Can America Turn It Around?
Pessimism is permeating our national atmosphere. Newsweek may as well publish an article titled “We Are All Declinists Now,” for if there is one thing the left and the right, from Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party, seem to agree on, it is that things are not going well in this country and appear to be getting worse.
This crisis of confidence is not unique to America, of course — across what was once quaintly referred to as “Western Civilization,” economies of entire nations are either suffering in stagnation or teetering near total collapse. Falling or stagnating living standards and birthrates portend a considerably older and poorer West in the not-so-distant future.
The reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs are many and varied, and not yet fully understood. But let us put aside the question of causation for a moment and ask instead: Can we in the West — and in the United States in particular — turn this boat around? Must we accept decline as inevitable?
Two phenomena in particular give cause for hope. One is applicable specifically to the United States: the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The other applies to the West as a whole — the Renaissance.
The decade from 1970-1979 was certainly a bad time for America: A president resigned in disgrace, a war was lost, an economy was bruised and bloodied; life was already miserable when Jimmy Carter arrived and made things worse.
But then Ronald Reagan came along, and something remarkable happened. Reagan was able to tap into the deep reservoir of optimism in the American psyche, a reservoir many feared had long since dried up. You don’t have to accept this, Reagan said. Americans believed him, and rewarded him for his faith with a landslide victory. Then they proved him right when his pro-growth, low-tax policies unleashed their pent-up productive might. By the end of the 1980s, the American economy was once again the envy of humanity, and the Free World’s existential adversary the Soviet Union was on its knees.
Frankly, I think there is absolutely no hope for the future of the us. Obama spits on the Constitution & has taken us down the road to socialism. To repeal these things, such as the medical ins. bill, will be nearly impossible. Just wait & see. No one in DC really wants change. The ruling class there, along w/ their cohorts on Wall Street are doing great & will not allow anyone to rock the boat. Next, irreparable damage has been done to the students in our educational system who are bombarded by liberalism starting in grade school. The gov’t will continue to grow, we will continue to spend ourselves into oblivion & the Chicoms will eventually have the last laugh. Frankly, nothing short of a second American Revolution will change things. I used to think that only nuts said this, but after Obama, I have no doubt. We are on the highway to hell & no one or nothing can stop us period!
Manufacturng and Marketing in the 21st Century must adapt to the global economy.
Marvin A. Hodges
——— —
‘Buy American’ Should be ‘Manufacture in America’
Like it or not, we live in a global economy. We want to export our products, but there are no markets without money to spend and a desire to buy our products. The ignorant voters willing to follow the Pied Pipers of Labor organizations, the rat collector in the White House, and the river ready to swallow all the lemmings following populist politicians fail to realize America needs to sell products, at home and abroad.
All Americans are told to buy American by over paid labor union members, by politicians pandering for votes, by do-gooders pushing over priced ‘organic’ foods, and the rest of the populist politicians. Yet, how many individuals, union members, and companies try to reduce costs so Americans will ‘buy American’ goods and services? How much easier is it to tell others to do something instead of doing something to make it practical for others to comply?
Delco was forced to close its U.S factories because members refused to lower their over $60 per hour wages for putting nuts on bolts. Union members brag about destroying companies instead of trying to generate jobs. There has to be an alternative to welfare and lack of work ethic. Jobs will be available if and when companies adapt to 21st Century challenges. But increasing government taxation, destructive rules and restrictions, intervention in day-to-day operations, illegal government interference when a company opens a new plant, and other acts that pander to unions and their members will not encourage businesses to risk expansion, hiring, or changing manufacturing practices.
We have one example of a company that has done this. For Boeing to change their systems and risk billions of dollars to set this example required over $300 billion dollars annually in government subsidies called “Defense spending.” This high price for success could not and would not be possible without the waste of taxpayer funding to counter the massive interference of government agencies, czars, taxation, and rules and more rules.
Boeing made major changes in order to compete with Airbus.
1) Changes in financing the enormous research, new composite building materials, new testing methods, and new factories.
2) New marketing methods developed to sell the 787 in the Far East, Europe, Mid-East, and even America combined sub-contracts for components in countries ordering the 787.
3) New equipment to service the global production facilities and transport sub-contracted parts manufactured abroad to lower costs while opening new markets for the 787.
Few small businesses have the funding to copy Boeing with its $300 billion annual subsidy from the government, but a smaller scale of the concept could be used by many firms, if the workers stop being robots for their union leaders. Responsible people, even the lower intelligence workers, prefer a good job at lower pay than no job. President Franklin D. Roosevelt taught the American people that the government will take care of them from cradle to the grave. This ‘Slavery Syndrome’ permeates our society from the richest banks to the 28 year old welfare mother with fourteen children. The professional politicians are ready, willing, and able to pander to the non-producers for their votes.
Even Boeing workers do not understand. During a 2010 social event in Seattle, a Boeing worker complained Boeing should buy all its 787 parts in America. Yet, the only way Boeing can sell their aircraft while competing with Airbus is to give a little to get a little. Japan Air Lines has been a good customer for Boeing. Japanese companies build parts for the 787 and Japan will continue buying Boeing. If Boeing had tried to produce all components of the 787 in the U.S., the small number of aircraft sold would have not made the project economically feasible and thousands of American jobs would not exist. That Boeing employee did not understand. Neither does Washington in its mad rush to destroy America’s economy and substitute the Cloward-Piven theory and socialism.
Small businesses do not have access to $300 billion of taxpayers’ money but many follow Solyndra’s example to receive $535 million, plus or minus. Small and large businesses can use Boeing’s methods without needing Boeing’s Dreamlifter for shipping. Washington will increasingly control business, but they could help instead of hindering by facilitating contacts between American manufacturers and foreign subcontractors. A system is in place, though the State Department and its Commercial Attachés are almost worthless under the present system of two-year vacations from region to region for their career.
The attached Dreamlifter file contains pictures of several pieces of equipment specially designed to facilitate one-day transport of the large components from sub-contractors in Europe and Asia to South Carolina and Everett, Washington.
IBM demonstrated this when they built their first microcomputer in Boca Raton, Florida. Time Magazine named IBM’s microcomputer ‘Man of the Year.’ The unit cost of production was approximately $1,300, but each unit contained over $800 of imported parts. The reason for this was not competition but availability, and it foretold the moving of American industries abroad during the following thirty years. However, 21st Century America should encourage a similar system of production in order to create markets for American products. The markets of 1.33 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians, one third of the world’s population. is a market America cannot compete with in labor costs but can be a cooperative market using high-tech global trade and off-shore production of components for high technology American industries. The American industry of the 20th Century cannot compete with the labor costs of the industrial power of the Far East, but 21 Century America can, and must, participate in global trade to survive.
Salary differences between nations tend to level over time and Japan and China are excellent examples. In late 1945, a Japanese laborer received US$0.10 (ten cents) per day. By 2000, the cost of Japanese labor exceeded the U.S. labor cost, causing Japan to be second only to the U.S. in total industrial investments in China. Today, wages in China are becoming too expensive for some industries.
“Buy America” is easy for the Occupy crowd to shout, but to succeed in the world market requires ingenuity and hard work, government cooperation instead of opposition, and an educated public – all of which are missing in 21st Century America.
Call 300,000,000.00 in defense contracts as subsidy is not exactly correct. There may or may not be a large % profit.
You could be correct, but I think we have a chance. I’m in a profession that was once close to 100% leftist, but Obama and the left has bankrupted and thrown many close to poverty. I’m seeing many former libs seeing the light. If this holds throughout the country I believe there will be another Reagan moment. If not, as a conservative, I will simply try to live outside the government, pay as few taxes as possible(once was proud to pay)even if it shades the law.
I agree. We have allowed ourselves to pass the point of no return. Several different issues have dragged us down into almost a 2nd world nation living on food stamps and unemployments checks. When these are no longer in the mail the REAL trouble starts. It’s going to get ugly, real ugly and the sad part of it is, we allowed government to get away with throwing the USA into the trash heap of history.
I turn 50 this year, and I frequently find myself talking to younger people who ask, “this is bad, right?”
And I have to say, “yes, this is the worst President I’ve seen in my lifetime.”
But I always follow it with, “….but this is not the worst time.”
In 1963, we had a President assassinated in Dallas. In 1968, a Presidential candidate and a civil rights leader were killed. George Wallace was shot in 1972, Reagan in 1981.
We’ve had Nixon and Clinton face impeachment.
We had a solid generation of Democratic faux populism based on redistribution in the House of Representatives — 40 years in the majority, ending only in 1994.
We faced an existential threat of nuclear war through the Cold War, and saw our troops humbled in Viet Nam.
And every bit of this violence, this shame, this hopelessness and drifting, and this fear, was considered inevitable. We weren’t the “can-do” 50s, we weren’t the “Greatest Generation” — we were the ones holding the bag when everything good had slipped away.
Until we had a leader who talked about a shining city on a hill, who scoffed at the language of failure, who touched off a revival of spirit that went beyond dry tax policy or Byzantine foreign schemes. A leader who all-at-once threw off the layers of failure that had been laid, one-by-one, over top of the American psyche.
