I would agree with that.

It seems Gerald has the basic facts right about life in Old Europe as compared to life in the US (I would only add comparative numbers on bankruptcies due to medical bills). On the other hand, if European policymakers find that generous social programs are not working quite as planned because people are selfish and, in effect, taking advantage of them, then some changes may be in order.

Of course, many areas in the USA are very Western European, safe, sophisticated and civilized. Liberal counties, for the most part, such as San Jose, Seattle and San Francisco. Liberal city governments of ‘black cities’ don’t do anyone a favor, admittedly – as a quick (very quick!) drive through Oakland will exemplify. The Obama stickers on the Priuses in the enclave of Berkeley don’t help much, it seems. The promotion of inequality has been made an art form in the USA.

To be fair, in the USA consumers/customers are frequently treated far better than in Europe, and self-employment is more easily achieved.

In closing, let me say that I hope Blackadder gets paid well by C. Montgomery Burns.

While I am sympathetic to the ancien regime (as should be obvious when people read my posts), I do think there are things we can learn from the modern liberal project even as we bring back those elements lost from the true right; and in this way, I think bringing back a true sense of tradition combining it with the insights gained from our liberal movement would be the way forward. But I think the “conservative” and “liberal” divide in the US both give in to the same basic errors, and these are leading us to our doom.

This is true, and their historical and political arguments against this necessity are unpersuasive.

And come to that, even if we insisted that all conservatives be true anciene regime sorts, that would simply roll us back to the question of whether it was in fact the anciene regime conditions which were the cause of liberalism taking hold in the first place.