As a hesitant world traveler who usually loves it when he gets there but hates the process of getting there, I was a bit shocked by what my wife and I witnessed during our recent Viking Rhine River Cruise which brought us to four major European cities over the course of eight days.
Accustomed to the litter and general filth and disrepair in much of New York City, what initially struck us about the cities we toured in Holland, Germany, France, and Switzerland were not the huge windmills or the boisterous brauhauses or the scenic vineyards or the plethora of new public buildings.
We were duly impressed by those features in Amsterdam, Cologne, Strasbourg, and Basel as well as in less famous towns and villages and we enjoyed viewing their respective ancient cathedrals, anachronistic castles, and memorials.
However, what was most striking about the places we toured was the apparent near-perfection of the infrastructure, the absence of street and highway litter and potholes and, especially, the extent of their exuberant growth and national vitality as evidenced by the ubiquity of construction cranes busily constructing impressive new government structures.
Despite Europe's economic problems, Europeans seem to be thriving, building, prospering while America is on the skids and going broke in part because they are inveterate, ungrateful leeches and we are consummate dupes.
Literal blood-sucking, segmented worms known as leeches can function as medicinal anti-coagulant agents. Supposedly independent nations that suck the life blood from countries in dire straits have no recognizably useful functions.
Europeans don't exactly bite the hand that feeds and fed them and affords them the opportunities to prosper. More precisely, they tend to ignore history and the nation that made their prosperity possible.
I'm well aware that, contrasted with Amsterdam, et al., the Big Apple and America in general face a number of challenges to maintaining our roads and bridges, etc. - notably a shortage of money available to repair and replace a crumbling infrastructure, money unavailable since it has been wasted and diverted into failed social programs.
Add to severe New York's fiscal strains a massive, daily vehicular volume and a new influx of residents used to taking their chickens on public and highway transportation systems and dumping garbage out of windows and we are mired in conditions rapidly approaching those in Bangladesh or Calcutta.
I'm also well aware that, without the extremely generous assistance, assurances, and protections America has accorded our hapless European allies, citizens of the Netherlands et al. would have roads and other infrastructure comparable to ours, not to mention that they would have been speaking German in the last century and might be conversing in Arabic in the 21st century if not for America's near-trillion dollar defense allocations.
That staggering total, representing 3.8% of our Gross Domestic Product, exceeds the military budgets of all European countries combined and there, my fellow countrymen, is the rub. Just as we saved their hides twice before, we are now providing them a nuclear umbrella to ward off a resurgent, ambitious Russia as well as Muslim crazies dedicated to Islamization and establishing a global Caliphate.
Granted, the United States' population of 318,000,000 dwarfs the head counts of those nations and, for now, we are the only world superpower left standing - with all the attendant, hugely expensive, responsibilities and trappings associated with that dubious honor including serving as civilization's (unpaid) top cop.
Some 40,000+ American troops are still deployed in Germany alone, 40,000 more in Japan, 10,000 in Italy, a thousand in Belgium and, not counting Afghanistan, 50,000+ are spread around 150 other countries we help police to insure the efficacy of our top cop role.
Of course, many of our military's men and women are stationed where they are for our national strategic reasons even as they act as protectors for their host countries and I wouldn't expect Afghanis or Qataris to compensate us. But isn't it time for our ostensible allies in Europe to start pulling their weight, sharing some of the responsibilities, and paying their fair share for what we do for them?
For one example, eighty-one million people reside in reunited Germany, a reunification largely facilitated by President Ronald Reagan, with the noteworthy assistance of Pope John Paul II. At great cost to taxpayers, Reagan's re-armament policies helped bankrupt and force the U.S.S.R. to €tear down that [Berlin] wall€ and, in the process, helped effect the collapse of the Soviet Union's evil empire.
Germany and, indeed, the planet as a whole owe us big time for our efforts yet Germans spend a relative pittance, less than 1.4% of their GDP, on their own defense while Italians lay out 1.6% of GDP for theirs.
Based on what we saw on our cruise, Europe is a beautiful continent inhabited by mostly affable people, facts which make their centuries-old tradition of warring and killing one another mystifying. Unable to live in harmony, they have now effectively turned their fates over to the United Nations in the vain hope the Third Worlders who dominate that inept and ineffectual motley group will provide for their common defense - with America as a free back up for when the U.N. fails once again.
Considering that Americans rescued Europeans from themselves in World War I and World War II and that we're continuing to bail them out today, it would be reasonable to anticipate their unflinching support if and when we need it, no? Unfortunately for us, assuming such support is tantamount to assuming Santa Claus actually lives in the North Pole and that the Tooth Fairy really pays kids for lost teeth.