It took some time — and there’s some indications that it couldn’t reach its full potential until the top slot had switched parties — but the darkness of the 60s and 70s had fundamentally changed in the 90s. And that is why this dark hour is less dark than supposed.
It’s not that things aren’t very bad with Obama…..but we know that things can be better. We have Hope that the candidate who promised Hope and Change will soon be Changed.
Well said, but only the right candidate will do it.
A very liberal, wimpy GOP candidate who inspires no one will not defeat obama, and even if he did he wouldn’t fix the problem.
At this point, I say Newt all the way as a Reagan Conservative. Romney can’t defeat obama in debates, and lacks the personal capability to respond to the clever and devastating attacks that would await him IF he becomes the nominee. He seems to think it is owed to him. The establishment media (even at Fox) is so pushing Romney, anyone who has doubts should know not to vote for him.
I will stay home for Romney if he is the nominee and most people won’t, but enough will. That and his lousy record will cost him the election.
Why not just go whole hog and vote FOR Obama? Same difference…you can pretend all you want that it’s Romney’s fault but it’s not. Just as it wasn’t McCain’s fault. The voters elected Obama–we the people. Sitting it out is just a cop out, a way to demonstrate that you are more holy than ‘they.’ I’ll give Romney credit for one thing: he REALLY brought the Pharisees out of the shadows.
I also intend to vote for Gingrich in our Florida primary. He is the only one who in the bunch that understands the incredible danger Obama poses to this nation. Romney (like much of the Republican Establishment who supports him) believes Obama is not up to the job; that he is incompetent. He cannot even bring himself to say this Marxist is a socialist or that the Palestinian jihadists are terrorists – see the December 10 Iowa debate. Romney is an apologist for America’s enemies. That having been said, if Romney is the nominee, I will have to vote for him next November. America cannot afford another four years of this dangerous president.
Another four more years of Obama might have something good come out of it. If America survives, there will be so much misery that the left and the Democrat party will be finished for good. I guess that’s the silver lining.
Maybe. Don’t underestimate the stupidity of the people to overlook folly.
Let me see if I understand you.
1. You DON’T want Obama for another four years. [Boy HOWDY! I'm with you there.]
2. If Romney wins the Republican nomination (which will mean that millions of voters across the entire country will have supported his candidacy), then you’ll refuse to vote.
3. Come November, IF he faces Romney, Obama will win, no doubt about it, slam dunk, done deal. [Sorry if I appear a little thick-headed, but I'm not precisely clear on how you can so confidently make such a prediction. For the sake of argument, I'll accept the premise, even though it appears (to me) to be completely baseless. And IF you really CAN predict the future, I could use a few stock tips. Also, some climate scientists would probably like to speak with you.]
4. And finally, the fault for the electoral disaster giving us four more years of Obama will all be due to Romney himself, not to A) those millions who will undoubtedly vote for Obama because they LIKE him or B) those voters who don’t want Obama, but either refused to vote or wasted their vote on a third party candidate.
Did I get that right?
You have some funny ideas about causality, responsibility, and fault finding.
Sheesh. Pull your head out, MJS. This is a participatory republic and your attitude is why we have these communists in the White House in the first place.
Our troops were never “humbled” in Vietnam. We won every battle of any size and by 1972 fairly had the war won. Then came Watergate, and a leftist Congress who ignored North Vietnams abrogation of the treat as well as our treaty obligation to aid South Vietnam. They, with no ammo or spare parts, were defeated by the well armed (by China and Russia) north. Our cause was humbled by the Congress, not in Vietnam. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog
Robert A. Hall
Former SSgt, USMC
Vietnam, 1967
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
For a free PDF of the book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com
Part of the problem with this scenario is revisionist history. Reagan RAISED taxes on Business. I was there, owned a corporation, and various times my Business taxes went up as Reagan and Congress raised them again and again from 82-86. At the end of Reagan’s term i was paying much more in Tax than when he entered office, however the NET EFFECT was a stronger economy. I was paying higher percentage of tax but also making more money.
Gorbachev was responsible for the fall of Russia, end of story. Reagan challenged the Russian course of history, but it was Gorbachev that pulled the plug on Communism.
I voted for Reagan, and glad i did. However the mythology that taxes went down under Reagan is false.
*Pedantry alert*
Economics 101 – Corporations do not pay taxes.
Corporations don’t pay taxes IF AND ONLY IF they can pass them on to customers. If they can’t, if they are marginal firms, they are put out of business!
I too ran a business in the 1980′s (trying to salvage it from the damage done to it by the economy of the peanut man) and I credit you with being correct about Reagan raising business taxes. However, what you and others miss when you try to roll out the old canard about the Reagan “myth” and those taxes is that we were on the left hand side of the Laffer Curve. That is, you could raise a tax and get increased revenue. If you are in a poor economy and you raise taxes you will yield decreasing revenue (the right side of the curve). Reagan knew which side of the curve we were on and reacted responsibly.
You must have been busy and missed the fact that Gorby surrendered to the inevitable because of the coordinated pressure brought about by the brave actions of Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John, and the inspired leadership of the President of the strongest nation on the plant. Credit Gorby to the extent that he was not an idiot. He must have read about Custer at Little Big Horn except he knew when to wave the white flag.
I have liberal (unfortunately) family members who try this Reagan myth approach on me all the time. It’s that argument that’s mythological hogwash.
As an added note to my conservative friends. The next time that you get the “Gorby, and not Reagan, was the real brilliance behind the shutdown of the Soviet Union” argument, tell them that they suffer from the “Custer was a hero and Sitting Bull was a bystander syndrome“. It really pisses them off.
In TOTAL contradiction to supply-side economics, REAGAN, mostly because the DEM(agogues) forced him to “save social security, doubled payroll taxes (the wedge). However, this is after he had jump started the economy with his early tax cuts, so he got away with it. . . however, these taxes were VERY ONEROUS for small marginal companies like the one I owned back then! The payroll tax increase was the most important factor in putting me out of businsess.. Reagan probably did the best he could under the circumstances, but there were tragic consequences in his failure to CONTINUE to fight tooth and nail with the DEM(agogues) and media. He was probably too old for his 2nd term.
Funny that this article should come a long this week when the same thoughts have been so much on my mind. With events and circumstances on every hand of the world, nation, and even personal often looking gloomy it is difficult to be optimistic. But if not sunny optimism, I have come to the point of personal resolve. My job is to take what I have and do the best I can do, influence in my small sphere in a positive way. I don’t intend to try to mount a holy, fruitless jihad to change the world. I do intend to take what I have and continue to do my best.
C. S. Forester’s characters always used impending, mathematically-certain, looming defeat to do everything in their power to buy time for those under their leadership. Their idea was that by fighting out to the end you never knew what was around the next corner, you never knew if you might pull out a win despite the odds. Even if defeated, maybe you gave someone else time to get ready–like say the men in the Phillipines in War 2 who bought a little time to get a peacetime army ready for battle.
There are young people on my horizon who I want to see get a chance. I intend to do my part to see they get one. If defeat does come, if we lose our freedom, if America is not turned around, if I lose, I intend to go down with a clear conscience.
I am not wild about any of the field of candidates for the office of president. But I will solidify behind the nominee if I can at all. If I truly can’t in good conscience vote for our nominee, I will still carry out what voting I can do on the ticket.
Whether America turned around or not–only God knows I believe. My job is to diligently continue doing my best with what I have been given.
You’ve captured important points. It’s easy to get discouraged, but instead, we must all stiffen our spirits and spines, and do everything we can to effect a turnaround.
“Whether America turned around or not–only God knows I believe. My job is to diligently continue doing my best with what I have been given.”
Well said. Sumirizes how I see it as well.
Exactly!
“The American people were a different breed back in 1980. Since that time, three decades of liberal assault on American traditions — in our schools and media — combined with wave after wave of illegal immigration have eroded the common bonds of affection among our citizenry, what Thomas Jefferson referred to as “consanguinity” in the Declaration of Independence.”
Bunk. I don’t believe that for one bit. Americans are Americans and have always believed and acted in the same way. One can only wonder what this country would have looked like if Reagan beat Ford in 1976 and we didn’t have to suffer through four years of Carter. But in this country, we always need to go through the horrors of liberalism before we can walk into the sunshine of conservatism. Right now, either Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum would be a hundred times better than Obama. Note I didn’t mention Paul because I think he just wants to bring us back to pre-World War II isolationist America, and if it didn’t work then why would it work now? And if Ronald Reagan didn’t believe in isolationism (and he grew up in it), why should we believe Paul?
All three of the other candidates would give us the encouragement to face the dangerous world that is out there and all of them would be able to kill Obamacare and give us a better economy than exists now, much better in fact. Obama has given one “malaise” speech after another, and Americans are sick of it. We know that we can be and are better than that. We know that if the Federal Government just left us alone that we WOULD be much better than the pathetic world Obama wants to force us to accept. No, we are just as optimistic as ever. We just need a leader that will allow us to be, well, us. To be what we always wanted to be, which is real Americans and NOT members of some European-style social welfare state.
