SocraticGadfly: How to misrepresent European politics, 101

January 07, 2008

How to misrepresent European politics, 101

The WSJ editorial page, in discussing the possibility of Mike Huckabee remaking the GOP into an American version of a Christian Democrat party, blames European Christian Democrats for everything this side of the plague and crack cocaine.

Among the predictable canards is blaming Christian Democrats for a “high” unemployment rate, without even explaining that Europe calculates unemployment far differently than we do, and that, it doesn’t lock up a bumch of drug-related criminals; that, combined with the drug-war infrastructure here, has a definite effect on U.S. unemployment numbers, too.

In short, if we compared apples to apples, the unemployment rate difference would be cut in half.

The WSJ also fails to mention 4-5 weeks of paid vacation, national health care and other things that we just don’t enjoy here.

As usual, they’re not reading their own news pages, of course.

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