Euro Conservatives and U.S. Conservatives; Do We Have Common Ground?

C.T.


After a brief sabbatical, provided to me by the United States government, I can continue to feed the beast. I have been "jonesing" to write about all of the hoopla with the election but have not had the time or the tools to do so. With that in mind, I will pick up where I left off. This was a post about a good article I came across back in early May. Bruce Walker, a writer for The American Thinker, wrote a very good article titled, "The Decline of Leftism in Europe." Mr. Walker brings to light the rise of conservatism in Europe with the elections of Sarkozy in France, Merkel in Germany, the election of Boris Johnson as mayor of London, Berlusconi in Italy, who is expected to be appointed Prime Minister. This is pretty much the A-list of countries in Western Europe and all are going center right, at the least. This is a fantastic move for Europe and it just may be the thing the EU needs to stop this insane spiral it is presently in. For the United States, this also seems to be a great victory, maybe. First, we are not in November; secondly, Europe's conservatives are a little different from ours.

Looking at our cousins across the pond you find something you would recognize as a Conservative, but there are some fairly distinctive differences. After World War II, British Conservatives started moving towards central planning, or a state managed economy, and state ownership. Whereas in the United States you have a liberal free market attitude amongst Conservatives. Another notable difference is the idea of smaller government and individual freedoms, which Americans, for the most part, are partial to. Conservatives in Britain and Europe tend to support the concept of a strong welfare state, with dependence on the government rather than the individual or free market.

These differences will not tear us apart, nor eliminate our common ground with European Conservatives. Our concepts of the world and how to deal with its problems tend to be more aggressive than our European counterparts. Think about the major opposition the United States has received in Britain. It has mainly come from the British Conservatives. It is not that they did not support military action; their view was that we were moving to hastily and showed no prudence. Again, we have much common ground with them, but we must keep in mind we do have differences.

C.T.

[1] The Decline of Leftism in Europe