> I will assume below that you are European. Neither. > The arms industry in Europe can be as corrupt as it wants - it still doesn't consume the incredible pr

> I will assume below that you are European. Neither. > The arms industry in Europe can be as corrupt as it wants - it still doesn't consume the incredible proportion of GDP ours does, and it still doesn't own your government outright. That may be true. But the European arms industry is extremely corrupt in other countries (with official sanction). The politicians are usually their bitches (e.g. BAE & Blair). This is not just true for the arms industry – but for all major European companies. The best example of this is Siemens. Its whole business model is based on paying bribes in third world countries to get contracts. Without that, it is simply not competitive. The bribes that Siemens paid over the years ran into the billions (http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,462954,00.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,462954,00.html). The same goes for the French arms company Thompson CSF/Thales, that had an extremely large central slush fund to pay bribes with. While it is true that it is better if the corruption is exported, the point that I wanted to make is that without bribery firms such as Siemens is simply not competitive. > Europe has nothing like immigration or social problems. They think they do. But they really, really don't. Large and growing Muslim minorities are, and let me make this perfectly clear, not a problem. They are a good thing. Large amount of crimes are committed by immigrants and it threatens European culture. There have been huge riots in countries such as France and Belgium. This is a serious and growing problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_civil_unrest_in_France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Brussels_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Brussels_riots I agree with you that the USA also have serious problems (e.g. Mexican immigration). Yet it seems that European countries (such as Denmark) are more prepared to do something to solve the problem. > The birth rate collapsing is a good thing. No. It is extremely bad (and it is a naïve thing to say). How exactly will a country function if there are more retirees than people working? Or if non-integrating minority populations grow faster than the indigenous populations? > growing Muslim minorities are in fact paying into the retirement system. Just because it's not white, Christian money doesn't mean the system isn't working. You ignore the fact that a large percentage of immigrants do not finish school. In germany it is just for highschool (14% among immigrant populations). > The difference between Europe and America is that some people in Europe are at least planning management strategies; the corresponding people in America are mostly trying to figure out which part of Peru they're going to retreat to when things finally collapse. Many countries in the EU are a lot closer to collapse (e.g. Greece) than the USA. > has failed until you see an actual renewal of the centuries of warfare that ravaged this continent until the advent of the European Union. To claim that the main aim of the EU is the prevention of warfare is wrong. There are good reasons why there hasn’t been another world war (some of it to do with the fact that there was an external enemy and that, with nuclear weapons, no one wants to wage war). Just because there hasn’t been war doesn’t mean that the EU is a success. And using such a yardstick is actually a big insult to the original aspirations of the EU. And just because the EU is cheaper than a big war, doesn’t mean that it is a bargain.