WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL - AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  From Charles Murray, in today's Washington Post:

The trouble is that American elites of all political stripes have increasingly withdrawn to gated communities -- literally or figuratively -- where they never interact at an intimate level with people not of their own socioeconomic class. Over the last half-century, the new generation of elites have increasingly spent their entire lives in the upper-middle-class bubble, never having seen a factory floor, let alone worked on one, never having gone to a grocery store and bought the cheap ketchup instead of the expensive ketchup to meet a budget, and never having had a close friend who hadn't gotten at least 600 on her verbal SAT.

America's elites must once again fall in love with what makes America different. The drift toward the European model can be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious.

COMMENT:  Read the entire piece, on the danger of America becoming more like Europe.  Oh, we would have the "good" life, with cradle-to-grave socialism, but not much would get done, or invented, or even dreamed.

March 22, 2009