Remember your kids during those impossible teenage years? You gave them protection, entertainment, tried to teach them values, provided education as well as the latest hi-tech devices – yet somehow they still rebelled.

Should Americans therefore be surprised that Europeans dislike us with such passion? Old Europe – led by France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, and a few other somewhat childish nations – thinks it knows more than we do. They wonder how, compared to them, a much younger country called America can be so advanced morally, technologically, scientifically and socially.

For 400 years, Europeans directed world events on a grand scale. Suddenly, they have evolved into political irrelevance. Since Europe’s power cannot compete in any manner with American power (and Europeans now even feel threatened by Jewish power in Israel), the European kindergarten will continue to criticize and belittle every American move.

To the European mindset, evil is not the greatest threat in the world. No; the greatest threats are American power, American aggression, environmental degradation, global warming and Israel.

Old Europe is filled with antipathy to those who stand up for what is right and wrong in the world, especially those who recognize the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Europeans would like nothing better than to sit in outdoor cafes, go to their topless beaches, enjoy long vacations from work, get free government healthcare and pensions – all the while never rocking their socialist boat.

Western Europeans contend that America and Israel are just two young countries with very little to teach. They consider themselves smarter and more knowledgeable due to thousands of years of experience. However, an older civilization does not in any way constitute a wiser one – witness the fact that Europeans seem to ascribe to the bin Laden manifesto holding Israel and America to be the greatest dangers to world peace – not Iran, Libya, Syria, et al.

At first, Europeans saw Israel as an outpost of their values. During the past 25 years, however, Israel has matured into what they see as an American outpost. This, to Europeans, makes Israel doubly dangerous: a country possessing both Jewish and American values.

Europeans are angry because Christians (and now Jews) who believe in G-d have the ultimate power to do good and back it up with overwhelming force. Who do those Americans (and Israelis) think they are, acting in their interests without the UN stamp of approval?

Europeans, supremely secular and amoral, believe in the United Nations because they have no real reference point for right and wrong. They therefore put their faith in a majority vote for moral decisions. Enter George W. Bush, a religious ‘Texas cowboy’ with the quaint notion that G-d is our guide for right and wrong, not Kofi Annan.

Obviously, Neville Chamberlain-type DNA has infected Europeans who conveniently forget that force can be used for good. Appeasing Islamac fundamentalists by attempting to weaken Israel and reverse America’s Middle East policy is their untenable solution. Like children, France and Germany seem to have little dignity. They demand Iraqi reconstruction contracts (i.e., their ‘allowance’) even though they misbehaved. Americans put their lives on the line to rid Iraq of murderous torture chambers while the Europeans were business partners with the evil torturer.

Whenever this analogy with children is raised, Europeans become highly insulted. They insist that the facts on the ground actually show them to be the older, wiser, more mature parental figures. Perhaps they’re right – but only if we view them as decrepit elders in need of assisted living care, with senility and Alzheimer’s rapidly setting in. These older nations no longer seem to make any rational sense and have become quite forgetful of lessons once learned.

Whether we consider antiquated Europe our children or our parents, the picture is the same: a continent reduced to diapers and spitting up, no longer able to care for itself.