Victor Davis Hanson at National Review. He’d like to remind us, once again, that he’s no bigot. No, he just prefers certain things over certain other unpleasant things. Say, friends, he was just walking down the strasse the other day when it occurred to him . .

You can learn a lot about Europe’s current economic crises by ignoring the sophisticated barrage of news analysis and instead just watching, listening, and talking to people as you go down river.

And you can ignore your racist tendencies by pretending to analyze Euro-fiscal parametric renoberation when you’re really only annoyed with the dirty ethnics. Turns out Victor is a fan of white people, you see, because they’re different.

Switzerland, by modern standards, should be poor. Like Bolivia, it is landlocked.

They’re not Bolivians, thank God. i.e. Mexican swarthy.

Like Italy, it has no real gas or oil wealth.

. . or hand-waving swarthy . .

Like Afghanistan, its northern climate and mountainous terrain limit agricultural productivity to upland plains.

. . or Musselman swarthy (handy with a grenade) . .

And like Turkey, it is not a part of the European Union.

. . or fractional Euro-Istano-swarthy. But I’ll buy that Switzerland should probably be a hairy sweaty country, yes. Nonetheless, it remains white. How and why?

So Switzerland supposedly has everything going against it, and yet it is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Why and how?

Well you can torture Victor Davis Hanson, and he won’t tell you. Because he has absolutely no idea. However, the title of the post is “Culture Still Matters.” So he’ll be making the case that the brownskins are useless and displeasing, and that’s why no one can make an honest buck.

Greeks can no more easily give up siestas than the Swiss can mandate two-hour afternoon naps. If tax cheating is a national pastime in Palermo, by comparison it is difficult along the Rhine . .

And no one can tie their shoes.

. . we privately assume that you would prefer your bank account to be in Frankfurt rather than Athens, or the tumor in your brain to be removed in London rather than Lisbon.

You get the picture. If not, here it is in deep intellectual focus:

I have developed an unscientific and haphazard — but often accurate — politically incorrect method of guessing whether a nation is likely to be perennially insolvent and wracked by corruption.

Do average passersby throw down or pick up litter? After a minor fender-bender, do drivers politely exchange information, or do they scream and yell with wild gesticulations? Is honking constant or sporadic?

This barrio makes my skin crawl. You?

Are crosswalks sacrosanct? Do restaurant dinners usually start or wind down at 9 P.M.? Can you drink tap water, or should you avoid it? Do you mostly pay what the price tag says, or are you expected to pay in untaxed cash and then haggle over the unstated cost?

And so this is why, all over the world, poor people are poor. Amen.