. . . You realize that it sure could get worse. Efforts to restrain the growth of entitlements here in the United States look like child?s play compared to what?s going on in Europe, if this Christian Science Monitor report is to be believed. Here?s a key passage:
Reforms making it easier to hire and fire workers, encouraging citizens to seek private health insurance, or reducing state pensions undermine traditional European values such as stability, predictability, and security. They are more often seen as regressive, retreats from guarantees of social justice, than as progressive reforms to promote individual freedom and responsibility.
“People in Europe think of economic reform as a technocratic measure that is painful but which will create economic efficiency,” says Dr. [Jeff] Gedmin [of the Aspen Institute]. “The moral dimension in terms of empowering people to take responsibility for their lives,” familiar in the US, “is absent from the debate. You are either for economic efficiency or for social justice, and most people are for social justice.”
Basically, America still has principles that it often fails to live up to. That?s better than not having the principles in the first place.
