NY Times columnist David Brooks, comparing liberal Europe to conservative thinking America, says: “Most of the policy ideas advocated by American liberals have already been enacted in Europe: generous welfare measures, ample labor protections, highly progressive tax rates, single-payer health care systems, zoning restrictions to limit big retailers, and cradle-to-grave middle-class subsidies supporting everything from child care to pension security. And yet far from thriving, continental Europe has endured a lost decade of relative decline.”

Europeans are suffering a crisis of confidence and the Western European “standard of living is a third lower” than that in America. The plain truth: “The core fact is that the European model is foundering under the fact that billions of people are willing to work harder than the Europeans are. Europeans clearly love their way of life, but don’t know how to sustain it.”

Mr. Brooks clearly should bring European leaders to Van Nuys to see how much better off we are here. Clearly, our low taxes, cheap gasoline, affordable housing, fine schools, excellent health care system, low crime rates and intelligent immigration policies are working well. To breathe the clean air, stroll along the pristine and lovely Sepulveda and Van Nuys Boulevards, is a bracing and delightful experience–and one that the mayors of Lausanne, Paris, Zurich and Amsterdam should see first hand.

Conservative ideas–more prisons and guns, less abortion and higher defense spending…. that’s the way to go!