Americans don't travel enough. That's not necessarily our fault. Traveling overseas is expensive, and there are those big oceans in the way. Plus, we don't get a lot of time off work. And we live in an enormous country with lots of really beautiful things to go see close to home.

I wish we did travel more, though. My ideas about Europe not being as free as the United States were smashed when I actually went and lived in Germany, where democratic socialism is vaunted.

I learned that people who live in Europe are free, happy, and prosperous.

That was pretty much the opposite of what I learned from conservative family and friends who judged with no experience.