The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts. Says Mr. Romney: "We have a choice in America to be remaining a merit-based opportunity society that follows the Constitution, or to follow the path of Europe. And I'm the guy who believes in the former. I believe America got it right. I believe Europe got it wrong. I believe America must remain the leader of the world. . . . I am absolutely committed to an American century. I see this as an American century."
I understand the shorthand distinction between and American free-market model and a European social-democrat type welfare state, but Mr. Romney, as he goes forward, may want to think carefully about using such a broad brush to condemn Europe.
Who is he talking about, exactly? Margaret Thatcher, whose economic policies were as free-market oriented as Ronald Reagan's possibly more so? Vaclav Havel? Lech Walesa? John Paul II? What does it mean for the NATO alliance if candidate Romney or President Romney is going around declaring that a whole bunch of countries in Europe that America is treaty-bound to defend, countries that have been fighting alongside us in Afghanistan and, in the case of some but not all of them, also participated in Iraq, are "wrong," and that America should not follow their path?
For more: Romney Versus Europe :: The Future of Capitalism
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