Tuesday, July 21, 2015

AND THEY DRINK THEIR BEER WARM!

The Federalist's Kurt Schlichter went to Europe, but it's hard to guess why, since the way he tells it he  clearly despises the place:
Europe is different from when I first lived there in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was not as superficially wealthy then, although this time I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate. On the outside, at least, you would hardly see the rot of debt and welfare-state mismanagement even in Italy and Spain. The people were well dressed. The cafés were expensive but still packed. The cars are fairly new and have shockingly little body damage, when you consider the insanity that overtakes Europeans when they slide behind a steering wheel.
But that’s on the surface. Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there. All their money goes to clothes, food, and drink, because there’s no room in European apartments for the stuff Americans pack into theirs.
Not a McMansion in sight -- what a bunch of losers!
Countless stores will dress women in the latest, most expensive fashions, but few supply the woman who wishes to dress her children. The merchants know their markets, and you need babies to support baby clothes stores. When you walk the streets, you notice the couples with kids—they stand out, and it’s always just one kid.
No Duggars in this socialist hellhole, I tell you what.
Even the cabbies sigh that the birth rate is below replacement level. Children are the ultimate luxury item.
The Friedman cab driver still lives! Man, Schlichter hates this Europe dump worse than Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle. Wonder why?
The blood of the likes of Charles Martel no longer runs in the veins of today’s café-dwelling Europeans. They sip coffee and their (excellent) wine and, in Spain, drink their bizarre cerveza/lemonade and rioja/Coca-Cola combinations, oblivious to what’s coming. Perhaps it’s mere ignorance, perhaps it’s a choice. It will end the same way regardless—in blood. When the time comes to choose between picking up a rifle and dying, we’ll find out if the human instinct for self-preservation has successfully been bred out of the men of Europe. I know where I’m putting my money...

Ukraine will fall. The Baltics will fall. Turkey will fall. The Balkans will fall. Europe will fall.

This is the fiesta before the storm, and Europe is busy partying like it’s 1939. These are the New Wilderness Years, except this time the bad guys are going to win.
Ahh, right, they haven't herded their Mooslims into concentration camps so they're worthless and weak. Schlichter's come a ways since he approved Britain at least for its Windsor obsession in his classic "The Royal Baby Is a Rejection of the Family Chaos Liberalism Feeds Upon" column. Now...
When you go to a restaurant or a store in or around London, you almost certainly won’t be served by a native Englishman. Often, it’s an Eastern European. Our most frustrating language challenges took place in the United Kingdom. The immigrants do the work, while working-class Londoners apparently stay home and collect dole checks.
Even England is full of furriners! All those stupid little countries can go to hell!

He'll get to the same place with America, too, once he gets that bunker built.

426 comments:

  1. Cato the Censor1:55 PM

    Too bad this guy wasn't around in 1453. He could have really waxed eloquent about the fall of Constantinople. Who are Ukraine, the Baltics, and Turkey supposed to fall to, anyway? Isn't Turkey already Islamic? Or is Russia going to invade all of them?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jay B.2:00 PM

    A place with young kids, compact apartments, wine, shandies, cafes, no visible poverty and vibrant diversity? SOUNDS HELLISH.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BigHank532:01 PM

    Hey, can anyone else draw the same conclusion from these two lines:

    this time I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate.

    When you walk the streets, you notice the couples with kids—they stand out, and it’s always just one kid.

    Are the touristy parts of town the inexpensive parts where the locals with lots of mouths to feed do their shopping, Kurt? It's a pity you already finished your column, 'cause there's nothing like watching a conservative own-goal. Thanks, buddy!

    ps:I look forward to your column on how the lack of giant pickup trucks and SUVs in Europe means they've already capitulated to the commie Greens, instead of what actually happened, which is taxing the hell out of imported fuel to stave off dependency.

    ReplyDelete
  4. susanoftexas2:05 PM

    Chic baby/child clothing shops in Madrid:
    El Tintero Ninos
    Pasito Doble
    Gocco
    Nicoli
    Mothercare
    Neck and Neck
    Petite Bateau
    Hollilster

    ReplyDelete
  5. tsam1002:08 PM

    This guy HATES STUFF SO MUCH

    ReplyDelete
  6. dstatton2:14 PM

    I am this reading while in London. I travel to Europe frequently, and I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm just oblivious, or maybe he's just full of shit?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Children are the ultimate luxury item.

    Well gosh, I went to Europe in the mid-80s and one of the first things I remember seeing in Paris were the signs with a close up of a cute little baby and a message reading "France a besoin des bebes." (France needs babies.)

    That was my first encounter with the concept of birth rates that were too low to sustain a country's population. I went back in the early 90s and France at least was still worried about its baby deficit.

    So there was a very brief baby boom while was there. Or this douche is a frigging liar.

    Europe is different from when I first lived there in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was not as superficially wealthy then, although this time I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate.



    Huh? When was he in Europe and when did he visit and when did he rarely wander from tourist traps?


    Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there.

    Still there from when he was there the last time or still there from ... Oh forget it. Europe sucks and is going to be taken over by Visigoths (again), serve them right!

    ReplyDelete
  8. “Please talk more about how you hate Europe and bicycles.”

    http://swansonquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/s07-ep11-eurotrash1-1000x500.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  9. Immigrants work crappy service jobs in Europe?! We can only pray such terrors never come to America.

    ReplyDelete
  10. And how does he know they aren't tourists?

    Also, as always - Neocons "noticing" kids burns out the creepometer.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there.

    At least our infrastructure is crumbling out in the open for all to see, like God intended.

