Lots of interesting email. Alas, I’m about to board a plane back east. So here’s one long one:

Mr Goldberg, Your reader asks an excellent “hard” question. Let me try and answer: Despite what your correspondent implies, the US is very different than the rest of “The West” right now in that we do “believe.” Survey data supports this. Regular people in Islamic societies respect us in ways they do not respect the Europeans. If you you could engage a random person on the Arab ‘street’ in a non-politicized discussion they might well tell you they respect America as a strong Christian nation while they have contempt for Europe which they believe will become majority muslim in the next 60 years or so. They are likely to particluarly respect Bush for being strong and devout. Except for Blair, who by all accounts is a sincerely religious man, no European leader would garner comparable respect. Conversely, many Europeans seem to fear the Christianity exhibited by the Americans as much as Islamism. I am amazed by what friends from and relatives in Europe tell me about their perceptions of the role of religion in American society. It is unrecognizable to me and sounds about like the role of religion in Waziristan. We must consider demographics to complete the answer. “Believing” seems to be correlated with optimism for the future and, relatedly, having more children. The US still produces a lot of babies, particularly in the ‘red states’ where there seems to be a church on every street corner and among our Spanish speaking wave of Catholic immigrants (folks I seem to appreciate far more than NRO these days, but this is another issues). In contrast, Europe is reproducing far below replacement rate and will soon have to accelerate immigration just to change the bedpans. Unfortunately they cannot assimilate immigrants very well, lack the cultural self confidence to challenge Islamists and have overly generous welfare states. This combination of factors leads to ‘Londonstans’ all over the continent. As others have written, it seems to me that the Europeans are largely playing for one generation of stability so that their baby boomers can die in peace. They do not seem interested in a generational struggle in defense of the West. Perhaps this is because they consider their Western heritage to blame for the ideological bloodshed of the 20th century. They seem morally exhausted. Few European countries could look at themselves in the mirror after the sins of omission and commission they commited during decades of fascism, Nazism and communism. I have never understood why the European desire not to repeat the excesses of 20th century atheistic ideologies did not lead to a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. Perhaps it is because these ideologies were never fully abandoned and are still taught in schools. If so, then the West has already been defeated by other ‘isms’ and Islamism is just the end state. The bottom line is that America is able to engage in the battle of ideas with Islamism far more effectively than the rest of the West. The civilized people in Islamic societies respect us as fellow believers and, as we see occasionally in glimmers, realize that their own house is not fully in order so they are open to foreign ideas. I happen to think that our public diplomacy is terrible, yet I feel many of us underestmate the power of the example America sets in a world that respects power and devoutness in ways our media and academic elite seem no longer able to comprehend. I am not gloating here about American exceptionalism. I am a huge Europhile, keep in touch with relatives who still live there and hope to live in Europe soon so that we can share it with my young son. Therefore I hope that Pope Benedict, who was a key leader in the church’s response to communism, can help re-ignite a healthy desire to cherish and defend the West and the Judeo Christian traditions that are the font of so much good in the world. If he succeeds, then America will be far less isolated. If not, we will have to construct a new “West” from what is left (England, Canad, Australia, Japan, Chile, etc?) and what is emerging (India, Vietnam?). Jim Bennet’s ‘anglosphere’ theory starts to predominate at this point. BTW, anecdotally I believe that a lot of 20 and 30 something Europeans are more inclined than their parents to agree with this approach. I am surprised by how many Germans and French I work with who go to church and are willing to say politically incorrect things about their home countries even after a lifetime of indoctrination. Unfortunately for Europe, many of them want to stay in the US rather than return home. Not sure if this is a trend. Also, I am not saying that America is perfect or immune from these trends but we are diffferent and this gives cause for optimism.