well-off can get speedy and high-quality care. Or…you know…just fly to America, which many people around the world do, in spite of our health-care issues.
Our poor people own cars, and have more freedom than anyone else in the world. But the privilege of paying obscene marginal tax rates so that government can subsidize public transportation is better? I don’t think so.
Western Europe should pay more attention to its own existential problems, and simply appreciate that America has paid for their defense since World War II. it is disingenuous in the extreme to claim that we do not subsidize Europe…the many trillions of dollars we have spent on NATO, either directly or indirectly, is distinct from any economic benefit that a rebuilt Europe has afforded our economy.
Are many parts of Western Europe beautiful? Absolutely! Many of their cities are marvels of architecture and culture, and its physical beauty is often stunning. But it is increasingly becoming a Potemkin Village, as their governments carefully minimize or hide (Rotherham or Malmo anyone?) their massive problems.
But the biggest problem by far is Europe’s curious disinterest in their own freedom. Speech is carefully controlled by government and compliant corporations, and with that control comes a diminution of the very concept of freedom and liberty. Until that changes, Western Europe will continue down the path toward totalitarianism, either externally applied by Islam, or internally applied by…themselves!
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom – go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
— Samuel Adams