    ReplyDelete
  12. tsam1002:30 PM

    Well, try being more American. The right way.

    ReplyDelete
  13. coozledad2:32 PM

    The blood of the likes of Charles Martel no longer runs in the veins of today’s café-dwelling Europeans.

    That could be because it all ran out on battlefield Europe over the centuries for fuck all.
    Or is he trying to say no one wants the feudalism to go along with the pretty castles?

    ReplyDelete
  14. tsam1002:32 PM

    All their money goes to clothes, food, and drink, because there’s no room in European apartments for the stuff Americans pack into theirs.

    ReplyDelete
  15. tsam1002:35 PM

    LOOK AT MY KIDS ONE MORE TIME

    ReplyDelete
  16. DerBrunoStroszek2:38 PM

    So in short; douche goes round tourist hotspots, is shocked that he sees lots of foreigners but few settled families. I myself was shocked when I visited America to find it almost completely deserted, patrolled by sinister men calling themselves 'rangers' and overrun by bears!

    ReplyDelete
  17. EndOfTheWorld2:40 PM

    You don't understand! Their apartments are so small, they would have to choose between the NFL and the AFL when deciding which set of collectible commemorative plates to display!

    ReplyDelete
  18. DN Nation2:44 PM

    Meh. The vast majority of the world is basically South Carolina fed into a copy machine.

    "Our most frustrating language challenges took place in the United Kingdom."



    Mine too, but it was always the Brits speaking "English" that gave me trouble.

    ReplyDelete
  19. although this time I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate.As opposed to back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Kurt lived just like the natives, I'm sure.

    All their money goes to clothes, food, and drink, because there’s no room in European apartments for the stuff Americans pack into theirs.Yet another sign of Europe's abandonment of Christianity, and with it Jesus' admonition to accumulate as many possessions as humanly possible.

    Even the cabbies sigh that the birth rate is below replacement level.Yeah, at this rate, who knows when we'll hit 10 billion.

    I know where I’m putting my money...Really, Kurt? Because if you're actually expecting the Muslim horde to conquer the entire European continent, I'll take a piece of that action.

    When you go to a restaurant or a store in or around London, you almost certainly won’t be served by a native Englishman. Often, it’s an Eastern European.Why do you hate capitalism, Kurt?

    The immigrants do the work, while working-class Londoners apparently stay home and collect dole checks.No, no, Kurt, there simply aren't enough working-class "native" Londoners to go around. Not enough children, remember? I'm pretty sure there was a recent article mentioning that in The Federalist.

    ReplyDelete
  20. EndOfTheWorld2:51 PM

    "When you go to a restaurant or a store in or around London, you almost
    certainly won’t be served by a native Englishman. Often, it’s an Eastern
    European."

    Most right-wing cranks only have enough time in their day to be rancidly nativist about their own country. It's nice to see that The Federalist has employed people determined to keep other countries ethnically pure as well! Though it does make me wonder why Mollie Hemingway has to outsource this sort of bile from Berlin rather than getting an American to do the work. "Schlichter" is, after all, a German onomatopoeia for the sound a dildo makes when being used for its intended function.

    ReplyDelete
  21. dstatton2:52 PM

    He's playing to his audience, which wants to believe this shit about shabby flats.

    ReplyDelete
  22. MacCheerful3:02 PM

    The few Americans left after some strange apocalypse huddled around simple fires eating frozen, dried remnants of food hastily made edible by boiling water.

    ReplyDelete
  23. MacCheerful3:03 PM

    What is he doing in their homes anyway? Who would invite him in? Perhaps it was shabby because they didn't know he was coming.

    ReplyDelete
  24. MacCheerful3:05 PM

    It's a two prong invasion, Russia from the north and east, Isis from the east and south. Europe will be trapped in a giant double envelopment and will suffer years of darkness until Putin and Isis inevitably quarrel over the distribution of revenues from sex slaves.

    ReplyDelete
  25. MacCheerful3:07 PM

    Generally my most entertaining language challenges are when the French attempt to pronounce words in English in a manner that makes sense only to the French. But still these are often French of the sang pur, directly descended from Charles Martel and stray Belgians, and so it is hard to see how tossing out immigrants is going to solve that particular problem.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Downpup E3:10 PM

    So he was in "Europe". Where? I read the whole damn thing and it reduces to "Bellllch!" It clearly isn't any of the places I've seen in my living room the last 2 weeks watching LeTour. It's more like he was in a hotel room near an airport watching "National Lampoon's European Vacation".

    Oh well. At least he didn't throw a dog off the Eiffel Tower.

    ReplyDelete
  27. tsam1003:11 PM

    It doesn't SAY he didn't.

    ReplyDelete
  28. tsam1003:12 PM

    Just say white children, Kurt. You're among friends here.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Tehanu3:25 PM

    Bears with guns, per our great Second Amendment right to arm bears.

    ReplyDelete
  30. This is the fiesta before the storm, and Europe is busy partying like it’s 1939. These are the New Wilderness Years, except this time the bad guys are going to win.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Shit, dude, if you're going to complain about anything, why complain about people eating french fries with fucking mayonnaise? I mean, let's get real here.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Brian J.3:31 PM

    And those goddamn Royales with Cheese.

    ReplyDelete
  33. tigrismus3:33 PM

    "Cramped, shabby apartment" = charming flat in historic building
    "superficially wealthy" = not cramming their lives full of useless crap from China instead of eating out with friends
    "immigrants do the work, while working-class Londoners apparently stay home and collect dole checks" = I am an ignorant asshole

    ReplyDelete
  34. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person3:36 PM

    Visit Yurp.
    Stay in tourist country.
    Daydream of the parts of Yurp you can't see from there.
    Compare that daydream with previous daydreams you've had.
    Type up comparison, mail off to the Federalist.
    Profit!

