The following article by Josh Marshall was original published in The New Republic on July 31st, 2000 with the title “Death in Venice”. Since it is no longer available on the TNR website we are republishing it here.You seldom hear conservatives note, disapprovingly, that “America is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t have X.” It’s not hard to figure out why, since X usually involves European (or Canadian or Japanese) big government. But liberals sometimes imagine that America’s peculiar lack of, say, nationalized health care, tough gun control, decent child care, widespread mass transport, or substantial arts funding is a sign of political underdevelopment. And so they bemoan America’s uniqueness.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=137306