"I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’ve always loved the US. The history, the Federalist Papers, science fiction, Hollywood, quirky independent movies, Central Park, bagels, the familiarity of the Upper West Side, the West Wing, the New York Times on a Sunday, New York, all the more after September 11th, drinking places without carpets, strange food and strange sex, landing men on the moon, digital technology, the nations come together, the scale, the presumption of liberty, the sense of possibility, the eager embrace of the future. […] I love it all, and not as a phenomenon to be observed from a distance, or contained within the USA. I want the whole planet, the whole solar system, the whole galaxy, to be full of bustling humanity, and if the price of that is a McDonalds on Pluto, I’ll close my eyes, think of a Tuscan trattoria, and order a Big Mac and fries. […] But here’s the confession: in the last few months, I’ve become one of those carping Europeans."
"[C]arping Europeans"! Nick has a knack for nicknames, and a talent for telling how we Americaphile Europeans feel about the US. We crave the Frontier Culture of the Land of Opportunity, yet we cringe when reality doesn’t match up to theory. Typically idealistically European, you might add. We want to embrace the ambitious yet pragmatic New World extropy, yet we have a hard time shaking off Old World stationary perfectionism.
We Europeans who love America, carry the rift between the two continents within us. We despise Bush for his tariffs on steel, and how they betray the "Promise of America", yet we find the demonstrators in Berlin or Paris misguided if not ridiculous. Like Moli