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This one of the saddest of the more than 1,000 columns I have written.
I am writing in Budapest after spending four days in Warsaw last week and four days in Munich two weeks before that.
To put this in context: I have traveled abroad every year since I was 18 years old — except for 2020, because of the “experts”-induced destructive, irrational, police-state lockdowns.
Thanks to all that travel, I have visited 130 countries.
All of my life, traveling abroad prompted ever more appreciation of America and ever more gratitude for living here. Every time I returned to the USA, I felt a surge of patriotism when I saw the American flag at passport control.
Something I could never have imagined has happened in the last few years. I have begun to envy Europeans. With few exceptions — most notably the U.K., the one English-speaking country in Europe — few of the pathologies that are destroying America are present to any analogous degree in Europe.
Here is an example: My wife and I and another couple hired a driver and an English-speaking guide in Warsaw. The guide was a woman of the left. Though we never raised any political subject, like leftists tend to do, she let us know her negative feelings about Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, Hungary’s conservative prime minister, Viktor Orban, and, of course, America’s former president, Donald Trump. She let us know that she hated all three of them.
But when I asked her if anyone she knew would say that men give birth or that children should choose their own sex, she gave me a confused look. “Who does that?” she asked.
Europe’s leftists loathe conservatives as much as the left in America does, are as anti-nationalism, are just as prepared to shatter the economic life of their countries in the name of environmentalism, support ever-growing state and EU power, and supported mandatory COVID vaccinations as much as the American left. But they are not prepared to tell first graders they can choose their “gender,” remove the healthy breasts of girls who say they are boys, or have “all-gender” (as distinguished from unisex) bathrooms.
Few, if any, European countries are wracked by the trans tensions — such as whether sex is binary, whether children should be exposed to drag queens and whether they should be given hormone blockers — that are wracking American life. Even England has barred trans women swimmers from competing against women swimmers. As reported by Openly News, an LGBTQ news organization, “Swim England follows similar rulings by World Athletics, Scottish Rugby, FINA, England’s Rugby Football Union and the International Rugby League, all of which have banned trans women who transitioned after puberty from competing in female categories.”
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a male JetBlue flight attendant wears a skirt while working on flights. That is also the policy of the British-based airline Virgin Atlantic, though I have not seen a photograph of a male Virgin Atlantic flight attendant wearing a skirt as I have a JetBlue flight attendant. And surely other U.S. airlines will follow. Will this take place on board European airplanes? Perhaps. But if you people-watch on the streets of European capitals, let alone in small cities, you will find that far more European women — including young women — dress as women than do women in America.
In other words, no matter how left the politics of European countries, few deny the male-female distinction as much as America does. In fact, in Europe, they appear to value it.
There are other ways in which life in Europe seems less tense than in America. In Munich, Warsaw and Budapest, I saw virtually no homeless people — and certainly no homeless encampments, no tents pitched on city sidewalks. Nor are children in European countries taught to loathe their own society as American young people are. And Europeans still venerate their statues.
Two years ago, even the woke New York Times acknowledged that Europe’s left is different. Under the headline “Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So,” the article began:
“The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.
“The threat? ‘Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’ said President Emmanuel Macron.
“French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. ‘There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.”
During the lockdowns in states such as California that were ruining small business, the economy in general, and the precious and irretrievable years of children’s youth in particular, I wrote a column about how I, a Californian, felt on a visit to Florida where businesses were open, people ate in restaurants without masks, and my grandchildren attended school and other activities of normal childhood. I wrote that in Florida, I felt like I did during the Cold War when I returned to the West after spending time in communist countries.
And now, for the first time in my life, I feel freer in Europe than in America.
That’s why this is one of the saddest columns I’ve ever written.
I think talking about comparative degrees of freedom sidesteps the real issue of European endemic anti-Semitism which has been imported and now blatantly expresses itself in a fabricated American culture of wokeness, and in our government’s domestic and foreign policy.
You were a tourist.
With American money.
That’s it. The rest is illusion.
I too, fondly and proudly remember when twenty-year-old I returned to the US after spending a year of college abroad, and the customs policeman at the airport opens my passport, looks at me and says with a smile, “Welcome home.”
Don’t be sad! That sounds so defeatist! Exactly how the enemy would want you to feel.
We should embrace the contradictions; admit to the cognitive dissonance of “good” assumptions that somehow we always felt were true but now don’t fit in to the world in which we live.
There are always options.
But in order to know what these options are, we’ve got to think anew.
Don’t be sad.
Be realistic.
In these particularly overt wicked times, evil people seem to have a “free” hand.
But that hand will shrivel up and turn to dust.
Hang in there!
I sincerely hope you are not saying the assumption that men and woman are biologically different is a “good” assumption that indicates an example of a cognitive dissonance contradiction that includes the assumption that gender is a social construct that we always felt was true, but that we should no longer embrace because it no longer fits in to the world in which we live. I probably misunderstood.
No Robert.
I am absolutely not saying that.
Exactly and I have only ever been in about 50 countries but some of them I have lived in and others I was a Tourist in or just passing through.
