As written in Philadelphia in 1789 and amended over two centuries, the United States Constitution is now 10,600 words. The proposed European Constitution rejected by European voters two summers ago was 63,000 words. ... In June the European Commission issued a memo proposing a new European Treaty that essentially would serve as a constitution; the memo came in at 12,800 words. That's 12,800 words just for the memo proposing the constitution! If this sounds silly -- OK, it's hard not to make European governments sound silly -- bear in mind that over the winter, the European Union observed its 50th anniversary, an occasion that deserved more praise than was won.

For five centuries from the mid-1500s until approximately the European Union, Europe existed in a perpetual state of war, twice drawing the entire world into its conflagrations. In the last half century there has been hardly any artillery fire in Europe, while nearly all nations of the continent have become liberal democracies. Today personal freedom and self-expression in Europe equal America's, prosperity is nearly as high, daily stress is lower, cultural institutions are equal to or superior to ours, and most of Europe is more open-minded than most of America about enjoyment of our one brief chance at life. Europe has a flair for making itself sound silly, lacks America's entrepreneurial mind-set and therefore our job-creation numbers, plus its birthrates and worship-service attendance figures are troubling. Yet those are small concerns compared to European progress. For the last half-century, Europe's political and social improvement has been extraordinary to a degree that is totally unappreciated in the United States.

He closes out with a Highly Scientific Analysis of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue