cited by the local magistrate because its shaving brushes did not conform to the standard set by the European Union. I am not making this up.It’s ironic. Europe-loving American liberals are fond of invoking America’s “troubling historical legacies” from racism to sexism to colonialism to environmental degradation. But they seem to forget that we inherited all of these legacies in one form or another from our European friends,discount vans shoes. And where our legacies branch off from theirs we look better by comparison.Take the environment. Europe can afford to pontificate on what other countries should do with their forests in part because they’ve chopped down all of theirs already. When President Bush announced he was ignoring the Kyoto treaty, “the Europeans” were outraged not out of their concern for the environment but out of their love for talking about the environment. Nobody has suggested that “the Europeans” had any actual intention of adhering to the Kyoto treaty, but damn it they enjoyed having meetings about it.The fact remains that America’s twentieth-century legacy as a force for human progress puts Europe’s to shame. Let us not forget that America saved the world from two forms of totalitarianism. Our private sector has satisfied far more human want than any EU bureaucrat has ever even wanted to satisfy. And our contribution to world politics — elections, democracy, etc. — makes those of “the Europeans” look downright malevolent. Or maybe some of you haven’t heard that Europe’s most significant political achievements in the twentieth century were: World War One, World War Two, Vietnam, Communism, Fascism, colonial oppression and post-colonial upheaval, intellectual nihilism of every flavor, and appeasement of pretty much anyone willing to say nasty words about the United States.It’s this last point that gets to the heart of the matter. Certain segments of the Left, at home and abroad, simply believe America is always wrong, so therefore anyone or anything in opposition to America must be right. This explains why Hollywood morons and French intellectuals alike find the taste of Fidel Castro’s posterior so palatable. This is also why “the Europeans” on the UN Human Rights Commission refuse to condemn Chinese human-rights abuses. They denounce the human-rights abuses of American multinational corporations while they permit their own companies to trade with nations like the Sudan and Burma — something we bar our corporations from doing. They are not only “shocked, shocked” that we don’t heed the diktats of various dictators as amplified by the United Nations, but they snicker when we complain about paying for the lion’s share of the UN’s budget.Look: Europe is the historic birthplace of Western civilization and therefore the world shall always owe it a debt of gratitude and respect. But,vans old skool, Europe is not the future,cheap vans. It is a collection of once-great nations and cultures whose greatest accomplishments are behind them. This is a bitter pill to swallow, I’m sure. And we shouldn’t think that Europe’s perspective is totally irrelevant. But it does mean that we shouldn’t allow the histrionics of “the Europeans” in our rearview mirror to overly distract us from the right route.[标签:标题]
En route to a bachelor party in the Adirondacks last Friday, my friend Vance DeWitt and I stopped in a small town in upstate New York. Heading into Burger King for chicken tenders and lemonade (the latter to combat the Cajun Cough I contracted during last month’s New Orleans Jazz Festival), a headline hollered from inside a newspaper vending machine. Its words were as jarring as the surroundings were pastoral. Advertisement ”DRILL IT, MINE IT, NUKE IT: Will Bush’s energy plan work?” Now, the Middletown Times Herald Record is not the Washington Post. But this is just one startling example of the sort of withering fire that President Bush’s critics have unleashed in response to his recently released energy strategy. Last Thursday, the day Bush unveiled his plan, Greenpeace ob Related articles:

• http://www.j-wpt.com/bbs/home.php?mod=space&uid=357822&do=blog&id=2626117
• http://shanxipa.com/home/space.php?uid=20129&do=blog&id=240883
• http://bbs.lipengsz.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1109293