I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. In the post war years, Europeans called us "the ugly americans". For some of them, we still are, though for different reasons.
We favor individualism over government control, markets over central planning. Europeans cling to their belief that government must be the central organizing principle in their society. Now, most want a single government to go along with their single currency, the euro, which only the Danes and the British have said no to.
Now, the eurozoners think we're ugly because we don't want an international criminal court, despite the fact that it would have no bill of rights, trial by jury, constitutional framework or guaranteed open proceedings. We're global warming villains for not limiting industrial output and turning our economy over to internationalized bureaucrats. They're opposed to missile defense, as if defending their country never mattered in the last 100 years.
And so it goes: One part anti-American, one part world government, three parts central European socialism.
With these alterations there's no better time to be ugly.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, smashmouth politics.