By William H. Kittelson

Ordinarily I refrain from responding to the “Left Side of the Prairie” column. However, when Mr. Lapadat felt compelled to publicize that the United Nations had once again declared Norway to have the world’s “Best Standard of Living,” I was driven to do a little research rather than rely on the likes of the sonorous, powder milk biscuit chomping, left-leaning Garrison Keillor for the last word.

In the 1840s, my ancestors escaped the true drudgery of 19th century Norwegian living standards by sailing to America and settling in these parts, where we have toiled, rejoiced, and slowly reproduced ever since. Irrationally, I take pride in my Norwegian heritage – probably because I owe my strikingly handsome good looks and stratospherically high intelligence to a gene pool known for a love of fishing, farming, inhospitably cold weather, and an occasional plundering of neighboring tribes.

Whatever, Norway today is full of nice people who do enjoy a very high standard of living albeit rather socialist. I don’t think their standard of living is due to socialism. I think it’s because Norway is chock full of small town Christians! In fact, 86 percent are Evangelical Lutheran – Norway’s official national religion.

Their ridiculously homogenous population numbers a scant 4.6 million, about the same as the population of Detroit. Furthermore, one-sixth of all Norwegians live in Oslo, the other 84 percent live in small towns and villages, places where people know their neighbors pretty well. Could it be these demographics go a long way toward explaining the Mayberry-like lack of crime situation alluded to by Mr. Lapadat? Maybe, but Norway is not crime-free. No sir! In fact, Norway has the eighth highest crime rate in the world, although most are petty, nonviolent crimes.

And, yes, Mr. Keillor, as the world’s second largest exporter of gas and oil, Norway’s pension piggy bank is growing plumper every day; especially since they don’t spend much to field a military capable of helping defend the Free World against groups of fanatic terrorists or supply billions in aid to third-world countries, as we do.

Looking through the prism of the Heritage Foundation’s “Economic Freedom Index,” Norway ranked 30th in economic freedom with a score of 70 out of 100 points, while the United States ranked fourth (82); Hong Kong led with 89 points.

So, while Norway may have the best standard of living in the eyes of the United Nations and other socialists, I still say we are the best. I believe our national superiority is built upon our basic building blocks: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (derived from our founders’ largely Judeo-Christian beliefs), private property rights, and free enterprise in a capitalist economic system. These unique qualities are why we are the best nation on earth – with a very high standard of living, to boot!

Sure, we have our faults and sometimes our priorities get out of whack. The I-35W bridge collapse is a painfully tragic example of where we had, perhaps, focused too much time and money building something non-essential (the light-rail system). The billion dollars spent on light-rail serving only a few could have gone a long, long way toward making our “structurally deficient” bridges structurally sound and reliably safe, benefiting everyone.

Then, too, we allow our judicial system to boomerang on us with disastrous effects. Witness the passengers on board the airliner departing from MSP International exercising their common sense, alerting authorities to threatening behavior by a group of Muslim imams … those concerned citizen/passengers were immediately slammed with a lawsuit! Behavior such as exhibited by those imams should be just as illegal as breathing the word “bomb” while in an airport or onboard a commercial flight, shouldn’t it? Or, why should it be “OK” to purposely desecrate the American flag, or religious artifacts from non-Muslim faiths, but maliciously submerging a Koran in a toilet is now punishable as a felony?

In last month’s column I referred to a pending “potential (negative) cultural paradigm shift.” Specifically, I see an ominous clash developing in the United States between our Rule of Law and the laws expressed in the Koran: Sharia law. Muslims, mostly recent émigrés, are demanding religious accommodations throughout our society.

These demands would be unthinkable coming from atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Taoists, or Unitarians. Whose law is going to prevail? Ours – as codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or that of the Muslims as codified in the Koran? We must decisively act in favor of our founding documents and the Rule of Law or risk the loss of our culture once the critical mass of the growing foreign element within our society becomes sufficiently large enough to abruptly – like the I-35W bridge collapse – bring an end to our cherished individual freedoms.

Eden Prairie resident William Kittelson’s column, “Right Side of the Prairie,” appears on the second Thursday of the month. “Left Side of the Prairie,” by Bill Lapadat, appears on the first Thursday.