Time magazine's article - Europe Needs to Get Real
Laugh a minute stuff!

"We see ourselves as inhabiting history — doing the ugly, necessary work of the world": Sure... Not signing Kyoto, International Court etc. is indeed the ugly work.
Signing political treaties with N. Korea instead of invading them (well they are a lot better trained and more dangerous than Iraq). Mistaking size with altruism is all too easy. It took an awful lot of himming and hawing before the USA joined the second world war. Thank god they did, but it would have been better for all if it had of been sooner.

"Europeans are materialistic": Ehh. I think most countries are, but Europeans non more so than Americans (Sorry, was it a European Film maker that introduced the sentence "Greed is Good". I Think not). Anyway what the hell does this statement bring to the argument???

"Europeans care more than we do about physical pleasure; they traffic in titillation": Getting better! Where do 95% of the world's "Pornos" come from??? America methinks. And just because the USA has far more rigid and puritanian social standards doesn't mean that your average Joe Coach Potato doesn't love a good old Peter North flick.

"Europeans ... are obsessed with their food (which is, by the way, no longer superior to ours).": This stinks of inferiority complex. What does that have to do with the role of America in the global society???

"it's tough to have family traditions in a region where so many choose to be childless": Jesus Christ, now it's getting nasty! I suppose in America size does matter...

"it's tough to have religious values when less than 20% of Europeans regularly attend church": Ouch, now that hurt. Dear Mr. Caldwell, most of us are brought up with the belief that you can be deeply spiritual and religious without having to go to church and bashing a bible. And to be honest I would prefer 20% church attendance and people with a stong inner sense of wrong and right to strict Mormons and Jehova Witnesses running around the place scaring the s**t out of people talking about fire & brimstone. What was that statistic again - 60% of Americans believe in Hell???

I don't know what all this back biting, muscle flexing, mine is bigger than yours swaggering is doing, but what it isn't doing is: Catching Osama Bin Laden, Stopping Iraqui Children starving to death, Encouraging world peace and Intercultural-Understanding etc. etc.