American Thinker: Europe's End: Not with Bang but a Whimper - by Henry P. Wickham, Jr.

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Europe's End: Not with Bang but a Whimper - by Henry P. Wickham, Jr.

The current regimes of Western Europe were borne out of the ashes of the First and Second World Wars. After the destruction and carnage of two World Wars, it is not difficult to understand why Europeans would succumb to politicians offering, first and foremost, cradle to grave security. Thus was born the world's most comprehensive welfare state, where responsibility for everything from health care to housing to childcare to eldercare was turned over to a supposedly benevolent state.

Europeans could not resist the promise of security when couched in the rhetoric of compassion and equality. Europeans chose cushy dependence over risk, initiative, and true liberty. As Richard Weaver once wrote, "Ideas have consequences," and so do three or four generations of welfare-state dependence. Rather than producing Aristotle's "good life" where rights and responsibilities are balanced and respected, Europe has evolved into something else entirely.