Steyn: America Doesn't Do Anything Small And If It Does Socialism...

Sort of an interesting point from a European (Norwegian) reader who is actually surprised by the overbureaucratization and general bureaucratic decay in... America.

That's a European saying that, that our government is too bossy and too involved in small details of our lives.

Styen ponders:

What amazes me is how much more bureaucratic the US has become, as compared to what can only be described as socialist “home turf” here in Norway. Why? Well, Americans seem to have a knack for over-doing everything. Whether it is music, or sports, war or tree-hugging, the Americans simply over do it. So too with bureaucracy (and unions)… It’s a kind of “go big or go home” mentality which permeates American life at so many levels and in so many directions....

There’s an element of truth in that. Bigness is part of what it means to be American. America is Superman and Wonder Woman, the Ziegfeld Follies and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, the Super Bowl, King Kong, Avatar, Surf’n'Turf and Supersized Fries and all-U-can-eat. . . . I love ’em all, but such a land would seem an unlikely candidate for genteel incremental Continental-style decline. When such a nation embarks on the European trajectory of suicide-by-statism, it will not merely be Big Government but Biggest Government. I used to think Obamacare would simply be a disaster on the scale of Canadian health care or Britain’s NHS, but, as the Cornhusker Kickback and the legions of additional IRS agents and the tanning-salon tax became plain, you realize it will be a disaster of an entirely different order. This is Gibbon’s Decline And Fall All-U-Can-Eat Super Bowl Christmas Spectacular On Ice.

Hm.

America also has a Go Big attitude towards authority and government, so if the government did get as big as Socialist Europe's, we probably wouldn't be meek and compliant. Which means the government would resort to oppressive measures to enforce its will.

posted by Ace at 03:47 PM

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