    I wouldna broke my back in construction for 30 fuckin' years if I'd known about this racket. I coulda gone to a shrink, had my intellectual (and all other sorts of) honesty removed, and had it made. So simple, like the smash-n-grab, it plumb evaded me...

    ReplyDelete
  35. Brian J.3:38 PM

    Who says you need to visit Yurp? Just mock up some receipts for your expense account and you can skip those first two steps. Yeah, it's technically fraud, but as we're seeing today, crime is the way Republicans communicate, including with each other.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I assume he's peering in through their windows, searching for children. Kurt Schlichter might be one of those grim Germanic folk-tales, like the Krampus or der schwarze Mann.

    ReplyDelete
  37. AlanInSF3:40 PM

    It's always good to judge a country by not wandering far from where the tourists congregate.


    Love the outdated (for at least a quarter century) stereotype of Europeans as crazy drivers, combined with total ignorance of the fact that many European countries require you to repair body damage to your car -- nanny state horror!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person3:41 PM

    Apropos of nothing, I find myself wondering with what frequency the Paris Police make arrests for peeing off said Tower...

    ReplyDelete
  39. AlanInSF3:42 PM

    Amazingly, when you go to stores and restaurants in or around America, you are hardly ever served by a Native American. Often, it's a European.

    ReplyDelete
  40. thimker33:42 PM

    How do you say "sheeple" in European?

    ReplyDelete
  41. M. Krebs3:43 PM

    When you go to a restaurant or a store in or around London, you almost certainly won’t be served by a native Englishman. Often, it’s an Eastern European.

    Why do you hate capitalism, Kurt?


    Please, nobody tell him what's happened to the great American porn industry.

    ReplyDelete
  42. M. Krebs3:47 PM

    Le sheeple.

    ReplyDelete
  43. And body shops. Plenty of body shops.

    ReplyDelete
  44. tsam1003:51 PM

    That's an...odd direction to take the conversation. I like where you head is at.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Jaime Oria3:55 PM

    Die Schafe Menschen.

    ReplyDelete
  46. tsam1003:56 PM

    Walked right into that one!

    ReplyDelete
  47. You'll have a lot of fun trying to drive a giant P.U. or S.U.V. in a city street dating from the middle ages when if two horses could pass each other it was wide enough.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Kirchturm.

    ReplyDelete
  49. sophronia3:59 PM

    I was in Europe in the late '80s-early '90s period as well, as a student, and I remember this guy, or at least his brother by another mother. He was the one who wore a different designer Cosby sweater every day of the week. Wherever we went I could hear him telling the Europeans, in witheringly patronizing tones, "Oh, you live in an apartment? In America we all have houses. One house for winter and a separate one for summer. And we all have cars, too. My family has six cars. How many cars do you have?" This, to people living in what had two months earlier been the Soviet Union.


    And then he and his jerky friends would get drunk on cooking sherry in the back of our student tour bus, because they were such fucking idiots they couldn't figure out that we were in Europe and could legally drink anytime we wanted. Or maybe they were just indicating America's superiority by barfing on the side of every road in Eastern Europe while the rest of us rolled our eyes and prayed the bus would forget them at the next stop.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there.Uh-huh. And if they had granite countertops, he'd be bleating about it all coming at the expense of the productive class.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Too bad this guy wasn't around in 1453.Yeah, he'd have shut the fuck up by now.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Help! Europe is about to be overrun by violent religious fanatics! Who AREN'T Charles Martel!

    ReplyDelete
  53. The nerve of these Europeans! They're so UNAMERICAN!

    ReplyDelete
  54. In my days (sez the old wretch) the veddy late '60s, if you possessed a carte de nombreuses familles (Big Family Card) you could sit in reserved seats on the Métro. Still in use, a numerous family is defined as three or more under 18.

    The card & general breeding encouagement is a result of the slaughter of potential breeders during WWI.

    ReplyDelete
  55. the slaughter of potential breeders during WWI

    At least it took a war to do it there, not just five black-robed, unelected judges.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Gog & Magog, right?

    ReplyDelete
  57. On the outside, at least, you would hardly see the rot of debt and welfare-state mismanagement even in Italy and Spain.


    I guess he figured that all that socialism would mean streets paved with homeless people and every alley piled high with the bodies of people killed by government-provided healthcare. Quelle domage!


    All their money goes to clothes, food, and drink, because there’s no room in European apartments for the stuff Americans pack into theirs.



    So, because people in Europe refuse to live like the subjects of Hoarders: Buried Alive! and do not cram their homes with mountains of useless consumer shit, that's somehow a failing of government?

    I want to meet Schlicter. I'm sure that 15 minutes would allow me to liberate 15% or more of his net worth as his reasoning abilities make him a prime customer for this bag of magic beans I've been holding onto. Or maybe he'd like this Philosopher's Stone I found next to my front walk.

    ReplyDelete
  58. MacCheerful4:29 PM

    I prefer Grog and Eggnog.

    ReplyDelete
  59. MacCheerful4:30 PM

    I thought sheeple was feminine. Or at least emasculated masculine.

    ReplyDelete
  60. It must be, uh, interesting to live in a world in which every fucking thing you don't like is the apocalypse. It's a wonder these idiots don't keel over from adrenal failure.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Ellis_Weiner4:35 PM

    "It will end the same way regardless—in blood."

