The Happiness of People, by Charles Murray, Winner of the 2009 Irving Kristol Award

Here is an interesting speech given last week Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute's Annual Dinner. Below, please find a summary:

America's current leaders seem to be leading us down the path to European-style social democracy. But although it makes for pleasant lives, the European model stifles human flourishing and erodes the civic and cultural institutions and habits that make for a vibrant, sustainable, and satisfying way of life. Moreover, critics of the European model are about to get a boost from scientific discoveries in neuroscience and genetics that human nature is not malleable, which will undercut the foundations of social democracy. The answer: American exceptionalism, in which individuals freely unite to construct a civic culture.