I Disagree, Libertyship.
“All three of the other candidates would give us the encouragement to face the dangerous world that is out there and all of them would be able to kill Obamacare and give us a better economy than exists now, much better in fact.”
Even now, on MSNBC, there are several commentators pushing the idea of single-payer as the “fix” for Obamacare. And the left is semi-convinced that the XL pipeline really IS a bad thing, even though a cursory look at the facts proves that it’s not.
“Americans are Americans and have always believed and acted in the same way.”
Absolutely and demonstrably false. Come to California and observe a La Raza demonstration or an “occupy” event.
“Obama has given one “malaise” speech after another, and Americans are sick of it.” Wrong. Millions of Americans are accepting government assistance and they probably know that if we’re spending money on defense, that’s $ we can’t spend for their support.
“We just need a leader that will allow us to be, well, us. To be what we always wanted to be, which is real Americans and NOT members of some European-style social welfare state.”
Sorry, Libertyship. That America is gone. THIS America DOES want handouts, social-justice, and a government that fixes every problem. THIS America doesn’t believe you should have a gun to protect yourself from criminals or government, because this America doesn’t trust you as a free citizen. THIS America trusts government to be the arbiter of rights and privileges because this America believes that individuals are flawed, but, somehow, a SOCIETY of individuals is somehow better.
This America is ready to back the ACLU without much understanding, because, of course, religion shouldn’t be visible in public affairs, but the ideas of DON’T LIE, DON’T CHEAT, DON’T STEAL are mere Reality-TV fodder anymore. God or Obama or the government help you if you believe in ANYTHING that trumps the idea of “the people” getting their will.
The “American” people are gone. 46% of “them” will vote for Obama, no matter what. Another 20 percent don’t have a clue. 20 percent of “we conservatives” would frog-march Gingrich, Romney and Paul out the door.
SEIU, the NEA and statists are running the country and have their eye on the ball. The “banks” are gonna use MF Global to even further consolidate their power. Americans – however you define a free people or a person that doesn’t believe in the benevolence of a state or central power – are done.
The dream is over.
I disagree with just about everything you said, furball, but to prove my point I have a one word answer for you: 2010. If things are as bad as you say they are, if that 46% of Obama supporters are so indestructable, then why did conservatives do so well in 2010? And not just well, really well, handing the Democrats and the liberals their worst defeat since the 1930s. No, there is still hope. But it is us, conservatives, to rise up and give the country that hope. If we can’t motivate people now in this economy, then we really don’t deserve to win.
The Republicans did well in 2010 because they mobilized their base and the Dems had very low turnout. During the 2012 elections that will not be the case.
Look at the the Republican primaries and less “republicans” have turned out to vote than in the previous 2008 primaries to date. It has been Ron Paul who has energized the independent vote. In NH with no Dem primary to speak of (although Ron Paul did finish second in that one too) the independent voter turned to the Republican Party but the Republican turnout was less than 2008. This current crop of candidates is in one word “pathetic.” They are not very inspiring and just yesterday Bill Kristol was pleading for Mitch Daniels to get in the race and announce when he gives the Rebuttal to the State of the Union (now he’s really an inspiring speaker).
Romney and Obama are the luckiest Harvard grads as their opposition was weak. Go Harvard!
Santorum, Gingrich and Romney have no plans whatsoever to fix the entitlement system that is bankrupting the federal government. As I said just below your comment, federal entitlements alone are 100% of the federal tax revenues and growing. Medicare alone is growing 9% a year.
The military the US has today is radically different from what existed in the “isolationist” period and Paul doesn’t want to cut it, just bring it back home. With about 3 million men and women in uniform between active duty, reserves and national guard, there is no credible threat to us except our fiscal recklessness–which the candidates you mention won’t even touch.
You seem to view things like a lot of “conservatives” in that you are more interested in the candidates who promise to maintain our foreign adventures than the one who is talking about getting our house in order.
Though reforming entitlements is important, FIRST all Obama increases in discretionary spending should be reversed. The BUREAUCRACY must be made to suffer and squeal! They are all DEM(agogues) anyway. If we can’t reign in discretionary spending, we certainly would be fools to take on entitlements. When we get to entitlements, ELIMINATE them and substitute welfare for the demonstrably needy ONLY. Means testing entitlements, of course, is the only practical way to do this.
Can America be turned around in less than a generation, if not two? No. Absolutely not and here’s why. The American people fundamentally refuse to accept the mathematical reality of where our economy is headed over the next five years. Everyone talks about cleaning up our spending problems, but only a minority that is too small to make any changes in Congress is actually willing to make the deep cuts and changes needed to start repairing our economy and the federal government.
Wealth transfer programs (primarily Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment benefits) now account for more than all federal tax revenues combined. The federal government simply cannot fund those programs at their current levels and spend even a single dollar on its actual core programs from defense, to law enforcement, to the highways. Yet, even the “Tea Party” refuses to face the fact that we, as a nation, have so completely screwed the pooch on entitlements that we have neither the time nor money to fix them. It would have taken the entire time period from 1992 to 2008 for the Boomers’ to have even a good shot at restoring the levels of cash savings in the Social Security program to what they’d need to have a fighting chance of having most of their planned benefits.
The US GDP is “officially” at $15.1-$15.3 trillion (can’t remember which one it errs closer to at this time). However, and this is a big however, about $1.6 trillion of that is federal deficit spending. That means that the real US GDP capable of funding all government work and programs across the country is actually about $13.5-$13.7 trillion. If the federal government raises taxes to fund entitlements, there is no possible way to do so without consuming well over an additional 10% of the entire real GDP just to meet current obligations.
As wasteful as the wars have been, the simple fact is that even if we shut down all federal law enforcement, prisons and disbanded the Department of Defense entirely, making the federal government little more than a wealth transfer program, it would be insolvent at the current rate of growth in Social Security and Medicare obligations within a few years.
The most intelligent thing for this country to do at this point is to default on the national debt, slash federal spending down to tax revenue levels and live within its means. Unfortunately, we won’t do that, even though it’s in our best interests.
Yes, I have to agree with you. The political dynamics have changed. Was one commenter noted wave after wave of illegal immigration have changed the demographics. We have 47% of the American public who are receiving some kind of entitlement–SS, Medicare/Medicaid, military pension or funding, etc. Too many people are receiving and fewer and fewer are paying the taxes to support them–exactly what is happening in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the rest of the EU that is in fiscal crisis. We now have a climate of political correctness that allows certain people to cry “racist” whenever anyone criticizes them and their policies, and a MSM that is opening hyperpartisan for the DNC and Obama. I was just listening to a replay of the Congressional debate about raising the debt limit, and all the Republicans were for it, and all the Dems were against it, and the Dems were acting as if economics didn’t matter, and I guess to their constituents, many of whom are part of the 47% non-taxpayers, they don’t. Although I don’t agree with a lot of what Ron Paul says, I must say that he is at least trying to get the American people to see the serious economic situation we are in.
I disagree with this entire diagnosis of declinism.
Every single time the U.S. (or the West generally) gets into economic difficulty, or suffers through a long and bitter war, we hear that same refrain: We’re in decline, it’s a crisis of confidence, can we turn it around?
Oswald Spengler’s “The Decline of the West” was published in 1923. A whole lot of Western intellectuals had decided that World War I had “proved” that Western culture was flawed somehow.
And we heard the same thing during the Great Depression–democracy is too weak to solve our problems. And again during the 1970s, as the author points out.
What about our youth? Well, you can find pundits decrying the terrible moral state of youth as far back as Socrates and Aristotle. America’s youth have always been accused of being soft, indifferent, apathetic. Heck, that’s one reason why the Axis powers thought that American soldiers would be a pushover. So did Saddam Hussein. But remember: America’s youth were just the same way in the 1990s and early 2000s, yet we didn’t year this declinism we’re hearing now. They’re not the problem and changing them is not the solution. The problem was a Government whose policies led directly to the financial collapse of 2008, and the subsequent deep economic slump. And also some financiers who engaged in outright fraud.
It wasn’t Reagan’s imbuing the American people with some mystical aura of optimism that lifted American spirits. It was fixing the economy! By 1984, the inflation rate had been cut in half and the interest rates by more than that. Unemployment, which had peaked two years earlier, was declining too. The country was arguably in better economic shape than in 1979. And the declinists faded away.
And that is why I take such issue with ideologues of both left and right who think that the answer to declinism is ideological. We don’t need a President who will tell the American people how wonderful conservatism is. We need a President who can restore full employment. Full employment will go a long way to restoring American optimism.
There was talk of American decline- both economic and moral- as early as the Depression of 1873-1879.
When I was in college in the 1970s I laughed when I found the 1925 title The Revolt of Modern Youth among some old books that had been in my grandmother’s house. Those flappers were leading us to hell in a hand basket.
No, we will not turn the US back around. Why? Washington itself. Our reps. want nothing more than to fleece the American people. Why? No American will stop them.