    Christ, these jerks literally can't walk down the street without hauling out their pretentious Doomspeak and announcing a prediction which will, inevitably, prove wrong. WHAT will "end in blood," you nitwit? "Europe"? Get a real job, Kurt.

    ReplyDelete
  62. When I visited Paris, we took the Metro - a bus- to our hotel from the train station. We went down a city street that appeared to completely dedicated to shops for children's stuff, even a "Kid'sGap". I said "Oh what a good idea, all the kids clothes & toys in the same place instead of scattered around a mall!" Oh how those Parisiens despise children!

    ReplyDelete
  63. As your nym implies.

    ReplyDelete
  64. May not be typical of entire nation. But this is.

    ReplyDelete
  65. The only flaw in your plan is that you completely lack the pinched worldview needed to write complete bullshit like the conservative greats.

    ReplyDelete
  66. I have to admit I misread cerveza and lemonade as brains and lemonade--must have been thinking about the fetal shakes they are serving up here in the good old US of A. It did give me a bit of a turn.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Petit Bateau! Their stuff is cute. Or was 15 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Hey you should go eat at Moro and then try this other new restaurant I'm dying to try Berber Q. And report back. Eating vicariously is a kind of thrill, even though not as much fun as eating, you know, for yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  69. John McCain sees things differently. https://youtu.be/rWOZKeOauNI

    ReplyDelete
  70. "Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there."


    Guess he's never been in an average US home or apartment. Its not like on TV! Houses are cramped and shabby, with huge TV sets on the wall, and Huge refrigerators stuffed with junk food (this proves they aren't poor).

    ReplyDelete
  71. . . . even though not as much fun as eating, you know, for yourself.

    I think the kids call it eating IRL these days.

    ReplyDelete
  72. In France they call them Frite De Liberte.

    ReplyDelete
  73. MacCheerful4:55 PM

    In honor of your comment I have finally turned my avatar from faceless blue outline to something else.

    ReplyDelete
  74. BG, puppet making crank calls4:56 PM

    I just hope he stays away from New York.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Didn't you hear, Planned Parenthood just bought a chain of European Cafes.

    ReplyDelete
  76. brandonrg4:59 PM

    "I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate"

    "Countless stores will dress women in the latest, most expensive fashions, but few supply the woman who wishes to dress her children. "

    Tourist areas filled with expensive boutique stores? How strange!

    ReplyDelete
  77. Well,there are banlieus. And in Sweden the Roma are in slums. Its not all lovely pre-war apartments.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Ukraine will fall. The Baltics will fall. Turkey will fall. The Balkans will fall. Europe will fall.

    So then what's the problem? If Schlichter's right Europe will fall in the Islamocaust and all the faggy Europeans will get slaughtered. And yet he seems depressed or something.

    ReplyDelete
  79. I am a vegetarian online but in meat space I am an omnivore.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Brother Yam5:05 PM

    Yer spelin' it rong: it's Glugg

    ReplyDelete
  81. BG, puppet making crank calls5:10 PM

    I prefer this one --- Hitler tries to rent an apartment in San Francisco.

    "Everyone who works for Google leave the room at once."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53GcLx1JLXY&list=RD53GcLx1JLXY#t=0

    ReplyDelete
  82. O.K., O.K., Trump does have a point about shitty leadership in America:
    Kurt Schlichter is a retired Army colonel who holds a masters in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. He is also a trial lawyer and a writer. The views expressed here are his own.

    ReplyDelete
  83. That tends to be a characteristic of Paris in general, the shops for a given product or service tend to be close to each other. I had a friend who went to this area to get some sheet music for chamber ensembles and the like and there were stores that also made and repaired wind instruments there as well.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Fries, freedom or otherwise, are best w/ blue cheese dressing.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Jay B.5:31 PM

    I believe the theory behind that kind of same-shop kind of district (or restaurant row) was what Krugman won his Nobel explaining.

    ReplyDelete
  86. When an ISIS sympathizer decapitated his coworker and stuck his head on a factory gate in Grenoble, France, I was about 100 miles away. ...

    These atrocities seemed to create barely a stir, ... Current British Prime Minister David Cameron can’t even work up a lather sufficient to convincingly commit to few tentative airstrikes somewhere down the road.


    A psycho decapitated his coworker, and they didn't even bomb Syria.

    ReplyDelete
  87. They didn't even bomb Grenoble.

    ReplyDelete
  88. tsam1005:40 PM

    It's not as funny with La.

    ReplyDelete
  89. tsam1005:43 PM

    Yeah, he'll get to say I TOLDJA SO all day long. Seems like a giant wet dream for these racist bastards

    ReplyDelete
  90. MacCheerful5:48 PM

    au contraire, la is very funny. I will now win this argument by putting my fingers in my ears and chanting la la la la la la until you give up and admit I'm right.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Dennis6:01 PM

    Along with a few Lamborghinis.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Virtual vegetables? Do they need a high-speed internet connection in order to cook properly?

    ReplyDelete
  93. FMguru6:28 PM

    Children are the ultimate luxury item? In countries with socialized health care, mandatory paid family leave, and free K-college education? Whaaaat?

    I actually clicked over and read the whole thing. The number of times he observes something and then asserts the exact opposite is genuinely breathtaking. For instance, he sees a lot fewer cops with submachine guns standing around (compared to the 1980s) and considers it proof, not of improved security and stability, but of Europe's weakness and rot. He's also really angry that ISIS atrocities meant to provoke Europeans into overreaction aren't, in fact, provoking Europe into overreaction. The fact that he doesn't see very many immigrants is just proof that Europe is swarming with immigrants. Families with kids are noticeable everywhere, which is proof that Europe's birthrate is collapsing. People wear nice clothes and eat out a lot and drive nice cars, which just shows how close to collapse the economy is. And on and on and on. It's a truly remarkable anti-argument.

