You hear that Europe is:

*Overrun with jihading Muslims;

*Running out of energy;

*Violent; and

*Dysfunctional.

I spent the last month hiking and trekking in France, Austria and Germany. This was the latest of my many escapades off the beaten track – and on the Beaton track – for my favorite activity that’s done standing up. Namely, walking. (See, e.g. HERE)

I concluded in a non-scientific sort of way that the death of Europe has been greatly exaggerated. It’s something like the Notre Dame. It caught fire, and might have been a goner, but it’s still with us and will be for a very long time.

More specifically:

French women are very friendly but not very hot. German women are very hot but not very friendly. (Those respective attributes and liabilities make sense when you think about it.) Scottish women are neither.

German men are large.

Europeans don’t refrigerate eggs. We don’t have to refrigerate them either, and grocery stores know that, but American consumers don’t.

Muslims are certainly in Europe. In France in particular, it’s common to see Muslim women. You know they are Muslim because they want you to know. They are in long dresses and scarves. They tend to be overweight. A great many are pushing baby carriages.

I assume that for each Muslim woman there is a Muslim man, but they are not easily identifiable because they apparently don’t wear any particular identifying clothing.

The Muslim women are nothing extraordinary apart from their distinctive garb, their girth, and their baby carriages. To this untrained eye, they behave much like other French women.

If Muslims are invading Europe, they’re pretty sneaky about it for the most part. The invasion of the United States from our southern border is much more apparent.

As for energy, the Europeans keep the indoors warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter. Sometimes, uncomfortably so. I assume this is because energy is more expensive in Europe. Translated into gallons and dollars, gasoline is a little shy of $10/gallon.

One result is that they use mass transit more than we do. The train system is very good in most of Europe – not just because gas is expensive but also because the distances are more manageable. And they have smaller cars. It’s extremely rare to see an American-style monster pickup truck, for example.

They have funny small cars we’ve never heard of, especially in France. In Germany you often see BMWs, Mercedes and Audis, of course, and they look just like the ones we buy. But on close inspection, you see that they are equipped with much smaller engines than ours and evidently get much better gas mileage. They still go plenty fast on the autobahn.

You see wind mills or, more accurately, wind turbines for generating electricity. They apparently work, but are inefficient once you factor in the cost of manufacturing and installing them and their limited life span.

I saw no one beheaded. In fact, I saw no violence and never felt threatened. I felt much safer in downtown Munich than in downtown Denver.

You never see vagrants camping on the streets, sidewalks or parks. That’s not because Europeans are rich; the average German has less money than the average Mississippian. It’s because they prohibit vagrants from camping in public spaces. I saw no reports that the consequence of that prohibition was the freezing or starving to death of vagrants.

On a government building in the old part of Munich, I saw several flags displayed, including the Israeli flag. This was 20 miles from Dachau.

As for the dysfunctionality of Europe, I suppose it depends on how you define it. The trains run on time. The garbage gets picked up.

Their politics, like ours, are volatile. But their conflict tends to drive things toward the center rather than toward the extremes.

I attribute that to their parliamentarian systems. In America, the candidates get chosen in primaries where the people who bother to vote tend to be the extremists on the right and left. The result is more extremity in the general elections – a hard right candidate chosen by the hard right primary voters versus a hard left candidate chosen by the hard left primary voters.

One wins. Then Congress is comprised of a bunch of hard rightist and hard leftists who spend an inordinate amount of energy battling one another rather than solving problems.

In parliamentary systems, the candidates are chosen more by the party apparatchiks. They tend to disfavor ideologues and favor electability. The chosen candidates are thus more moderate.

Moreover, the presidents and prime ministers are chosen not by the people but by their elected representatives. Those elected representatives tend to be pragmatic in their choices. They want leaders who can hold things together.

The multiple parties that are common in Europe mean that it is often the case that no one party can command a majority. When that happens, the parties must form coalitions – they have no choice but to compromise in order to maintain control of the government.

In Europe, they call that process of compromise and coalition-building “governance” and label the people who engage in it “leaders.” In America, we call that process “traitorous” and we label the people who engage in it “RINOs.”

Imagine if the alternatives for President of the United States were, say, Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin. My tribe will say they hate Mitt Romney. Fine, I get that. But wouldn’t it be better to win with Mitt Romney than to lose with Donald Trump? And wouldn’t it be better to lose to Joe Manchin than to lose to Barack Obama?