I love America

I live in Europe… and I love America.

What do you love in America? Europe, of course.

Then you love Europe, where you live. No way, I detest it.

And what do you detest in it? America, of course.

You are teasing us. Well, yes and no: I wanted to signal the ambiguity of the names by way of which we advance our claims.

The fact is that there are two Europes in America fighting each other:

an older one – made of Protestant Catholic and Jews – that found the way of flourishing in America, by an ongoing struggle to make her worth weigh more than her defects;

a newer one, that sprung from the older one with the claim to correct her defects once and for all, by exchanging reliance on faith with that on the rule of law: church with the state.

Over here, one of them Europes hates America; but was ready to love her again when Obama was elected, and showed her love by an unwarranted peace prize, declaring in this way: now you are like us.

Which is like which? One feeds on the other.

So, this America beloved by this Europe hates in herself the other Europe, hated in turn by this Europe as America, i.e. the other America.

It might be useful at this point to speak of Europe1 and Europe2, and in the same way of America1 and America2. This would clarify things. But things have to be kept muddy, because it is in the unspecified name of Europe and of America that claims are made to represent the overall thing.

Barak Obama, for instance, made some ambitious claims of wanting to rejuvenate America, in a way, he made it sound, to unify the two Europes in her.

The appearance, however, didn't last long.

Hey, with all this you haven't clearly come out in the open and declared which Europe or America you are for. And most of all you haven't told us yet why you started by saying that you love America.

It's clear, to make a claim. In Europe, for all the political squabbles, the fight is rather dormant. In America, it appears still quite lively. Here you have what I like in America, that makes America different from Europe. With this, if you don't see in favor of what or whom I am making the claim, there is nothing I can do about it.

HP

P.S. All this was prompted by the reading of Marc Steyn's article on which the LD called our attention. If you want, you can blame him.