    ReplyDelete
  94. glennisw6:37 PM

    I rarely wandered far from where the tourists congregate......But...Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes.


    So he admits he doesn't know anything about the way European people live, and then he claims to know what their homes are like?

    ReplyDelete
  95. thimker36:39 PM

    ? Isn't it a single linguistic zone? Oh well, how about ŝafo homoj

    ReplyDelete
  96. FMguru6:42 PM

    This is same guy who can't understand why ritzy tourist and entertainment districts have more cafes full of nicely-dressed young people and expensive boutiques than places to buy bulk quantities of baby formula and disposable diapers.



    If these Euros weren't so decadent and soft, they'd tear the Pompidou Center down and replace it with a Sam's Club.

    ReplyDelete
  97. glennisw6:44 PM

    When we were last in London visiting our kid, he took us to a restaurant that specialized in New England style lobster rolls. It just seemed totally wrong!!!

    ReplyDelete
  98. glennisw6:45 PM

    In the next breath, he excoriates European women for shopping for the latest fashions.

    ReplyDelete
  99. Mango Puzzler: Can you count all the falsehoods in this paragraph?

    If you care to remember your history (before the fascist left got a hold of it and "revised" it, that is) the intellectual forefathers of the Euroleft and the American left were praising Hitler and calling Churchill a "drunken, imperialistic warmonger". In fact that is when that phrase was first used. They hailed Chamberlain as a saint and a hero for bending over and letting Hitler publicly schtup him. He should've worn a T shirt that said "I let Hitler cornhole me and all I got was this lousy piece of paper" Peace in our time! Yeah baby! If you care to remember your history the American left tried desperately to keep the U.S. isolated and out of the war right up until Hiler invaded the Soviet Union. After that they were all for it.

    ReplyDelete
  100. StringOnAStick6:58 PM

    Le Tour: the 3 week period where my non-sports watching husband becomes a TV zombie, and I join him, mostly for view of the countryside and to be voyeur who wishes we lived in Europe.

    ReplyDelete
  101. mgmonklewis7:16 PM

    With these guys, more like Comic Con 4.

    ReplyDelete
  102. montag27:19 PM

    London, especially, took shit for a long, long time over bland, starchy British food that disproving that reputation has now become an obsession with them (and, of course, there's the economic benefit of people being more willing to pay the quite large cost of hotels there and going to plays, etc., if the food is good). So I would expect a lot of variety competing for restaurant dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  103. smut clyde7:20 PM

    the American left were praising Hitler and calling Churchill a "drunken,
    imperialistic warmonger". In fact that is when that phrase was first
    used.


    According to the Goog, the first time that phrase was used -- and indeed the only time -- was in a comment from an anonymous chickensh1t wingnut attributing it to liberals.

    ReplyDelete
  104. smut clyde7:22 PM

    Turkey will fall.
    Turkey is part of Europe now? I wonder how it is going to fall. Perhaps the Turks will be forced to convert to Islam.

    ReplyDelete
  105. montag27:23 PM

    Or the Dutch Santa, who threatens children with mayhem and generally abuses them.

    Maybe that's why he was disappointed at not seeing lots of children around.

    ReplyDelete
  106. I guess this is a bunch of fascist left revisionism, and FDR actually tried to keep us out of WWII?

    https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/neutrality-acts
    ~

    ReplyDelete
  107. mgmonklewis7:25 PM

    Not to pile on, but I'm pretty sure a northern attack by communist radioactive Laplanders also figure prominently in his fever dream.

    ReplyDelete
  108. mgmonklewis7:28 PM

    True, but since it's plural you can't tell by the article . . . I think. Les shéeple?

    ReplyDelete
  109. smut clyde7:28 PM

    Ukraine will fall. The Baltics will fall. Turkey will fall. The Balkans will fall.

    But no-one will notice, for the Ukrainians, Estonians, Serbs and Croats have all moved to England to work in restaurants and building sites.

    ReplyDelete
  110. mgmonklewis7:29 PM

    WEAKNESS

    ReplyDelete
  111. smut clyde7:30 PM

    You Esperantists should go back home to Esperanza.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Once you get behind the walls and into interior of the homes, the old cramped shabbiness is still there. All their money goes to clothes, food, and drink, because there’s no room in European apartments for the stuff Americans pack into theirs.

    So. The problem with socialism is not so much high-faultin' policy arguments, but that ducking spoiled man-children might be denied their electronic bacon schnifters.

    All rights then.

    ReplyDelete
  113. thimker37:35 PM

    Already there, Clyde - greetings from Portland! http://esperanzaspalding.com/mobile/

    ReplyDelete
  114. They just don't understand that culture is not five hundred year old buildings and masterwork art as much as it is Cheez-Whiz, licensed toy lines and Disney steering wheel covers.

    ReplyDelete
  115. BTW, I thought white European guys were the basis of all that's good and pure, the way assmongering cultural critics.keep telling us.

    Does it only count if they've been dead for a couple hundred years?

    ReplyDelete
  116. montag27:43 PM

    London and New York are probably comparably sized (haven't checked lately), but I rarely hear anyone talking about the spaciousness of New York apartments outside of real estate ads directed at the indecently wealthy. So, overall, this is a distinction without a difference, except that the New York rats are bigger and better fed.

