the truth; They melt down. See, Europe does not have the deep-seated (and rather transparent to us) expectation of civil rights. The governments were born, culturally, in a Monarchy. Of course there has been change, but their roots are in Monarchy. And so there is this bedrock, unspoken assumption that there are rulers and there are serfs.
Yes, there has been change, but those fundamental European cultural assumptions are both powerful and transparent. In the USA, there is a quite different underlying set of cultural assumptions, one that just assumes individual civil rights–that the “rulers” are, in fact, no better than the rest of us. The USA was born in rebellion to Monarchy. Europe simply doesn’t have that same underlying cultural bedrock assumption. Britains and Frenchmen and Germans aren’t just Americans with funny accents. There are fundamental cultural differences–Europeans truly are foreign!
The Poles and Czechs are FAR more culturally aligned in that way with the United States than are the Germans or the French. But even then, there are major differences.
Sure, there is some lip service to civil rights (“A man’s home is his castle”), but it is just that–meaningless prancing and exhibiting–all hat and no cattle. I mean, ask if that man can have a firearm in his castle…
Do read the whole thing. It’s well worth the effort.