We will see a new America, however we will not get back to the glory days.
The only thing that will ‘turn the ship around’ will be to borrow a few thousand more dollars from China and use the money to build a quarter-mile long stretch of gallows in which to hang to death every last Democrat leader. Save Pelosi for last.
Oh, and as part of that clean sweep, strip voting rights from every person on government assistance. Hell, I wouldn’t let MY dependents run the family finances….
America cannot turn it around: multicult enabled by political correctness shows no signs of abating but is getting worse. This in turn powers immigration legal and illegal from the worst backwaters in the world. We are not only importing failure but have shouted down the source of our greatest success as endemic racists while ignoring the massive racism of those who cry the loudest. The goose that laid the golden egg is being beaten like a pinata.
The key to reversing America’s decline must be assembled from two parts:
1. A renascence of American identity and determination;
2. The discovery and repudiation of “them.”
The first of these components has indeed been undermined, mainly by deliberate political action and inaction. The use of special-interest pandering by the Clinton and Obama Administrations, and a certain weakness in the Bush the Younger Administration, have deepened our descent into particularism, whether according to race, sex, ethnicity, region, or specific economic and cultural interest. It will be difficult to overcome those obstacles, and even more difficult to dismantle them. But it can be done.
The second component is ultimately the more important one. The longstanding fiction is that America’s government is “of the people.” It is not. We now have a professional political class, entry into which is reserved for those who already share the superciliousness and arrogance of the political elite toward us common folk. That class rules America in accordance with its own interests; ours are of no consequence. Ordinary private citizens must recognize this partition, internalize its significance, and act on it. Some of that action must come at the voting booth, to be sure, but another part of it — by far the more important part — must come in a different venue.
To restore America, ordinary Americans must pick up the gauntlet of self-centered, obstructive government and hurl it into the face of the political elite:
1. Private citizens must act to curb illegal immigration.
2. Private citizens must act to police the streets of crime-ridden cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
3. Private citizens must build profit-seeking businesses and operate them in defiance of regulations, licensing laws, and other encumbrances.
4. Private citizens must refuse to acknowledge governments’ denial of our rights — especially our right to keep and bear arms.
5. Above all, private citizens must reject all claims of authority by the political class or its hired minions.
That degree of civil disobedience would take a lot of courage. There might be bloodshed. There would certainly be a mass upheaval — and there’s no question on which side the mass media would be.
The core of the thing is that the “social contract,” politically expressed in the Constitution of the United States and in the principle of constitutionalism on which it rests, has been unilaterally declared null and void — by the political class. Our rulers are aware of this; we, in the main, are not. But nothing less than a total, nationwide, “rude awakening” to the fact of our subjugation will serve to reanimate the spirit of America — the spirit which won a revolution against the greatest power of its day, and has illuminated the world ever since.
Can we stave off decline? Yes.
Will we stave off decline? No.
The problem with stopping the decline is first admitting that there is one and then determining the cause. Given that the cause is power-mad politicians who use the Treasury to buy votes then there’s little chance that they’ll admit to being the problem. Additionally, any solution means a reduction in power for the power-mad politicians and you know how cranky they get when just one of them gets a challenger in the primary… imagine how cranky they’ll get when their collective power is challenged.
You saw the reaction from both major parties to the TEA Party, that collection of kooks who say “We’re Taxed Enough Already!”, why imagine what would happen if the rest of the country said “Hey! Those guys aren’t kooks… They’re Right!”. No my friends, the politicians and their cronies have stolen the country and they’re not going to give it back. We’ll have to take it back one candidate at a time and they’ll use the full power of the United States Government, their media lackeys, all the money China can loan, and the voting habits of 10-year-olds to keep the plundering alive. Don’t tell me you missed the real reason why our “staunch defenders of freedom” support SOPA and PIPA?
Good synopsis.
sooner or later someone will bring God into the equation – guess I will do that. No coincidence with the decline and the rejection of God. Could a majority of Americans even understand the concept of national repentence? Individually, get right with God, as a nation expect us to look like any other repressed, over-regulated, chronically corrupt country. Which side of the fence are you on – remember this is not our home.
You hit the nail on the head. As Bill Bennett asserts: culture trumps the economy (and everything else). Western culture was built upon a philosophical foundation rooted in Judeo/Christian beliefs. As these beliefs are abandoned the culture crumbles.
One of the many lessons to be learned from scripture is that a nation that adheres to God will prosper while a nation that abandons God and turns to “idols” will suffer calamity and ultimately fall. Those who “know better” simply reject this premise out of hand then proceed to apply all the remedies and fixes they fondly imagine will “turn things around”. But all the fixes do is fizzle altogether or provide only a temporary spike upward followed by another slump that leaves things worse than before.
This nation has been coasting on the momentum created by our betters decades ago. That momentum is nearly spent and most people are, at some level, aware of this and feel a vague but growing anxiety that there is no way to revive it. They feel this way because they are also aware, at some level, that something vital is missing and they don’t know exactly what it is or, if they do know, how to get it back.
A people who tolerate, let alone condone, the slaughter of tens-of-millions in the womb for the sake of convenience will never be able to demonstrate the devotion and resolve needed to save and build for the future. A people who tolerate, let alone condone, the degradation and destruction of basic institutions of human civilization will never be able to establish workable, sustainable systems to take them safely into the future. Such people have no solid foundation upon which to build so they hope that some politician or leader will come along who does have such a foundation and make it all right. They hope for the little Dutch boy to stick his finger in the hole in the dyke and prevent the flood. They may get their wish but there is more to the story than just plugging that one hole. The hole is a warning that the dyke is failing. The flood can be stemmed for a time by plugging the one hole but if the dyke isn’t carefully inspected and reinforced or rebuilt where weaknesses are showing there will be more and more holes – more than any number of boys to plug them up. And eventually the whole thing will give way.
“National repentance” is not impossible. But we have active and very hostile opposition to the very notion working night and day in this country to ensure that God is not only dismissed from all public discourse but that the very idea of virtue is to be ridiculed and expunged. And they are succeeding in their efforts. Even on the political right, where the ideas of prudence, thrift, honesty, humility, truthfulness and faith have been allowed the most expression the ideals are fading. In this election it all about the economy and so-called “social conservatives” are largely dismissed or only accepted with a kind of quiet embarrassment and hope that once they have made their statement of principle they will please shut up and let the truly important matters be debated. The political left barely gives lip service to the concepts of virtue preferring to label those on the right who do bring this up as fanatics who want to impose a theocracy and promote hatred of all who differ with them (this charge is true but the party wishing to do this is the left – not the right – who want to impose a purely secular vision and who are succeeding).
If America really does turn things around – not just for a decade or two but over a sustained period of many decades or centuries – it will be the first to do so. Every other great nation or empire has fallen usually crumbling slowly from within or collapsing suddenly because its people were incapable of bouncing back from some sudden calamitous shock. As an American it is my fervent hope and prayer that America will come back. I have seen many things happen in my lifetime that were generally thought to be near impossible (the fall of the Soviet Union comes immediately to mind)so I know there is always hope.
“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14
Millions of babies have been aborted since 1972. Yeah, God has turned His Face from our country because we’ve stood by and allowed his innocents to be slaughtered. Until we have national repentance, there’s no way the US will ever come back to where it used to be.
And no, I’m not some religious nutjob. But I’m smart enought to understand cause and effect.
My goodness. All this time I had thought western civilization was founded upon Greek rational thinking and Roman engineering. I guess if I live long enough I’ll lean everything.
That is so accurately succinct.
Believe in nothing. Tolerate anything.
The short answer is: Probably not.
Rampant, runaway leftism has so virulently spread across the landscape, it has nearly completed the job of destroying Europe.
If Europe collapses and sinks under the anchor and noose around its neck, placed there by the rabid, deceitful, distortionist and fascist left…it will send shock waves here that will do more than rattle our fillings.
Even if Europe hangs on by a thread, the leftist fascist machine here has placed so many landmines inside our walls, we will be stepping on them for decades. Many, if not most of our populace does not recognize the overthrow for what it is.
In fact, they may mildly recoil at what they see as “overreach, not overthrow”. They could not be more misled and myopic.
Our problem, is that those who should be aligned to carry the message of freedom from tyranny forward are so bad at messaging, so bad at articulating, so bad at organizing, so bad at fighting small c communism…we suffer the consequences at the hands of the inept, trembling, weak hands of what should be the leaders of the resistance.
Incapable of leading, they flounder and thrash about…spouting empty platitudes and trying to maintain their own status, instead of elevating ours.
The Tea Party is a resistance movement after all. It simply has no national leadership. It’s a grassroots, visceral reaction. Not led from the top. For a ragtag, stitched together, grassroots army…it has inflicted great injury upon the small c communists…but, without top down leadership…it is rudderless and not optimal as a resistance force.
The American people are crying out for that leadership. And, they are not getting it. The Tea Party has been slandered, smeared, and intentionally savaged by the propaganda machine, the distortionists in the leftist’s pocket.
