From an Angry Reader:
Read your article “Can Europe become Western Again?”
What stupid crap, American shyte.
The cause of all the world’s problems has been the USA.
BUT, the chickens are coming home to roost. What you slimy yanks done to Yugoslavia, will soon happen to you.
You loser hanson.
Fyodor Rensen
Dear Angry Reader Fyodor Rensen,
Well aside from your misspellings (“shyte”?), scatology, grammatical mess (e.g., lack of capitalization, “you…done,” etc.), and the scare capitals that earn you an 8 on the Angry Reader scale, did you even read the article in question?
The essay “Can Europe Become Western Again” was not a trashing of Europe couched in American chauvinism. Far from it.
The article was a call for Europe to become a full partner with the United States against common enemies and threats to the West, given the enormous potential of Europe with its massive GDP, population, and traditions.
Instead, not enough European NATO countries have honored their commitments to invest 2% of their GDP in defense, while their open-border policies and profligate spending have weakened their national security.
You obviously either cannot read the English language or do so only with great difficulty, given the essay faults the U.S. as much, or more than, it does Europe. I wrote the following that you obviously did not read or did not understand.
The other half of the West is in little better condition. The United States is reeling under $33 trillion in national debt. After embracing various bankrupt academic critical legal “theories,” major American cities are unsafe, unhealthy, and unsightly. The American southern border is wide open. Eight million illegal aliens have poured in just since January 2021, many of them hostile to the United States. America is increasingly politically, racially, and tribally divided. It has mysteriously determined not to fully utilize its vast natural resources, especially gas, oil, and rare earth metals. In this vacuum, the enemies of the West see only opportunity.
In other words, the point was to show that Europe and the United States––the West–– are both plagued by self-induced problems that render them vulnerable to enemies like China, Russia, Iran, and radical Islam. And they both need to restore their historical bonds and put their respective houses in order.
I have no idea what you mean by “Yugoslavia” other than you are charging that the 1999 joint NATO operation to remove the genocidal Milosevic regime caused more damage than he did, or the West wrongly attacked an Orthodox Christian power to save thousands of Bosnian Muslims? But of course, Europeans requested American aid that came again reluctantly and belatedly and only after Europe wanted the mass killing on its doorstep to stop but lacked the wherewithal and will to confront Milosevic.
There were no good choices in Yugoslavia. It broke up not because of the United States but due to its own internal ethnic strife and ancestral Balkan hatreds that had been papered over during its autocratic communist half-century.
You are seriously unhinged if you think the U.S. caused the world’s problems, given we reluctantly and belatedly entered World War I and II to help European democracy from the threats of its own home-bred European militarism and later fascism.
The U.S. did not create Hitler or Mussolini or Milosevic; Europeans did.
It did not create Soviet communism. But it did since 1941 lose nearly a half-million Americans and has spent trillions of dollars liberating Europe from itself, helping to rebuild it, and protecting it from at one time 400 Soviet divisions and 7,000 nuclear weapons—aid that later relieved Europe of costly defense spending and helped spur its postwar economic renaissance.
You are not only ignorant but an ingrate as well—unless you yourself are an anti-European and feel a natural affinity for the former Milosevic regime and its Russian sponsors, who have now turned their attention to swallowing Ukraine.
And who is now requesting once again U.S. aid and help?
Europe and Ukraine could easily say, as you did, that America is the cause of the world’s problems, and thus they would tell us, “Stay out Yanks, we can handle our own problems without you.”
Many Americans would probably be relieved to hear that.
Victor Hanson
Discussion (10)
Join the conversation. Logged in subscribers avoid the Captcha verification and get priority commenting approvals. No vulgarity, links, or code allowed.
Brilliant , but I know it’s was about Europe but the USA did also rebuild Japan which from both accounts was never paid back unless you now include the debt of bonds they own. That clown should blame Merkel for being a Putin fool and not dealing with this stuff.
That sounds like a threat Mr. Fydor rantor. Don't mistake the citizens of America for the weak, evil, communist leaders of America. It also sounded like you plan on bringing the fight to us. So I say, bring it! I'm only getting older by the day. The sooner it starts the younger I'll be.
Another great recitation to an unhinged non-thinker......thank you VDH!
It is sad to see that most people on the left lack critical thinking skills and the ability to analyze current events. It is a total failure of government run education no matter the country. Civility is gone, common decency is gone, and even the idea of the Ten Commandments can't be followed which would fix a host of problems we all not endure.
That reader must suffer from a type of psychosis. What an unhinged thing to say. "All the world's problems are caused by America". Then wishing what happened in Yugoslavia to happen in American. There really is an epidemic of mentally sick people.
Leftism/progressivism is immaturity expressed as a political philosophy.
This one would be relieved to hear that as well.
VDH, an excellent reply to this angry reeder fyodor rensen. (I purposefully included one misspelling and failed to capitalize the angry man's name.)
I believe "shyte" is a British variant spelling, to be fair to Fyodor. I imagine he thought he was being clever. He does have a point in comparing the US and Yugoslavia, though probably not the point he thinks. You've pointed it out yourself, Victor, that a possible outcome of the Left's/Progressives' victim group politics is the fragmentation of a multi-ethnic society based on shared values into tribal and racial groups. Fyodor should read "The Dying Citizen" and he might understand that point better. So, Fyodor is like the blind squirrel, who finds an acorn now and again.
It's so hard to find a hard left person whose input doesn't sound like a child on a tantrum.