The political and economic system of Europe has long been the model for American progressives.  Thus, it was fitting that Barack Obama extolled Europe's greatness in an April 6 speech in Berlin.  Obama told the assembled:

Europe in 2019 in some ways has achieved the pinnacle of human well being.  Collectively in Europe right now on average you probably see the highest standards of living of any group of people in the history of the planet.  Wealthier, healthier, better educated.  The kind that has largely been at peace for 70 years.  You have unprecedented information at your fingertips.  You can travel freely across borders that once were closed.

Europe's bureaucratic elites would no doubt agree.  However, there are some who might object to this rosy portrait — for example, the yellow vest protesters who are pushing back against high taxes and regulations, Jews who find themselves besieged by an increasingly intolerant climate brought about by unrestricted Muslim immigration, and the voters of Great Britain, the majority of whom prefer to preside over their own affairs instead of ceding their sovereignty to the E.U.  The latter group might wonder why, if Europe is such an Edenic paradise, it would go to such vindictive extremes to prevent England from leaving.

The open borders praised by Obama are being used by the E.U. to pressure member-nations to accept migrants against the will of their constituents, which has led to the rise of nationalist parties now bemoaned by the Obama and his ilk.  The "unprecedented information" available to Europeans is under unrelenting assault.  Unhampered by the equivalent of the First Amendment, Europe has seen a proliferation of hate speech laws designed to criminalize politically incorrect expression.  Not to be outdone, the European Commission, the unelected administrative arm of the E.U., has proposed its own set of hate speech laws.

"The EU has had a relatively low rate of growth for about 30 years compared to the U.S., Asia, and the non-EU countries in Europe," National Review's John O'Sullivan has noted.  Its greatest achievement, he added, was "establishing the euro without the fiscal institutions to make it workable, to introduce the abolition of internal EU borders without firming up the external borders ... and to spend 40 percent of the EU budget on an agricultural policy that intentionally keeps food prices high."

As for the "seventy years of peace," that is largely due to the United States, which has provided the lion's share of funds for NATO.  Under cover of American security protection, European nations crafted the bureaucratic welfare states that Obama and the progressives so admire.

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