But worse, the Republican honchos never read the “Tea Leaves” correctly. The impetus, the force behind this very, very, very unusual behavior for Americans who got off the couch to fight in the battle against runaway leftism, small c communism…is an army ready to be lead into battle. The Republicans have squandered the chance to galvanize, to lead its charges.
Instead they formed a circular firing squad (VDH says so), and utterly failed to grasp the reins and….LEAD.
In the absence…the vacuum…the dearth of leadership against the imperious army of leftists destroying the Constitution, trying everything they can to tear down capitalism, stealing wealth, ignoring every check and balance…combined with their nearly complete collapse of the European continent…no, we are not likely going to be able to turn it around.
It would take a miracle.
A hero to step out of the shadows to save his country.
All of our best and brightest are sitting on the sidelines. And letting America go down the tubes. Four more years of Obama will finish the job.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Interesting article, Matt. You’ve captured an ongoing dialogue many of us are having with friends, families, colleagues: Times are tough, but they’ve been tougher. Looking forward to reading more.
I’m depressed
Watch the first episode of Milton Friedman’s ‘Free to Choose’ and you’ll then know how to fix America.
Can America turn it around???
Yes… but only if.
And that’s a big if.
Only if enough of the “80%ers”, that would be us conservatives and main-stream Americans, fully realized our precarious situation and got mad enough to get off our duffs to continue what the Tea Partiers started. One piece of evidence for that would be an unprecedented number of volunteers helping America to soundly and thoroughly defeat Obama… in nothing less than a statement-making landslide heard around the world.
Only if we elect a “give them h*ll and take no prisoners” type of a leader who together with a new GOP-majority Congress would simultaneously cut government waste and regulations with a good-sized axe, unleash oil and gas drilling and grow a job-creating economy by slashing corporate and personal income taxes. And that’s why on January 31 in Florida, I am voting for the Bulldog – Newt Gingrich, warts and all.
And that, of course, would only be the beginning… the beginning of the changes America would need to reverse course.
But without these two, we wouldn’t stand a chance. And it really would get bad… for all of us.
So, 80%ers… what say you?
Are you going to be a part of this?
Pass the word, November, 2012.
Man i surely will be out there, and I will be pushing my large family to go active…..There is no doubt that if we do not turn the tide this November, there will probably be wholesale carnage in the USA…..I say Store yourself up some food, and Friends i will have me and my family armed suffeciantly…..for any need”….Right now we do not have the Holy Unction to simply do as one person that quoted the verse….We just cannot say we are going to repent and turn from our evil ways…..That ability is not withen us…we need the Power of the Holy Spirit of G-d to do this….we need a new filling of that spirit of Purity….And the Mountains of fear and despair would melt like an icey on on a hot day….We must pray that HE will turn the tide….and i fear that it is going to take some serious weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, to have the G-d that we have rudely cast from the square, out into the trash bin…When the Israelites sinned the Holy one of Israel always had an escape hatch that the true righteous ones could go into and find purity of heart, and personal healing….What it will take to bring the “west” to a true repentance, only G-d knows….And it will not be pleasant….He, G-d knows what it will take to destroy the deeds of the evil ones in the USA….There is no doubt that this godless muslem was raised up just to be the tool needed to bring true Purity and Holiness back to G-d`s own….His planting Israel, and every true, pure of heart Christian….I mean the Born again Christian, that Knows that he is a child of that true G-d….And any of you dear Jewish friends, there is no harm in asking for the truth to be shown in your heart….Seek what is pure and eternal and I think you will find it….I just say all this because we are coming on hard times, where many will not be able to make it without Divine help….Just please keep in mind that this B.A. Christian may of been onto some truth…..G-d love and bless every one of us, in the name of Jesus…..Jimi Belton,…Georgia
Actually, I am more optimistic than I have been in many years. 2010 was a watershed year. The American people realized that they could no longer rely upon the politicians. There was a collective rolling-up-of-the-sleeves as people realized they were going to have to take charge of the political future instead of relying upon elected officials.
The MSM no longer has a monopoly. In fact their share of the eyeballs shrinks every day. We have voices on the radio, TV, and Internet who share our goals, ideals, and views. Every day more people realize the MSM’s bias and switch.
I really see a great future. The conservative mainstream, educated and informed by our own media outlets. They then vocally hold their congresscritter’s feet to the fire.
We have a long struggle ahead of us though. It’s taken the lefties 80 years to get us into this position. Were not going to undo it all in just one election cycle. Don’t lose hope. Keep your eye on the ball. The glass IS half full.
Tolbert;
“Economics 101 – Corporations do not pay taxes”
A corporation must match employee payroll taxes, property taxes, even when no tax is due estimated taxes must be prepaid. This all comes out of Margins that continue to drop, year by year.
its easy to live in a world where corporations pay no tax, but reality is that the tax rates on Corporations have been increasing yearly to the point it is no longer worth the risk of capital.
This is why Jobs are being lost, its not rocket science. The risk of capital is no longer worth diminishing reward, therefore Capital moves offshore.
Russia; “We pretend to work while you pretend to pay us”. This adage sums up Russian economy in the 60-70′s. Russia Collapsed economically and was on life support when Gorbachev pulled the plug in the late 80′s. Reagan did not pressure Russia, it was economically depressed long before Reagan occupied the White House. The bottom line is Russia Collapsed from internal pressures, not external.
Will the US recover from current issues..? if we are able to recognize realities of marketplace and geopolitics. If people continue mythologizing their own history and solutions, its going to be a much longer recovery than needed.
He meant that corporations don’t pay taxes…people do. Either the people who work for the company, who can’t be paid as much for their work; the owners, who won’t get that profit they’re always being ridiculed for; or the customers, who must pay more for the goods and services, and are therefore poorer as a result.
Corporations are simply a collection of people, who do business with other groups of people and individuals.
That’s Econ 101.
My family’s been in business since the Civil War. You don’t have to tell me who really pays taxes.
How Capitalism Saved America and How Government is Destroying It | Thomas J. DiLorenzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJaBJwYHHc&eu…
Presented by Tom DiLorenzo at the Mises Circle in Naples, Florida: “Freedom versus Big Government,” on 26 February 2011.
Matt you lost me when you said Reagan was a great leader. Didn’t he pump debt into the economy by almost tripling the national debt? Didn’t he get over 400 marines killed in Lebanon and then cut and ran with his tail between his legs? Didn’t he refuse to meet with David Jones knowing it would cause problems Grenada and a few days later we were able to safe face by defeating that powerful nation? Is that the same guy you are frothing over as a great President. Did you not forget him selling missiles to Iran to be used against our great friend we were selling arms to – Iraq? Was not Iraq the biggest buyers on our military hardware in the mid-80′s? Did we also not share military location’s of the Iraqi army with Iran our supposed enemy? Oh and I must be remiss in not mentioning how well we looked when we started an illegal war with Nicaragua when we went after Danial Ortega (I wonder what happened to him – lol). To my mind Reagan was hardly what one would define as a great President but I do want to thank him for the “Big Dig” as his gift to Tip O’Neil.
But maybe I’m to harsh on Reagan as he was suffering from dementia and maybe it was all Nancy’s fault.
That’s rich. What role did Congress play in the rising of the debt accrued by the US federal government from 1981 – 1989?
As for other accomplishments, would you rather have Vaclav Havel in jail under the Communists?
A good friend of Reagan was Margaret Thatcher, and she nailed it when she said the trouble with socialism is that it eventually runs out of other people’s money.
For that matter, take a look at Vixi by Richard Pipes – especially when he learned the lesson of socialism (he took friends shopping, and he gave each of them an orange, and the shop keeper asked how he was going to pay. Pipes said, “Parents”).
Congress played a very big roll and Tip O’Neill played Reagan like a fiddle. He gave him all the defense spending he wanted (and it just so happened MA received a lot of that spending) and he also got the social spending he wanted. A good time was had by all especially the ones like Cheney who said “deficits don’t matter.”
Up until that time our debt was under a trillion. Then we get Reagan and Bush to spend like drunks and Clinton wold have as well but Newt did get him to make a balanced budget and even get a surplus. Then we got the incompetent one who started two unnecessary wars, a prescription drug benefit, two tax cuts, almost no regulation of the financial market where pass the home mortgage security trash started big time in 2004. Of course at the end of his incompetency we were shedding 750,000 jobs per month and 2.6 million in 2008. Our debt was over 10 Trillion and we still had another 1.6 trillion to add to his total when his budget ended in 2009.
But of course congress always plays a part because they can hide in the crowd while every POTUS stands alone.
Sorry but there was never any Clinton “surplus” that nonsense is passed around by both parties. There would only have been a true surplus if the national debt had gone down as maturing bonds would have been retired instead of being rolled over contunuously. That never happened.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
What did happen is we had a bubble. A large number of people were being hired in high paying jobs and collecting stock options. That is all ordinary income subject to both payroll and income tax. In addition capital gains taxes were flooding in that would later turn to losses reducing the taxes for future years. Even with the bubble, the apparent surplus was all do to the massive increase in payroll taxes relating to Social Security and Medicare. That doesn’t count against the debt so there never really was a surplus in the normal sense just an accounting gimmick.