    As for slums, no, I don't think Schlicter would venture anywhere near them, certainly because they're full of those people. At least in the European slums he'd discover that there were more and better bicycles... which he would undoubtedly ascribe to festering decadence.

    ReplyDelete
  117. White guys might get hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Fucking Europeans... errr, scratch that.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Of course, dumbass doesn't take into consideration population density. Europe just doesn't have the vast tracts of wilderness that the US does. Also, I highly suspect that any European invited him in for any reason.

    ReplyDelete
  120. montag27:50 PM

    I detect the whiff of a verisimilitude of real life in these anecdotal recollections. Nothing hypothetical here, I suspect.

    ReplyDelete
  121. montag27:52 PM

    Oh, I have the feeling that, as a snack, they might be going after Ireland soon. Bailing out the Anglo-Irish Bank apparently didn't do quite enough societal damage.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person7:54 PM

    Hmmm, if I has an expense account, I'd probably have an intern--seeing as how they, ahem cost a bit less--and then I could skip *all* the steps. Except that last one. That's important. Also, I'd have to learn to fart...

    ReplyDelete
  123. montag27:59 PM

    If we include random acts of violence by white supremacists and looney gun nuts as terrorism, I would guess that our rate is higher than that of any country in Europe, or several of them combined, and yet, they're in imminent danger of collapse. And that's ignoring that the worst single act of terrorism in the last generation was directed at us.

    One of the truly pernicious effects of projection is that it allows one to ignore a problem.

    ReplyDelete
  124. montag28:01 PM

    "The views expressed here are his own."

    Let me guess why no one else wants to share them.

    ReplyDelete
  125. LittlePig8:01 PM

    Christ, what an asshole.

    ReplyDelete
  126. LittlePig8:02 PM

    I thought I might be missing a diaeresis.

    See your doctor immediately.

    ReplyDelete
  127. montag28:06 PM

    And, yet, according to some parts of the British press, yes, Cameron has ordered bombing Syria and Iraq, and without the permission of the Parliament.

    So, Schlicter not only is conflating a domestic crime in France with international war, he's uninformed about what Current British Prime Minister David Cameron is actually doing.

    Why am I not surprised? I'm betting this bozo is gunning for Col. Ralph Peters' job at Fox.

    ReplyDelete
  128. LittlePig8:07 PM

    Cafe monde du foetus.

    Try the snowflake latte!

    ReplyDelete
  129. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:08 PM

    Grog and McGrog? A bushmill's/Guiness boilermaker?

    ReplyDelete
  130. jennofark8:08 PM

    Perhaps it’s mere ignorance, perhaps it’s a choice. It will end the same way regardless—in blood. When the time comes to choose between picking up a rifle and dying, we’ll find out if the human instinct for self-preservation has successfully been bred out of the men of Europe. I know where I’m putting my money...
    Ukraine will fall. The Baltics will fall. Turkey will fall. The Balkans will fall. Europe will fall...


    "And then," he said, holding the flashlight under his chin and pointing it up, casting ghastly shadows upon his face, "the dead will rise from their eternal slumber to roam the blasted hellscape and feast upon the flesh of the living..."


    Schlichter clearly missed his calling. He rivals Roger Corman for schlock value.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Clearly the kind of moronic douche who calls the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" while totally forgetting a guy called Napoleon.

    ReplyDelete
  132. smut clyde8:20 PM

    Mango Puzzler
    That Adelie Manchot common-tater is quite a find, Gocart; sufficiently crazed and hyperventilaty that it's hard to tell her from a parodist.
    She used to have a blog, but now only the Wayback Machine version remains:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20111228162931/http://adeliemanchot.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete
  133. montag28:20 PM

    I find terribly funny the assertion that Henry Ford and the chairman of GM (who were receiving awards from Hitler for their service to the Third Reich) were "the intellectual forefathers of the... American left."

    And that the "American left tried desperately to keep the U.S. isolated and out of the war...." I seem to recall that the America First movement, Lindbergh and assorted and sundry Republicans wanted up out of the war because of a sympathy toward Hitler and Germany. The lefties thought we shouldn't be fighting anyone.

    This guy has to have done his Master's thesis on Cleon Skousen.

    ReplyDelete
  134. LittlePig8:22 PM

    Very well played.

    ReplyDelete
  135. We were just there and the food, even the fast food, was really good.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Something tells me he's basically full of shit. The German homes I visited when I lived there in the 80s were neither cramped nor shabby. I suspect the same is true across Europe.

    ReplyDelete
  137. LittlePig8:39 PM

    a retired Army colonel who holds a masters in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College.

    I bet his European scenarios were a sight to behold. "This proves conclusively that Patton should have been allowed to push through to the Pacific! Then it'd be our damn world, see! Every bit of it American! A final solution to those pesky foreigns!" begins laughing like Renfield

    (I know some War College folk. I find his Masters claim to be a bit on the smelly side.)

    ReplyDelete
  138. LittlePig8:43 PM

    Guy can work an Old Testament vibe, can't he?

    ReplyDelete
  139. mortimer20008:43 PM

    Ignorance Abroad

    ReplyDelete
  140. I'm skeptical but open-minded.

    ReplyDelete
  141. LittlePig8:46 PM

    or, The New Dipshits' Progress

    ReplyDelete
  142. LittlePig8:47 PM

    bleu curious?

    ReplyDelete
  143. I though the Domino Theory was disproved about 40 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  144. geraldfnord8:49 PM

    It was either that or just repeat `They're all fags!' N times, where N = ceil(minimum_word-count/3)
    ---which he didn't do because math is too faggy.

