I remember the first time my wife and I visited Europe and the Middle East.
The trip resembled Sen. Obama's current version of speed travel, but without
the entourage, security and network coverage.
Armed with Arthur Frommer's "Europe on $5 a Day," we crammed as much as we
could into 18-hour days, hitting the museums, art galleries, cathedrals and
restaurants. When the tour ended, we had impressions and a slightly better
view of the world.
There is a difference, though, between a view of the world and a worldview.
A view of the world means you might like London and I might prefer Paris,
but each preference can be equally valid because it is a matter of
individual taste. A correct worldview is a way of not just looking at other
countries and people, but having an intellectual and moral center that
allows one to distinguish between good and evil; right and wrong; sound
economic, social and political policies and bad ones.
There is a reason America is what it is. The economic power and military
might are effects, not causes of America's greatness. It is because we offer
the lives of our young and much of our fortune to defend liberty for
ourselves and promote it for others that we are blessed with liberty. Too
many other countries - especially European countries - receive liberty as
America's gift, but contribute little to it.
This week, Europe will cheer Barack Obama as if he were Gen. Dwight
Eisenhower, the commander of Allied troops that liberated Europe from
Hitler; or John F. Kennedy before the Brandenburg Gate near the beginning of
the Berlin Wall; or Ronald Reagan in the same place near its collapse.
Obama is no Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Reagan. He might be more like the Pied
Piper, leading Europeans to their doom. Does Europe believe that if it
follows Obama he will lead them away from world conflict? Blind faith in
Obama won't save Europe from war. Like the wise monkeys of the old Japanese
maxim, Europe neither sees nor hears evil. It sees no evil in Iraq or
Afghanistan; it sees no evil in the tide of immigration from countries that
believe freedom and pluralism are offensive. Twice Europe had to be rescued
by the United States and protected from the Soviets because it failed to
hear the thundering hoofs of approaching evil.