Accustomed to the litter and general filth and disrepair in much of New York City, what initially struck us about the cities we toured in Holland, Germany, France, and Switzerland were not the huge windmills or the boisterous brauhauses or the scenic vineyards or the plethora of new public buildings.
We were duly impressed by those features in Amsterdam, Cologne, Strasbourg, and Basel as well as in less famous towns and villages and we enjoyed viewing their respective ancient cathedrals, anachronistic castles, and memorials.
However, what was most striking about the places we toured was the apparent near-perfection of the infrastructure, the absence of street and highway litter and potholes and, especially, the extent of their exuberant growth and national vitality as evidenced by the ubiquity of construction cranes busily constructing impressive new government structures.
Despite Europe's economic problems, Europeans seem to be thriving, building, prospering while America is on the skids and going broke in part because they are inveterate, ungrateful leeches and we are consummate dupes.
Literal blood-sucking, segmented worms known as leeches can function as medicinal anti-coagulant agents. Supposedly independent nations that suck the life blood from countries in dire straits have no recognizably useful functions.
Europeans don't exactly bite the hand that feeds and fed them and affords them the opportunities to prosper. More precisely, they tend to ignore history and the nation that made their prosperity possible.
I'm well aware that, contrasted with Amsterdam, et al., the Big Apple and America in general face a number of challenges to maintaining our roads and bridges, etc. - notably a shortage of money available to repair and replace a crumbling infrastructure, money unavailable since it has been wasted and diverted into failed social programs.
Add to severe New York's fiscal strains a massive, daily vehicular volume and a new influx of residents used to taking their chickens on public and highway transportation systems and dumping garbage out of windows and we are mired in conditions rapidly approaching those in Bangladesh or Calcutta.
I'm also well aware that, without the extremely generous assistance, assurances, and protections America has accorded our hapless European allies, citizens of the Netherlands et al. would have roads and other infrastructure comparable to ours, not to mention that they would have been speaking German in the last century and might be conversing in Arabic in the 21st century if not for America's near-trillion dollar defense allocations.
That staggering total, representing 3.8% of our Gross Domestic Product, exceeds the military budgets of all European countries combined and there, my fellow countrymen, is the rub. Just as we saved their hides twice before, we are now providing them a nuclear umbrella to ward off a resurgent, ambitious Russia as well as Muslim crazies dedicated to Islamization and establishing a global Caliphate.
Granted, the United States' population of 318,000,000 dwarfs the head counts of those nations and, for now, we are the only world superpower left standing - with all the attendant, hugely expensive, responsibilities and trappings associated with that dubious honor including serving as civilization's (unpaid) top cop.
Some 40,000+ American troops are still deployed in Germany alone, 40,000 more in Japan, 10,000 in Italy, a thousand in Belgium and, not counting Afghanistan, 50,000+ are spread around 150 other countries we help police to insure the efficacy of our top cop role.
Of course, many of our military's men and women are stationed where they are for our national strategic reasons even as they act as protectors for their host countries and I wouldn't expect Afghanis or Qataris to compensate us. But isn't it time for our ostensible allies in Europe to start pulling their weight, sharing some of the responsibilities, and paying their fair share for what we do for them?
For one example, eighty-one million people reside in reunited Germany, a reunification largely facilitated by President Ronald Reagan, with the noteworthy assistance of Pope John Paul II. At great cost to taxpayers, Reagan's re-armament policies helped bankrupt and force the U.S.S.R. to €tear down that [Berlin] wall€ and, in the process, helped effect the collapse of the Soviet Union's evil empire.
Germany and, indeed, the planet as a whole owe us big time for our efforts yet Germans spend a relative pittance, less than 1.4% of their GDP, on their own defense while Italians lay out 1.6% of GDP for theirs.
Based on what we saw on our cruise, Europe is a beautiful continent inhabited by mostly affable people, facts which make their centuries-old tradition of warring and killing one another mystifying. Unable to live in harmony, they have now effectively turned their fates over to the United Nations in the vain hope the Third Worlders who dominate that inept and ineffectual motley group will provide for their common defense - with America as a free back up for when the U.N. fails once again.
Considering that Americans rescued Europeans from themselves in World War I and World War II and that we're continuing to bail them out today, it would be reasonable to anticipate their unflinching support if and when we need it, no? Unfortunately for us, assuming such support is tantamount to assuming Santa Claus actually lives in the North Pole and that the Tooth Fairy really pays kids for lost teeth.