View source for Mark Steyn, Dorothy Fields and global conflict Part 2 - August 7, 2006 by Michael Duffy

{{Web citation
|web link=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2006/1706380.htm
|title=Mark Steyn, Dorothy Fields and global conflict Part 2
|author=Michael Duffy
|source=Counterpoint ABC
|date=August 7, 2006
|wmdsays=Mark Steyn refers to the "World's wrinkliest teenagers" in his book {{Book link|America Alone|Mark Steyn|by}}. In this transcript from an interview on Australian radio he also makes this reference.
|extract='''Mark Steyn:''' I do think the America is the great exceptional nation in the Western world. I should say that I think actually if I had to make a list of countries that are likely to survive the existential challenge posed by a resurgent Islam, I would put Australia number two on that list, simply because I think it's less easy for Australians to live in the kind of happy-face, banal, sappy illusions that the European Union is living in. So I think it's entirely possible to foresee a situation where Britain has in fact more or less collapsed but Australia lives on stronger than ever. I think Australia's chances are better than most. But I do think America has an advantage in the sense that it hasn't embraced to the same degree the kind of enervating principles of the social democratic state that now prevail in Europe. I mean, basically in Europe, once the state takes care of every issue of life, from childcare to healthcare to looking after your elderly parents to giving you six weeks paid vacation a year, 30-hour work weeks...what have you got to worry about? You are basically the '''world's wrinkliest teenagers''', you are left to go down to the record store and pick out your record collection, everything else is taken care of by the state. That's not a healthy principle on which to build society.
}}