In 1998 the Southern Baptist convention, America’s largest evangelical Christian organization, issued a decree that in a Christian marriage "a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." A full-page ad reiterating this was later published in USA Today and signed by 120 Baptist ministers, including Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
This evangelical view of Christian marriage mirrors how most neoconservatives see the relationship between Europe and the United States: "Europe must submit graciously to the servant leadership of America."
The fact that Europe refuses to play the role of the submissive wife angers many commentators on the right. Joerg Wolf of the Atlantic Review is annoyed at the neo-con commentator Soeren Kern who, in an op/ed piece in the American Thinker, rails against the Europeans for their "anti-Americanism". Kern singles out Germany for special criticism:
In Germany, anti-Americanism is an exercise in moral relativism. Germans desperately want their country to be perceived as a "normal" country, and its elites are using anti-Americanism as a political tool to absolve themselves and their parents of the crimes of World War II. They routinely equate the US invasion of Iraq with the Holocaust, for example, as a psychological ruse to make themselves feel better about their sordid past.
This is the dilemma America faces: If it wants to be popular abroad, it will have to pay in terms of reduced security. And if it determines to protect the American way of life from global threats, then it will have to pay in terms of reduced popularity abroad.
Of course, the America that the world wants back is not the one that preemptively invades potential enemies, bullies allies or disdains international law. The demand is for an America that rallies other nations prone to sitting on the fence while international crises are boiling out of control; for a superpower that comes up with innovative initiatives to tackle the great challenges of the day, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and violent Islamist fundamentalism. The demand is for an America that enforces the rules that facilitate international commerce and works effectively to stabilize an accident-prone global economy. Naturally, the world also wants a superpower willing to foot the bill with a largess that no other nation can match.
My hope is that in this election year Americans will also have a Hunger for America – not the America of the Bush Doctrine, but a hunger for an America that leads by example.
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Kern just made that stuff up. It’s ridiculous.
I read Kern’s piece and I have to say that it is in fact a very interesting article, not far off the mark in my opinion.
I don’t know if David Vickrey actually read Kern’s essay before writing his post, because contrary to the assertion in this blog, Germany is not singled out for criticism, any more than is Spain or France.
Also, Kern’s essay says nothing about Europe’s refusal to play the role of a submissive wife.
On the contrary, Kern argues, accurately, I believe, that Europeans are using anti-Americanism to define a new European identity.
Anyone who knows Germany has to admit that many Germans equate George W Bush with Adolf Hitler, so I would not find it that far fetched if they also make a link between the carnage in Iraq and the holocaust.
My own experience with Germans is that they often find it very hard to face criticism. It is much easier for them to shoot the messenger than to admit that some facets of German leftism are rotton to the core. But then again, they are not all that different from the Left in the US or anywhere else.
In any case, interesting blog.
Kern’s criticizes Europe for not following the US in the invasion of Iraq and the “war on terror”. In fact, Europeans take terrorism very seriously but reject the phrase “war on terror”.
Kern states that Germans “routinely” equate the Iraq War with the Holocaust. I challenge him to cite one example.
These are some interesting views presented. Overall, its much of the same I hear from european press so hopefully there is some original thinking here.
I think the USA has the right of it, perhaps europeans aren’t able to look at it from the American perspective. I wonder if it is terrifying to ask yourself: “What if the Americans are in the right?” “What if the Americans are once again bailing out the europeans because they have lost all their grit and have become hardcore pacifists?” I known any european will write this off and return fire with plenty of comments about CIA secret prisons and how Guantanamo Bay needs to be shut down, how US soldiers are torturing everyone they capture, etc. etc. I see it all the time, new articles out to feed the hunger of anti-americanism. I just thought it would have seemed obvious by now that you’re being played and spoon-fed what you want to hear and no longer care about the truth.
America will lead those who need leadership, but it will be based on the same principles we’ve always had. You may be trying to still figure those out, but its pretty simple. Think about our fight for independence to try a grand experiment in democracy to our storming of the beaches of normandy to our billions of dollars in foreign aid we give (without our government having to tax it away from us, so dont even think about comparing the statistics without adding in our freely give donations, I’ve seen that trick too many times) to the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, they are trying experiences and tasks that cost our blood and a willingness to do whatever we can to defend our freedoms and our allies whether they know they are in dire straits or not.
Does anybody want Saddam back in europe? Does anybody want his to open back up his torture chambers and his chemical factories, his genocidal military? Do europeans even care that they have found hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of bodies in mass graves and they are still uncovering more from his regime? These people have a real chance now and maybe they fail on their own two feet, but at least we took that chance to give them the opportunities many of us take for granted living in prosperour urban neighborhoods with high-speed internet and nothing better to do but complain about global warming and other weather theories, must be a nice privledge to not prioritize actual problems. Go let the world suffer, walk outside and hug a tree if you think it will make you feel better. I’d rather be on the side thats at least trying to do something.
We’re not asking you to follow us, do what you want, just don’t expect us to change who we are or what we believe in.
God Bless!
“a willingness to do whatever we can to defend our freedoms”
@Adam,
With all due respect, most Americans don’t believe that the occupation of Iraq has anything to do with “defending our freedoms”.
I’ve spent the last several weeks speaking with independent voters in New Hampshire and when the topic of Iraq came up most said it was a colossal, unnecessary blunder that was based on a grand deception.
Sure, there are some voters who are attracted to John McCain, who vowed to stay in Iraq “for 100 years”, but most want the US to end the costly debacle. All of the national polls have been consistent in confirming this as well.