Great Opinion Piece in the Post

The Washington Post's Outlook section included an opinion piece this week on how America is culturally not like Europe, and why that's a good thing. Here's the thesis:

The stuff of life -- the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one's personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships -- occurs within just four institutions: family, community, vocation and faith. Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. The European model doesn't do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.

The most frightening quote is his analysis of American political parties, that puts a halt in my slow slide toward sthe Democratic party:

The European model provides the intellectual framework for the social policies of the Democratic Party, and it faces no credible opposition from Republican politicians.

Okay, so that leaves me still an Independent, but what can I do about it? The article falls short in that it offers few suggestions about what to do about this, but the piece is still well worth reading in that it points to problems I've been aware of, but articulates them in a way much clearer than I have seen or been able to describe by myself.