Within every Country or City there are various degrees of experience, 1) The place you pass through maybe stay one night and day, 2) The one you stay in for a week, 3) The one in which you have family and stay with them for a month, 4) The one you reside in, have a life in, and stay in for years…
You cannot know much about a place, City or Country, if you stay a few days and don’t even speak the local language.
As you wrote…. A tourist with money… enough said.
FYI I love Dennis and all he does.
I notice you exclude the UK from your comments, we are almost as stupid as the current illegal administration. However the fact that you are in Hungary and Poland, both former victims of socialism/communism/marxism, illustrates that they have learned from their history, the west has not really experienced it therefore we can do it right this time. (Not)
“French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society.” Undermining existing societies everywhere in the West is the aim of the Left. Rather than dividing its efforts among dozens of countries, however, it concentrates on “glavny vrag” – Russian for “main foe.” In the Left’s thinking, once the U.S. fails, falling to “socialism”, the rest will fall like over-ripe fruit. So they just haven’t seen it yet. But if their comrades are successful in the U.S. they will.
so the EU leftist has not been educated on the US leftists’ religion on pedo?? Odd, but that show that even if she espoused leftist hate for decent people she’s ignorant of WHY so many in the USA are flat out against the left! Bring her over here and let her “experience” some of our FINER CITIES – DC, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, LA and for sure supply her with the POLITICAL OWNERSHIP of said cesspools!! She MIGHT just find herself some new ideas and understandings of how the left is out of control when they are IN CONTROL!!
You are missing big flags — the advertising in France and UK has been so trans for so long, people don’t even notice it. The UK started putting illegals up in fancy hotels before US did. The muslim violence problem in France is so bad that big chunks of Paris are “no go” zones. The muslim violence in Sweden is so bad, women have to go out in groups. Saturday there was a nude bike ride in UK to “protest oil.” You are in EASTERN Europe. Very, very different. I know, I lived in Slovenija, Croatia and traveled to Hungary often. I’m sorry you’ve lost your love of OUR country because of Hollywood perversions. I expected more of you.
Hungary and Poland are enclaves of conservatism in Europe and at odds with the EU. Those are the only two countries I would feel safe visiting in Europe. Europe is being Islamicized. Judeo-Christian Western Civilization is being cancelled.
Not true, I’m living last 25 years in Czech Republic, and I thing it’s even better here than in Poland and definitely better than in Hungry. After living over 20 years in US I feel I made the BEST decision of my life. Thanking God every day for it, I’m so happy here.
But europe isn’t stopping the invasion of moslems, and it isn’t doing anything about the crimes they commit either.
Neither is britain.
If anything they’re doing everything they can to aid and abet these invaders in every single way possible, while lying to their countries’ actual citizens about the entire situation.
Britain and europe are no better than better off than America, it’s just not as visible if you don’t live here.
I spent time in Europe in the early part of the millennium. It was beautiful to be there, and it was a different time politically, but I found that lots of Europeans don’t like Americans. One Scottish woman who rented some rooms to my Family wouldn’t let my children touch her dog. She said, “He doesn’t like Americans”. I couldn’t believe it, but let it slide because of her ignorance. I wanted to say, “Do you like my American dollars”? Visiting Europe is quite a bit different from living there. Most of my artist friends from Italy would love to come live in the United States, even now.
This “woman of the left” probably did not get her views from her grandparents. Holiday dinners with her grandparents must be war zones. But then again, maybe the grandparents were part of the ruling elite until December 26, 1991. If so, there will be no war at mealtime.
It’s sad to see a man of real wisdom like Mr. Prager spouting complete nonsense.
Your anecdotal evidence of European common sense on this single topic, sex identity, comes from Viktor Orban’s Hungary – of course! One might indeed feel safer there, but in any part of Western Europe, especially the lunatic UK? You must have visited Amsterdam and smoked more than cigars.
My wife just returned from a ten day visit to Rome, Florence, Zurich, and Paris. She related the same impressions as Mr. Prager a month ago even before I read the Prager article. The people she encountered on the streets, eateries, and public transportation seemed to dress and deport themselves in a more normal manner than here in New York City.
dear mr. prager . travelling too and living in a country no matter where are different entities . europe is no utopia as any research into the issues will attest . perceptions are rarely reality . the media world wide will portray their respective country as accepting , progressive , a haven of calm and a tourists dream , even a cursory amount of research will dispel the lie . unfortunately most of the population believe we are living in an altruist haven . the fact that the majority of the world believe the lefts lie that islam is a religion of peace and continue to demonise israel both in the u.n. and in most of the west is a testament to a false sense of calm . the same sense of europe being so egalitarian during the lead up to nazi germany fooled many . very few jews believed what was obvious at the time and suffered the consequences of a blinkered idea of what humanity was capable of until it was too late . it seems mr. prager has the same mindset .
You better stay some more in Germany, then you wouldn’t feel freer than in the U.S. The Fools are reigning in government as well as in political, media, and cultural elites.