Huckabee: United States Does Integration Better than Europe
Mike Huckabee is a political rockstar in the United States. Even atheist Democrats who disagree with many of his policies cannot help but be charmed by the former governor. My friend and a fellow blogger Kevin (one such atheist Democrat) gives his take on this phenomenon at the blog Wyatt Gwyon:
Huckabee has nonetheless been criticized for lacking a solid foreign policy platform. This week, he dabbled on the issue of US-European relations by speculating who is better at cultural integration. As reported by the National Review Online:
Of the Republican candidates, Huckabee is the most straightforward in presentation and generally the most rigorous in his analyses… I certainly do not concur with the majority of the political positions that stereotypically come with his fundamentalist Christian system of belief, but I am clear on what he believes and can respect his convictions to those beliefs for their principled consistency. Huckabee is a profoundly known factor.IMHO, style is what has buoyed Huckabee’s presidential bid. It is not a coincidence that his campaign picked up momentum only a week after he became “Chuck Norris Approved” in a humorous commercial run prior to him sweeping the Iowa primaries last week.
Huckabee has nonetheless been criticized for lacking a solid foreign policy platform. This week, he dabbled on the issue of US-European relations by speculating who is better at cultural integration. As reported by the National Review Online:
It is also difficult for us, with our culture of assimilation, to understand that life for European Muslims is different from life for American Muslims. Muslims in Britain or the Netherlands or Germany are second-class citizens because those countries have more homogenous populations that don’t readily integrate outsiders. Instead of melting pots, Europe has separate pots boiling over with alienation and despair. In some countries, like France, it is more a lack of economic integration, while in others, like Britain, it is more a lack of cultural integration, but whatever the reason, Europe is a much more fertile breeding ground for terror than the United States. Unintentionally, some of our closest allies are producing some of our clearest threats.I agree with Huckabee that Europe does a poorer job of integration than the US, and that this can breed violence. However, I find it difficult to pin exactly why the US is a more successful 'melting pot'. Perhaps one factor is upward mobility: I suspect an individual can transcend their parentage easier in the US than in most European countries, which in turn mitigates social and cultural stratification.