    ReplyDelete
  145. All Federalist columns should have zombie endings.

    ReplyDelete
  146. geraldfnord8:49 PM

    It was either that or just repeat `They're all fags!' N times, where N = ceil(minimum_word-count/3)
    ---which he didn't do because math is too faggy.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Sophia Loren has vast tracts of land and she is European. Refudiate that !

    ReplyDelete
  148. smut clyde8:52 PM

    And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is
    fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold
    of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Ellis_Weiner8:55 PM

    Or Tone-Deafcon 4.

    ReplyDelete
  150. tigrismus8:59 PM

    And the coffee is really expensive.

    ReplyDelete
  151. As always, Google "premature anti-Fascist" I found this interesting essay just now. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/scw/knox.htm

    "The Professor, who had himself served in the US Army in 1917-18, was very interested, and remarked on the fact that, in addition to the usual battle-stars for service in the European Theatre, I had been awarded a Croix de Guerre a l'Ordre de l'Armée, the highest category for that decoration. Asked how I got it, I explained that, in July 1944, I had parachuted, in uniform, behind the Allied lines in Brittany to arm and organize French Resistance forces and hold them ready for action at the moment most useful for the Allied advance. "Why were you selected for that operation?" he asked, and I told him that I was one of the few people in the US Army who could speak fluent, idiomatic, and (if necessary) pungently coarse French. When he asked me where I had learned it, I told him that I had fought in 1936 on the northwest sector of the Madrid front in the French Battalion of the XIth International Brigade. "Oh," he said, "You were a premature anti-Fascist."
    Worth reading the whole thing.

    ReplyDelete
  152. basenjibrian9:05 PM

    May I suggest a more American drink, like GLUG
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IE0CgxgIYI

    Erupt into a Bevrage!

    ReplyDelete
  153. Does it come in a squirt bottle?

    ReplyDelete
  154. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:09 PM

    The classics never die...

    ReplyDelete
  155. LA Julian9:12 PM

    He can join Terence Stamp in lamenting the de-Englification of England, although I'm surprised neither of them has as yet uttered the traditional cry of "THE MAHOMETANS ARE COMING FOR OUR BEER !ELEVENTY!!" as is usual under such circumstances (and, I thought, required if Charles "the Hammer is my Penis" Martel is invoked...)

    http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/20/terence-stamp-english-is-a-foreign-language-in-london

    ReplyDelete
  156. M. Krebs9:12 PM

    Good god its Magog brothers, Atlantis Carpet Reclaimers, serving Hooker, Heater, Hellmouth, and the low desert area.

    ReplyDelete
  157. cleter9:15 PM

    Fall? Fall to whom?

    ReplyDelete
  158. cleter9:16 PM

    To be fair, though, the French haven't had a winning season since they fired Coach Napoleon.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Oh you know. The Mooslim Hordes of ISIS.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Downpup E9:20 PM

    Eggzactly! Watching all these tiny towns with 0 sprawl that end in beautiful fields and wooded mountains I howl with regret at how we've turned our truck farms into endless subdivisions with 2 acre zoning & walk scores of 4.

    ReplyDelete
  161. TGuerrant9:23 PM

    Even his kids ask him if he's found Fegelein yet...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YLqC3DIgjY

    ReplyDelete
  162. smut clyde9:25 PM

    This is the fiesta before the storm
    It is indeed a Fête worse than death.
    A LOL before the storm.

    ReplyDelete
  163. The English aren't really white because they drink tea. Real white people only drink coffee.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Madrid in 1970 seemed as if every other guy was in a uniform of some sort, & about half those uniformed had sub-machine guns. He just misses Franco.

    ReplyDelete
  165. It was his boss, not a co-worker. Perfectly excusable.

    ReplyDelete
  166. tsam1009:42 PM

    Overrun by the resurgent Ottoman Empire, one presumes.

    ReplyDelete
  167. Jaime Oria9:42 PM

    So is the War College a notorious party school?

    ReplyDelete
  168. smut clyde9:50 PM

    If he were not such a pussy, Obama would have sent a letter to Ankara by now, pledging America's support against the Mohammedan hordes.

    ReplyDelete
  169. smut clyde9:52 PM

    I have been wandering around the house tacking the phrase "—in BLOOD!" to the end of every sentence to see how it sounds.
    You have no idea how satisfying it is, but the cats are giving me the stink-eye. In BLOOD!.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Tehanu9:53 PM

    Didn't Ralph Spoilsport have a dealership there too?

    ReplyDelete
  171. jennofark9:57 PM

    I remember seeing those posters too. 1986.

    ReplyDelete
  172. jennofark9:59 PM

    David Sedaris has the best telling of Dutch Santa ever. I listen to it every Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  173. jennofark10:00 PM

    I guess this explains why "Hoarders: Europe" hasn't shown up on TLC.

    ReplyDelete
  174. jennofark10:03 PM

    Or as one of you wags put it recently, Derp-con 4.

    ReplyDelete
  175. I can haz Fiesto Burge

    ReplyDelete
  176. LA Julian10:16 PM

    There are plenty of slums and cramped flats in North America, too. Not all pre-war apartments are lovely!

    Some are even in Canada:

    http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5731734-tenants-cleared-out-of-troubled-kitchener-building/

    and the followup, as slumlords follow the bossa nova principle:

    http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5743101-troubled-apartment-building-may-have-new-owner/

    ReplyDelete
  177. LA Julian10:17 PM

    Wretched creatures, they can't even afford cars!

