above politics

"Nobody in their right mind would give up the manifold sensual, aesthetic and gastronomic pleasures offered by French savoir-vivre for the unrelenting battlefield of American ambition were it not for one thing: possibility.

You know possibility when you breathe it. For an immigrant, it lies in the ease of American identity and the boundlessness of American horizons after the narrower confines of European nationhood [...]"

The above excerpt is from Roger Cohen's latest Op-Ed in The New York Times and it caught and held my attention. I had just been speaking to someone about the unflinching ever-present sense of Americans' optimism, and how, as much as I adore living in Europe, if I ever have kids, I'd want them raised in America for the very reason Mr. Cohen articulates in his article - people brought up in the States are simply instilled with greater acceptance, autonomy and hope than what people have here in the UK.

As for the rest of the article, well, I can't speak to whether or not Obama is now "Gallicizing" the States... I hope not.

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