Sunday, May 20, 2018

Europe

Why are Europeans so liberal?
Excerpt: If you mean classical liberalism, your talking about individual rights, the right to freely pursue trade and the right to live according to your own conscience rather than that of the state. If so, Europe is probably less liberal than, say the USA in many respects. In fact, the US Constitution is perhaps the purest expressions of classical liberalism in the world. The Second Amendment, for example, is about as liberal a provision as you’re likely to find. If you mean liberal in the more modern sense, in which tolerance, socialism and an aversion to conflict are defining characteristics, then yes, Europe tends (and I do mean tends, as it’s not necessarily universally true) to be more liberal. To understand why Europe is like this requires a certain understanding of European history. It’s very easy to forget that Europe is the most blood-soaked region on Earth, even accounting for the wars in the Middle East and the incredibly brutal (but little reported) conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa over the past few decades. For almost the entirety of European written history (some 2000+ years) Europe was at war with itself. Three global conflicts were sparked off in Europe, and numerous other European wars were fought on one or more other continents. (Modern liberals are tolerant? Only if you agree with them 100% of the time. ~Bob)

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