    ReplyDelete
  178. billcinsd10:21 PM

    they are using concealed carry in their stolen pic-a-nic baskets. Yogi "Pretty Boy" Bear, Jellystone knew him well, every crime in Wyoming was added to his name, but his pic-a-nic basket had a Christmas dinner for the families on relief

    ReplyDelete
  179. montag210:22 PM

    I've read that--in fact, probably a couple of dozen years ago. His medical examination for service is interesting--and I suspect that's one of his key points--that the doctor simply sneered, "for the Commies, eh?," which I'm sure Knox could have disabused him of with a little time, since the Communist Brigade ended up being almost as fierce in putting down the forces of the elected government as was Franco. That it was American communists and socialists who largely made up the Lincoln Brigade--out of a sense of solidarity and egalitarianism--made it all the more complicated. (There were more than a few whose opinion of the Soviets and Stalin changed abruptly after seeing the Communists at work in Spain.)

    But, it's well to mind Knox's comments on the effects of the Non-Intervention Treaty, which effectively stacked the deck in favor of the Fascists, that non-intervention was an easy way of support for fascism.

    ReplyDelete
  180. LA Julian10:23 PM

    Oh no, really? He won a Nobel for noticing medieval traditions in city planning? Please be joking!

    ReplyDelete
  181. LA Julian10:24 PM

    I saw it attempted, once, in Rome. I don't know what the outcome was, but it looked (from a safe distance!) like an elephant trying to push its way through a wildebeest stampede.

    ReplyDelete
  182. AGoodQuestion10:26 PM

    Perhaps it’s mere ignorance, perhaps it’s a choice. It will end the same way regardless—in blood. When the time comes to choose between picking up a rifle and dying, we’ll find out if the human instinct for self-preservation has successfully been bred out of the men of Europe.


    Um, Kurt? I get that you just want to turn the world into one big, happy, heat-packing paradise like Texas, but keep in mind that your name is "Kurt Schlicter". You may be reinforcing some old stereotypes about people with names that sound like that.

    ReplyDelete
  183. Not if you want authentic blue cheese chunks it doesn't!

    ReplyDelete
  184. geraldfnord10:27 PM

    ...instead of just zombie authors.

    ReplyDelete
  185. LA Julian10:28 PM

    Oddly enough, on my brief touristy sojourns in major European cities, I managed to spy dozens of families out for walks with small children, some in strollers, enjoying the outdoors and their neighbors.



    Of course these weren't very fancy neighborhoods, because I could only afford hostels and not the sort of hotels that get listed in guidebooks, but they were friendly and populous, and nobody seemed to be afraid to take their children out in the evening, even though this was during one of the earlier periods of Muslim Panic among conservative pundits...

    ReplyDelete
  186. AGoodQuestion10:28 PM

    Bears with guns? I'm sure some cities have gay-friendly rifle ranges.

    ReplyDelete
  187. geraldfnord10:29 PM

    You try to live next to a Germany pissed-off because you conquered them and broke their nice ghetto walls.

    ReplyDelete
  188. susanoftexas10:29 PM

    He could hide in New Braunfels to blend in. Their ancestors came here to escape German religious wars and they could tell him where to put his gun.

    ReplyDelete
  189. ... one hopes....

    ReplyDelete
  190. You may be reinforcing some old stereotypes about people with names that sound like that.

    I seem to recall that those folks also did a lot of fretting about warfare and the manliness supposedly derived therefrom.

    ReplyDelete
  191. montag210:32 PM

    Ol' Kurt doesn't seem to understand that "Europe" made a decision quite a while ago (notwithstanding the current actions of the world's bankers and the German government) to depend upon cooperation, rather than war, after having spent much of the 20th century fighting wars in Europe or trying to recover from them.

    But, then, there's much our Col. Schlicter doesn't seem to understand, it seems.

    ReplyDelete
  192. LA Julian10:35 PM

    My Turkish colleague is one of the most strident people you will ever meet when it comes to defending the separation of church -- or mosque -- and state, saying "I am a Moslem, but religion DOES NOT BELONG in government!"

    Of course, I don't think that this chap Schlichter is complaining about religious conservatives getting control of a secular state -- wait, what country were we talking about, again? I think he only sees it as a problem when it's Islamic conservatives pushing a misogynist, anti-evolution agenda in government, not a general problem everywhere and anywhere like my friend...

    ReplyDelete
  193. Saw a guy w/ an early '60s two-door Impala convertible make his way through a street three blocks from the Seine in the Latin Quarter i.e., a street whose width was probably established in the 13th or 14th century, in a hood where even the tiny Euro-cars had to park halfway on the sidewalk on one-way sts. so other cars could get by.


    Slow going, but he didn't mind as it attracted plenty of attention.

    ReplyDelete
  194. AGoodQuestion10:37 PM

    "superficially wealthy" = not cramming their lives full of useless crap from China instead of eating out with friends
    Yeah, he does seem to find the idea of spending money on just enjoying life to be somewhat alien.

    ReplyDelete
  195. LA Julian10:39 PM

    Well, Turkey is a secular state -- and has been such for almost a century now -- that has been recently having a lot of problems with religious conservatives trying to push a sexist, nationalist, anti-science agenda as part of their fig-leaf for widespread graft and corruption siphoning public funds and lands to cronies and lobbyists, so you'd think they'd be just fine with that. Except that the religious conservatives with the reactionary mindset are Moslem.

    ReplyDelete
  196. Oh, right, "Street of the Whatever-Sellers", in, like, every medieval bourg/sword & sorcery pulp.
    [Whacks head w/ side of broadsword]

    ReplyDelete