The dems in congress lied to Reagan. They promised $2 in spending cuts for every 1$ in tax cuts. It never happened. As far as Reagan ordering the troops out of Lebanon.. “Tail between his legs?” Since when are you so gung ho. Reagan did the prudent thing. He knew that getting into a land war in the middle east was lunacy…. unlike someone named W.
The double standard with you Reagan worshippers is unbelieveable. Remember how you all said Clinton “cut and ran from Somalia”
As long as people look confused when the term, balance sheet is used, they are in over their heads as to what is on their door step.
When http://www.vanityfair.com/contributors/michael-lewis & http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/12/60minutes/main6292458.shtml & http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100127395/crony-capitalism-is-failing-lets-try-the-real-thing/ is superior to what comes from either side of the aisle inside the Beltway – success for the US will come in spite of what goes on inside the Beltway.
If you think this comes from someone who is a worst neighbour to the US than what he alleges the US to be – you are dead wrong.
So, who is paying the most attention to the links above, and how much attention is being paid?
Reagan revolution was great, but Contract with America not even worthy of a footnote. Good to know. We have less hope under your argument than we have under mine.
In a word: YES. We can turn it around. There is no question about it. The only question is: will we?
That I can’t answer. Just as it’s impossible to figure out the true cost of a ‘common workman’s shirt’ it’s impossible to comprehend the attitudes, beliefs, and motivations of hundreds of millions of people. I think the presidency is far less important than the Congress in terms of turning back the flood. State legislatures and governorships as well. In essence we need to train an entirely new political class that can slowly replace the old. The only way to do that is to recapture the culture. Culture first, politics second. Why do you think the left has done so well? They have propaganda everywhere. The best news though is that it can be done…easily. People are sick of the same old thing over and over, the same tired whining and complaining about things that were problems in 1850s England but haven’t been problems since that time. We need to stop waiting for another Reagan and start working on things at the local level. The focus on the great game may be more exciting, but it’s also a waste of time.
The president appoints judges, dept/agency/bureau/program Czars and since congress has abdicated their legislative responsibility to the aforementioned the presidency as currently administered by Obama and company is emperial in nature. Local and state law means less and less. this is the road we are now o. I don’t see it changing with Obama. Not sure about the Rinos or repubs but doubtful.
IMHO. Thank you
When Obama was asked to show a birth certificate, or provide a real social security card and/or passport and did not, he should have been removed, disqualified, even sent to jail. When Congress begs an Attorney General for information and gets a middle finger, that AG shouold be in jail. All the problems listed so discreetly with lovely soft wording have reached screaming intensity. So what happens? We wait for an election. Why will a Congress and a Supreme Court allow one person, ONE PERSON, to rip apart the Constitution they all swore to defend. That is precisely what’s happening, under our noses.
I am fighting mad at our elected officials (hate to uses the word!) and sick of the lame fixits suggested. The USA is more threatened now than on December 6, 1941. And by an enemy using poison words and our own weapons (taxes) to defeat us. My God people. Wake up!
I hate to bust your bubble or interrupt your dream but he did show his birth certificate before he was elected. That you refuse to accept all the evidence put forth says more about your current state than any evidence put forth.
Flaming —
Not the facts as I recall them. A claim was made by his campaign office and later his Whitehouse staff that it would be illegal by Hawaiian law to release his records to the public. That was disingenuous because they were slyly trying to refer to HIPPA (federal) law which prevents third parties from accessing health records without the consent of a patient. I wrote to Axelrod about this and never received a response.
This has been stated in blog after conservative blog ad nauseum, but here it goes again.
Although there are several reasons to believe the birth certificate released by Obama is fraudulent, the more important fact is that, even if it is legitimate, the birth certificate proves that Obama is not a natural born citizen. Read that carefully, because “natural born” has a specific meaning–it means both parents were citizens of the United States, and the child was born within the United States. One does not need to be a natural born citizen for any other position in government–not for a governor, not for a congressman (state or federal)–only for president. Obama is not a natural born citizen because his father was not an American citizen. Now, you can argue that this is a mere technicality, but as long as you respect the Constitution, you can’t say that his position as President is legitimate and Constitutional.
The shallow wisdom, as voiced by John Maynard Keynes, is that in the long run we’re all dead. But there’s a deeper wisdom. And that is that in the longer run we all revive. Obviously not individually. Once dead dead. But cultures revive, a nation revives, a people revives, a race revives. In that sense I am profoundly optimistic about America’s future. An example of the revival from bad ideas is the fact that no one any longer believes in the official pablum that larger and larger central government control solves ANYTHING. Even statists know they’re pushing poison. But it takes a long time for a bad idea to die, or more accurately, to be killed off by reality. That’s happening now. The rhetoric of central planning and central control may continue, underneath it first the states and then the federal government will contract and the realm of freedom once again will expand. Be of good cheer and above all be patient. The change for the better is already underway.
What do you mean not individually? As surely as Christ is risen from the dead, so shall all the dead rise.
Can America turn it around?
The short answer is NO, the longer answer is MAYBE, once the United States defaults 100% on it’s debts and the American people learn the harsh lessons of
1) Living within your means, even if you don’t want to.
2) The buck stops with YOU, not “the gummint”.
3) If you don’t work, you don’t eat.
4) A government large enough to give you handouts is large enough to strip you of every cent you have (and they will, Obama WILL take your 401k AND any cash you have in the US banking system when the next leg of the crisis hits, remember ALL 3rd world governments loot.)
When you take the following numbers into account –
Debt to GDP past 100%
We spend 45% MORE than we earn
10,000 NEW SS retirees a day
California and other states are insolvent
Massive unfunded pension liabilities
and combine them with an unserious Congress incapable of cutting spending on anything you have inevitable economic implosion.
Look at Greece today, that will be US tomorrow and soon, maybe by the end of this year, within the term of the next presidency definately.
Economic Collapse – Change your getting…
What state may come when we have shuffled off this mortal republic? Facist? Communist? Empire? Brave New World? Oh the possibilities are endless. I hope in the end we break apart into a multitude of republics and if that’s what the left wants independant communist states. I’ll probably grab my guns and ammo and head for Texas. The bastards will have to take me out as I won’t bow to them or any tyrant. You are welcome to come join me.
Have a nice day.
Fight the good fight. This is your hour and your time. Lift up your head and see that the lefties are being exposed and numbered.
Push ahead and do not be weary of tearing down illusions. Because that is what it really is … illusion. That is their weakness: imposed illusions.
Take your stand and do not budge. You will be victorious and your goals will come to fruit. Look to the old ways as your direction and path.
And do not forget to pray. Much good is the result of prayer.
Single payer would be much cheaper and more efficient than hundreds of insurance companies inefficiently trying to organize health care. I am a trustee and member of the investment committee of a benefit plan that covers 400,000 lives. We cover from prenatal to age 65. We pay for prescriptions in full. There are no copays. zero. The medical side of the plan is fairly generous, compared to most private insurance plans. Out cost per capita is less than $3,800, per life. And we continue to cover prescriptions after age 65. We have a small dental benefit. We pay for eye-glasses. All medical and hospital expenses are covered in full. Repeat: net cost per capita: $3800.
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Insurance companies have administration costs that range from 14% to 33%. Our administration cost is less than 7%. By the way, Medicare’s administration cost is less than 3%. Private insurance heath care is burdened by relatively small size and the need to deliver a profit to shareholders. In the best of private plans 14 cents of every health dollar goes to administration and profit. In the worst of plans 33 cents of every health dollar is spent on administration and profit. In our plan 93 cents of every dollar is spent on health. And, I don’t measure outcomes here.
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Most readers will not have studied the differences between private plans and public ones. They will rely upon preconceived notions of the superiority of private business. In the case of health care they are wrong.
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Single payer is the way to go.
The volume of comments by itself is encouraging. Can America turn it around? Arguments on both sides are strong. One of the positive ones raised my spirits. It reminded us of the turnarund in elections that must have given Obama the runs. But America today is not the America of 1954 when I moved from Toronto to New York. Only when viewed with a wide angle lens and compared to the rest of the free world does one see that many others are in worse shape. None of the present GOP candidates fill me with confidence. The party should have insisted that at the end of each shootout each candidate should have said, “I feel I can serve America best from the White House, but let us remember that each and everyone of these contenders would be a humongous improvement over Obama.” America has made far too many wrong decisions since WW II and having brought in the present administration may, indeed, be the nail that seals the coffin.
Dr. James Dobson conceded that Christians have lost the culture war: “The battles that we fought in the Eighties … trying to defend righteousness, trying to defend the unborn child, trying to preserve the dignity of the family and the definition of marriage. We fought all those battles and really it was a holding action. …[W]e are absolutely awash in evil. And we are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say that we have lost all those battles….”
