Guns, grits and The Good Book!

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge’s 2005 “The Right Nation” is slightly dated since the Obama victory (And the collapse of the global financial system.), but still well worth reading. It gives Europeans in particular a fascinating insight into how political concepts we take as a given are regarded as completely alien in the US, and vice versa.

To their credit, the authors have painstakingly teased out examples as to how even moderate Americans can voice calm positions that would be regarded as the bastion of the far right within the EU, such as, for example,  the Clinton/Kerry/Obama position on the death penalty. All are in favour, to varying degrees.

The book also gives some wonderful examples of the difference, between European and American thinking, including a quote from FDR that if he could put one book into the hands of every Russian it would be the Sears Roebuck catalogue, or one unnamed EU foriegn minister pointing out, about American military might, that ” Even if America has the biggest hammer, not every problem is a nail.”  It also points to areas of American life that puts Europeans to shame, pointing out, for example, that over 95% of NRA members vote, and as a result their organisation matters, not because they are right wing, but because they’re civically engaged.