I used to have a great time living in France in the early 90s. The French are pretty much like people everywhere: lots of good ones, a few bad ones. Et, Il aide certainement à parler la langue bien.

And of course they believe themselves superior to everyone else. Is that not a pretty normal human trait? So is honesty, when you expect it of people. I recall attending a dinner party during the initial month of the 1991 Gulf War. This was in company with fellow naval officers, except they were with the French Navy and I was a US Navy officer on exchange. I recall them talking about our round-the-clock bombing that had been going on for a couple of weeks by that time. Someone asked, "You can’t keep that up for very much longer, can you?" I just looked at them. (Recall, this was during the waning days of the Cold War, when we had stockpiles sufficient to go to war with the Soviet Union). Finally, a note of pure honesty and dropping of all pretense: "You live here, and so you know there are always programs, news reports, articles in the magazines and newspapers about how America is in decay and declining. Ce n’est pas vrai."

"Nope, no. It’s not true," was my reply.

Having an apartment literally on the beach road of the Mediterranean in the south of France afforded me the opportunity to interact with Europeans from all over during the summer months. They all love to talk about how superior their social systems are to America (as though we’re far off). Man, did I used to laugh at them and ask them who they thought paid for their grand social systems. We did, of course, indirectly, by bearing the lion’s share of the cost of the Cold War defense of Western Europe. Trillions spent keeping the Soviet’s at bay in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Forty years of defending a continent against a certain, strong, and capable force.

Integrate that teeny little factoid next time you get all moist between the legs thinking how great, sophisticated, intelligent and advanced the Europeans are. The fact is, they talk continually of their superiority because they are hopelessly overshadowed by America. Can’t even defend themselves without us. How pathetic. They literally live in peace at our expense, and then pretend as though they have something over us.

Anyway, this was all a prelude to a very funny post by Lou Minatti about just how superior those Europeans really are.