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Wayne Lutz

Mr. Lutz is the editor, publisher and chief writer of The Tocquevillian magazine. He also writes and maintains a fitness website, and has been widely published in print media and on the web, mostly on health and fitness topics and on men's issues.

He is a member of the NRA, the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Heritage Foundation, and Judicial Watch. In his spare time he helps old ladies cross the street and is kind to children and puppies - habits which, admittedly, belie his unusual appearance.

Mr. Lutz is available to conservative organizations for speaking engagements, and may be reached at eic @ tocquevillian.com

    

Europe is Wasted on Europeans


by Wayne Lutz

Idealism is a disease of childhood and young adulthood, I suppose. I was as starry-eyed as any then - more so perhaps than some - and my memories of things I once thought possible are often painful in the face of things that have come to be.

At the tender age of 19 I was offering up my flesh as a barrier between free Europeans and the Commie hoards who would overrun and absorb them if they could. I had enlisted in the not-yet-all-volunteer Army right out of high school with the expectation of being sent to the jungles of Vietnam, but that war "ended" before I completed my secondary training. Germany was the primary destination of the American soldier back then, as it was our presence alone that kept the forests and gingerbread villages of that beautiful country from once again becoming a bloody, bombed-out battleground.

Germany was the frontier, the last stand; the no-man's land between the free people of Western Europe and the slavery of Communism. Little more than a boy, I stood, on a gray misty morning, staring through cold binoculars across a narrow expanse of cleared land that was defined by parallel barbed-wire fences, and into the eyes of a young East German soldier gazing back at me. The short expanse of forbidden land that separated those two soldiers was to my mind an unfathomably wide gulf, and the thought of what it represented sent an involuntary shudder through my body that I couldn't account for by the chill morning air alone.

As distant as I felt my world to be from that of the young East German soldier on the dark side of the fence, I became that close to the young people there on the free side. Many of my fellow soldiers felt and acted like the foreigners that they were and rarely ventured outside of our walled military compound. I, on the other hand, was overwhelmed with the excitement and awed by the very thought of being on foreign soil. On my first day in country I headed out, on foot, to explore and to drink in the people, the architecture, the very earth and air of this new, old country. I walked, in as straight a line away from my barracks as the narrow cobblestone streets and twisting country lanes would allow, for hours. I spoke without self-consciousness to fair children in leather shorts, and I laboriously counted out unfamiliar coins to exchange for tastes of traditional German food and drink.

Little time had passed before I'd bought a beat-up old car to carry me even deeper into the heart of Germany. I quickly formed friendships that would last the rest of my life, and I soon met the beautiful little German girl who was to become my wife and with whom I share my life to this day 30 years later.

Germany became the land in which I came of age, the place where I did my real growing up, the home where my own children were born. The Autobahns were my back roads, and the Mosel Valley and the nearby nations of Belgium, France and Luxemburg became my youthful stomping grounds. A 3-year tour of military duty stretched into 10 years of life and laughter, friendship and love when I made Europe my adoptive home.

You may have deduced that I have a soft spot for Europe, Germany in particular. My blood is pure German to start with; the culture and the land of Germany are an indelible part of my past - a part which had its effect on me during some of my most formative years. It's a beautiful place by any standard, and it's a shame that such a wonderful land is wasted on perfidious snots.

You heard me. Europeans are Elitist coxcombs. Ungrateful miscreants. Rancorous anchorites. Grandiloquent popinjays. And yes, snots. Ungrateful, pusillanimous snots.

During my time in Europe the Germans still had dark, brooding East Germany staring out at them through gray, unpainted window sashes, causing a kind of collective guilt complex to hang over the population like a perpetual fog. The memory of WWII, while fading, was still fresh enough to cause the locals to at least tolerate the presence of American military men and women (and our strong American dollars and cheap American cigarettes didn't hurt, either) because they knew what the alternative was.

No longer. World War III, the Cold War, is over (We won, by the way). Now the Germans openly despise those Americans still among them - because they can. The Danger of Communist expansion is past, slavery was successfully dodged, and the people can now safely revert to being, well, snots. Interestingly, this slide into snottism seems to parallel their backward slide into Socialism. The European experiment with Democracy is over, and after a mere 60 years of freedom, the Europeans are marching like lemmings back to the edge of the Marxist abyss. As inexplicable as the willing surrender to Socialism may be to freedom-loving Americans, it at least explains the almost universal European disdain for America. Slaves and slave holders always oppose free people.

The fro... um, French, are a great example. A recent survey of our French Friends shows that 9 out of 10 would prefer to see George W. Bush lose re-election (which seems to me to be perhaps the best of all reasons to vote for him). The French disdain for President Bush is a micro projection of their disdain for the United States as a whole, and is for the same reasons; Bush, like America - projects strength, independence and freedom - all things in direct opposition to Socialism.

We've known for some time about the European distaste for America, of course. The Germans, French, Spanish and increasingly the Brits (I would mention Belgium but they're not big enough to be a real country, much as they like to pretend they are) have long looked down their noses at us. (That the Russians and Chinese hate us goes without saying. We've always known that and cannot pretend surprise at their behavior and lack of support.) Lately that distaste for us has become increasingly adversarial and obstructionist. And, most recently, the Europeans have positioned themselves as outright enemies of the United States and her true allies.

It's one thing to act snottily toward Americans and American culture. It's quite another to profess friendship while lining one's pockets with blood money. We know for sure now what we've long suspected - that the French and Germans were taking bribes in the millions of dollars - dollars intended to feed innocents - in exchange for their obstruction of the United States. Government officials at the very highest levels, and, perhaps even more disgusting, journalists, sold their souls to a devil in a golden palace for a little blood money while Iraqi children starved and American soldiers died. The opposite of American Nobility is European Treachery.

The picturesque land that I loved so as a young man is populated by pusillanimous Socialists who would sooner see children starve than support America in her efforts to spread Democracy to the oppressed. The green wooded hills, the soaring cathedrals and medieval castles, the cobblestone streets, the nestled villages, the Bratwurst and the beer are all far too good for perfidious Europeans. It's a waste of good food and scenery.

The headlong plunge back into Marxism will keep the Europeans from enjoying my Europe for much longer, however. It's hard to appreciate beauty, culture and history when viewing it from the black pit of slavery, even when you've jumped into the pit willingly.

May your chains sit lightly upon you. I'll take care of the beer...