The reason this is true is because Christians have spent the last two centuries lopping at the rotten fruit of the corrupt tree rather than destroying its roots, and which is the only means by which America can be “turned around.” The biggest obstacle in accomplishing this is that most Christians and patriots are promoting the roots (the United States Constitution)of the corrupt tree as the answer rather than the genesis of America’s problems.
Find out how much you really know about the Constitution as compared to Yahweh’s moral law (His commandments, statutes, and judgments). Take our Constitution Survey at http://www.missiontoisrael.org/constitutionsurvey/constitutionsurvey.php and receive a free copy of the “Primer” (an 85 page book, normally $7 plus shipping) of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.”
Using the analogy of a patient, America has suffered injuries and illnesses, but with the right physician-in-chief, the patient can be turned around and brought back to health. But not anymore. A number of health issues have made America terminal. Consider:
1. Autoimmune disease. Political correctness is like America’s AIDS virus. We no longer have the will to defend ourselves against any foreign or domestic threats. Offense to Islam has become a greater crime against humanity than Islamic terrorism. When a pastor burns a Koran or soldier take a leak on some dead Taliban thugs, the military brass are up in arms, but when a radical Muslim army sergeant murders soldiers, the military is more concerned with “protecting diversity”. We spent ten years fighting wars without a clearly defined enemy and rules of engagement more befitting a San Francisco beat cop. Racism has become a greater crime than murder. Illegal immigrants invade the body of America every day, but we are not allowed to ward them off. Even the worst gang bangers are allowed in and given amnesty. The cancer of radical Islam has metastasized to the brain of our country, where our state department wants to institute shariah compliant hate speech codes. Our DHS goes after returning vets and the Tea Party, while TSA molests our toddlers and grandparents. Muslimsare handled with kid gloves.
2. Advanced arteriosclerosis (ref: Mark Steyn). The America that built the interstate highway system, tamed the frontier and sent a man to the moon is no more. Thanks to radical environmentalists and assorted special interests, not even a simple factory or power plant can be built. The keystone oil pipeline has been scuttled. After the World Trade Center was destroyed, we did not rebuild what was taken, and it took ten years for something to rise above the hole in the ground. Compare that to the building of the Empire State Building in the midst of the Great Depression.
3. Advanced dementia. Our next generation has been brainwashed by our educational institutions into PC morons full of self esteem, with no historical memory except that America is racist, and with the attention span of a flea or rabbit.
These and other terminal illnesses are too far advanced. The patient is doomed and cannot be saved. He is now in the care of his very own Dr. Kavorkian (Obama), who will likely be the doctor for another four years.
Trainwreck —
Since there is a Dr. Patient analogy being used, I’ll borrow another quote from Machiavelli (from The Prince):
“And it happens with this as the physicians say of
consumption, that in the beginning of the illness
it is easy to cure and difficult to recognize, but
in the progress of time, when it has not been
recognized and treated in the beginning, it becomes
easy to recognize and difficult to cure.”
I think to get out of this mess, one must learn some
lessons from history such as the “Rape of Lucretia” and
the overthrow of the Tarquinian king (Lucius Tarquinius
Superbus) which established the Roman Republic.
One thing we need to do is expand the market place into the hands of the many and lower the cost of health care and other necessities so employers and employee alike can buy them.2 we can’t allow a company to get to big to fail if they fail they creator other things behind them when they go under.Slavery is against the law here in America So we let American companies move out so they can use slaves in other parts of the world go figure.Stop cronyism and corporate welfare use that money to open opportunities new businesses and jobs get the Wall street money out of Washington. Give tax breaks after the fact they are creating job instead of throwing money and praying for the best. And we make a come back
Yet another “we need another Reagan story” full of the usual BS about how he resurected us.
Yes if you borrow tons of money spend it and never pay it back, you will look better off then you really are. If you flood the country with illegal aliens and guest workers you will look OK until the costs of those people and the decreased paychecks for everybody else come home to roost. If you sign legislation designed to destroy the middle class and send jobs out of the country you probably won’t notice the damage until you are long gone. If you let Wall Stree and the bankers run wild and destroy the thrift industry and steal all they can you may actually have a period of apparent prosperity until the bubble comes crashing down on somebody else. If you happen to be at the tail end of trillions of dollars and over a hundred thousand men dying in the cold war, there will be idiots giving you all the credit for it. If you ramp up the stupid war on drugs and have your own agencies smuggling the stuff in you can militarize the police and remove even more of our liberties.
We had another Reagan His name was GW Bush.
Has it ever occurred to us that at least a plurality of living Americans really want a nanny state? I wonder what an accurate percentage is: 33%, 40%, or 49%?
At the time of the American Revolution, John Adams believed the country was divided into thirds: 1/3 loyalists, 1/3 “mugwumps” (my term), and 1/3 patriots.
One thing we don’t possess collectively is clear thinking. Mugwumps prefer to avoid thinking whenever possible.
So I also ask y’all, what does it mean to say “turn America around”? What is the goal? What is the American dream? The government school monopoly has dumbed down American students for 100 years. Those influencing culture have told Americans that the American Dream is “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage”. That is NOT the American Dream. The American Dream is the belief that we are capable of self-government. (“Do unto others” …). That is the basis for the legacy of limited government. If we don’t know where we came from, and we don’t know or care where we are going, then can we really be sure where we are?
Let me leave with a thought from the Renaissance. Machiavelli studied Titus Livy’s history of the Roman Republic and here was one of his observations concerning what happens when a republic becomes corrupt (from Book I)
… on the election of leadership in corrupt republics…
“… nor had they [the Romans] any more enemies whom there was ground to fear. This sense of security, and this weakness on the part of their enemies, caused the Roman people in appointing to the consulate to consider not a man’s virtue, but his popularity. This drew to the office men who knew better how to get around men, not those who knew better how to conquer enemies. They then turned from those who had more popularity and gave it to those who had more power. Thus owing to the defectiveness of the institution it came about that good men were wholly excluded from consular rank.”
For those of you ignorant of the Roman Republic (upon whose structure the American Republic was conceived), think of a consul as a co-president. Now tell me if you don’t see this phenomenon having occurred in the US, progressively throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
Restoring America will require wisdom. The fastest way to gain wisdom is to look to antiquity and determine where the ancients went wrong and how they transitioned from servitude to freedom.
Don’t repeat the mistakes is the key to prevention. For that I fear, it is far too late.
Yeah American can/will turn it around. However it will be a uphill, difficult battle. Fist thing we have to do is win the election, then get things like Obama,Clintons Reid, Pelosi. Just to name a few. Also the liberal mainstream press out of office,out of the country.
I am 26, and to be honest, this primary is making me more pessimistic.
People say they are tired of “money” in politics, negative advertising, the mainstream media, and politicians who can’t get anything done in Washington. Then they flock to the people who have the “organization” to win (read: money/Romney), listen to negative advertising (if everyone dislikes it, why is it so effective?), let the media spoonfeed them what to think about the candidates (i.e. Rick Santorum is irrelevant), and support candidates who have horrible records. I love Newt’s debate performances but the entire campaign narrative in the general election would be about how he is morally bankrupt, and Romney has a horrible record. He’s not going to be able to defend paying 15% or the fact that Bain took bailout money. In order for things to get better, it has to be the American people that cast off the politicians who try to pit us against each other, and ignore the media narrative about who is relevant and who is not. Until we do that, we’re going to be getting exactly what we deserve, which is this mess.
We do that at the voting booth after all the hype is over. We seldom get what we want, but we usually know who to vote for by then. Remember, the media folks are only interested in one thing, a horse race. Suspense sells and they are salesmen. Don’t get pessimistic. That is how the media are trying to keep Obama in their horse race. By the way, what bailout money did Bain Capital take?
The US entered the 20th Century with a new condition that was perceived as a major problem–that the success of Classic Liberalism had created a new depotism in the form of a few very wealthy, who would suppress the other people into a proletariat similiar to those in earlier Europe.
The ensuing effort to correct this condition led to the amending of Classic Liberalism into Social Liberalism (Socialism), which has been the experiment of the past Century. This experiment has moved steadily along, accumulating tenents of the theories of various social philosophers, to the point which, today we have a very different national philosophy from that of our founding.
However, it is resonable to expect that there is continuing need to adapt to changes in the philosophy of a nation as circumstances change. Unfortunately for the US, the changes that have been adapted have left us with a very weakened position. Socialism has not proved to be a beneficial theory, yet we hang on, because the question of disparity of classes has not been answered. In fact, it is this lack of clarity of our philosophy regarding social issues, which has rendered us unable to proceed vigorously, as would be expected of free Americans. The result has been a polarizing of public views and policies. The US currently has no defined point of view regarding social position, economy, or public policy. We are in social turmoil, economically adrift in an extraordinarily competetive world economy, and led by a corrupt and incompetent and bloated government.
Solving the question of classes will give us a philosophical position from which we can go forward with adequate unity to again excel. That solution will not be found in theoretical Socialism, because that approach destroys the economy for all classes.
The early successes of the US were created in the principles of Classic Liberalism–sovereignty of the individual and ownership of property, which led to exceptional production. I suspect the answer to the problem of classes, and of “social justice”, lies in an effort of inclusion of all citizens into production, without the suppression of government intervention, or the deception of Socialism.
This is no small order, but it is becoming clear that to solve our problems we must dig deeper, and we must stop looking to academic theoreticians, experiments in Europe, or our professional politicians to do it for us.
We don’t have a “problem of classes” in this country, not in the european sense. In Europe, particularly Britain, class was a state or status to which you were born. It automatically determined, by law and social norms, what your opportunities would be and would not be. That has never been the case in this country. The word class in the US refers almost exclusively to your economic state–what kind of work you do and how much wealth and income you have. But nobody is locked into their current status by any artifical, arbitrary set of standards. You can succeed and advance, or fail and decline. Or at least, that’s how it used to be.
We have what might be called a welfare class, but no one is trapped in that class by anything beyond their own abilities and their desire to be all they can be.
John,
Our “problem of classes” in the US is primarily one of perception-becoming-reality. The Far Left is becoming increasingly more open in their arguments that Capitalism has failed and that the government must take control of the economy and society in general. It is not realistic to ignore that those on the Far Left who make these demands have a surprising amount of agreement and support in the general citizenry; or, at least, the benefit of great confusion. Barack Obama is a Far Left Radical, yet he consistently has general approval (per Rasmussen) in the 45% range.
Acceptance by a large number of the American people that the country has “problems of class” is undeniable. While not fully in accord with the principles of Socialism, many people fully support aspects of its principles. If this was not true, our spending and debt problems could be resolved in short order, the size of government could be quickly reduced, and the economy could begin to gain real strength.
My point is that the US is confused and lacks a clear position on who we are and how we should proceed. The nation does not have an accepted philosophy that will generate the freedom of choices to succeed that you described above. Young people graduating from colleges with expensive Bachelor of Arts degrees go out into an economy that is weakening into structural decline and accept the Far Left argument that it is Capitalism and the “rich” that is impeding their opportunities.
So, my point, that solving our class problem, is that we must do that in the perception of the general citizenry, in order to remove the opportunity of the Far Left to make a case that a major problem exists; because in the minds of many Americans, a problem does exist. Explaining the principles of freedom to the masses is not usually very effective; however, class warfare is always received enthusiastically by many, especially those in a weak economy who have weak prospects for improvement.
There is no downside in creating a robust economy based in production, because it pulls people into the activity and creates visable opportunity. And, even when there is the inevitable disparity of rewards of production, the Far Left has a much harder task of creating disruption.
In other words, we must recapture the concept that the US economy is fluid in opportunity, and that opportunity does exist, and that success does require effort, and that wealth is the reward of that effort, and is not an evil that is only available to the rich. To do this, we must defeat the message of the Far Left; and, that will only occur when we begin to reduce the size of government that is creating the structural decline in our general economy. And, to do this we must accept the reality that America is confused and does perceive a “class problem”, that we do have a structurally weakened economy, that the government is too big, and that the Far Left has gained a major foothold in America.
America can be turned around because of her people …. Americans who want to take back their country from illusion and delusion.
In the policy of deceit, it is mandatory that people BELIEVE IN THE ILLUSION, that all is now out of the hands of the people. This is a lie. Confront the lie and it will retreat.
In my opinion Newt is the best choice. While it is said, he has had his weak moments in the past with women, it can not be said that he does not deliver on what he says he will do.
If you agree with what he says he will do, then that is the man of action for your vote.
I think it would give the people more heart for the fight if they felt that who they elected, would finally do the job they promised before elecion.
my buddy’s mom makes $83 every hour on the laptop. She has been out of a job for 7 months but last month her paycheck was $9029 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more on this web site… LazyCash10.com
When do we get a spam flag?
We have ONE SHOT – and one shot only – to turn this country around.
Of course this means voting for the only candidate who will:
- follow the Constitution
- cut spending by $1 Trillion in the first year
- balance the budget in one term
- fix our foreign policy
President Ron Paul!
No, I don’t think we can turn it around. Ever wonder why socioeconomics is one word?
For multiple reasons as mentioned by others, society is declining. The economic decline is secondary to that, but tends to reinforce it, at least at this point.
The only small point of satisfaction is that the Asian countries will implode first, considering their social destruction has been much more intensive, at least in China. And the excesses, imbalances and speculation in their economies makes ours seem like a well-oiled machine. Our machine may run down slowly, but theirs are going to go up in flames.
I don’t really think anyone is going to be left standing- but if there is one that survives, it’d be us. I just think that’s unlikely. I won’t say that we’re going to have another Dark Ages, but it’s not going to be good.
When the implosion comes it will be WORSE than the bottom of the great depression and it will end with the death of the US dollar, 100% default on the national debt and the creation of a “divorced currency” with partial gold backing.
Many of us will have our net worth punched down to $0 and will be faced with the burden of rebuilding, but it can be done, after all, the Lord helps those who help themselves.
Dana – The United States, along with Australia and Canada have 3 BIG advantages that most of Europe, China, Japan and our “allies” in the Middle east lack –
1) FOOD independance – We run a large FOOD SURPLUS, in the case of full on collapse even down to the Zimbabwe level we can still feed ourselves. China and the middle east face MASS starvation.
2) We are ENERGY independant except in OIL, we could run 100% on coal for power and run every vehicle on nat gas if a gun was to our heads. Heck, we can use coal to MAKE gasoline for cars. The Nazi’s did it in WW2.
3) We have a “first world” infrastructure but more importantly we have a “first world” mentality. Disregarding the cool aid and hopium addicts who will be forced by reality into detox anyway most americans instintively understand the value of hard work and having faith in god. Even at absolute rock bottom there are those who will be determined to get back up and rebuild, I will be one of them what about you?
America also has trump cards that NO-ONE else has – A heavily armed population and the constitution.
Of all the nations in the world I would expect the United States to remain standing after the dust settles.
We might be able to turn the US around, provided that Mitt Romney is NOT the nominee. Romney is incapable of beating Obama.
This is a must hear. Until we get this true message,we can forget turning America around.
http://www.therightscoop.com/bill-whittle-takes-on-the-liberal-media/
Teacher Unions vs Education Vouchers, Home-Schooling, and Charter Schools
Forty years ago, a debate raged among public school teachers in New York State over the question of whether to affiliate themselves with labor unions.
The debate essentially centered on the issue of whether teaching was a profession or a trade. A compromise was reached with a semantical subterfuge when many teachers opted to continue calling their locals “federations” or “associations,” thereby retaining the illusion of professionalism, and joined the New York State United Teachers, “a union of professionals.”
Forty years ago, the American public education system produced graduates who could read, write, cipher, and think. Granted, we didn’t accomplish those goals as well as our forebears had but they didn’t have to compete with television and cultural and sexual revolutions. Still, we did a pretty damned good job–as contrasted with educators today.
Was the unionization of education the only cause in education’s transparent decline?
Not at all. Many teachers were already members of de facto unions which represented them in the same way they are represented today. Also, there are various outside influences on kids today which were present forty years ago but which hadn’t yet fully blossomed into the negative forces they are now.
And cell phones, iphones, Blackberries, smart phones, personal computers, and the Intenet didn’t exist.
Are teacher labor unions necessarily a bad thing? Again, not at all.
Teachers have greatly benefitted from the powerful clout of statewide and nationwide affiliations and school budgets have ballooned. They are not necessarily a bad thing, unless union extremism as seen in teacher participation in last spring’s riots in Wisconsin and the hardships inflicted on taxpayers by those balloons are factored in.
As a desperate response to failing public school systems often more intent on propagandizing than teaching, parents have resorted to a unique alternative, homeschooling their kids.
Teacher unions and their elected officials have fought tooth and nail against that desperation. Home-based learning effectively served as a denunciation of the inefficacy and the misguided values inculcated in public schools so what else could they do?
Education vouchers allowing parents to shop for the best elementary and secondary schools for their children represented an even greater threat to entrenched union interests and they, too, have been resisted as if they were a creation of the devil.
After all, if parents were permitted to pick and choose, they wouldn’t choose failing schools and would therefore put pressure on districts to compete by raising their level of instruction and discipline and to return to their fundamental pedagogical mission.
Both home schooling and education vouchers undermine America’s public education system and that’s not a bad thing either in light of the fact that system isn’t educating very well.
Another alternative to sending children to public schools that provide, at best, a babysitting service has sprung up in the past two decades: charter schools. If vouchers are the creation of some devil to teacher unions, charter schools must be the creation of Lucifer himself. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=12206.)
I fear we are very close to fiscal collapse, followed by political and social collapse. Everyone wants it fixed as long as it means no personal pain. Everyone lobbying is saying, “Don’t cut me.” Even the Tea Party doesn’t want entitlements touched, while the Occu-poopers want to live a CEO lifestyle on a degree in Peace Studies and a 20 hour a week job. So politicians kick the can down the road. Soon it won’t be kicked. I have pulmonary fibrosis, eventually terminal, but I weep for my grand daughter. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog
Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
For a free PDF of the book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com