Interview: Mark Steyn on After America, One Year Later
DRISCOLL: QE3 involves lending money on a gigantic basis, but there’s also the money banks lend to individuals and families. Glenn Reynolds, my colleague at PJ Media.com, has linked to articles on “the coming middle class anarchy.” Our entire nation’s economy rests on the idea of owning a home and paying your mortgage each month. If enough people who are underwater say the system is rigged, and nuts to all this, America’s already fragile economy could be in deep trouble.
STEYN: Yes. I think that’s certainly the case. I mean, I think if you look at what has been wrecked by government, they include all the things that prudent people — we’re not talking about people with, you know, great ambitions. We’re not even talking about, you know, dreams. We’re not talking about fancies. We’re talking about just what prudent, responsible people do. People say oh, you know, buy property. What is it? The Mark Twain line, they’re not making any more of it, you know, whatever.
Buy a home. Buy a house. Own your own home. The government through Fannie and Freddie and subprime mortgages wrecked the property market, so the idea of the whole sort of safe as houses concept is gone. Then they said oh, you know, get an education. Get an education. Get a qualification; you’ll always have something to fall back on. Most American qualifications are worthless and people stack up six figures of debt to acquire them, so they’ve wrecked that element too.
So these are things that, as I said, not dreamers but prudent, sensible people that get an education, buy property — look after your health, that’s another thing that’s wrecked now. So in other words, all the props of prudent, sensible middle-class life have been hacked away at by government — big government interference with them. And there’s not a lot left to wreck once you do that.
DRISCOLL: And as you write in After America, starting a business is also increasingly anathema. Whether it’s a kid with a lemonade stand or a hardware store who wants to put out its own coffee and donuts without being over-regulated to death.
STEYN: Yeah. I think this is not small stuff. And I think there’s a problem here. Again, there’s a sort of element of delusion on the right about how important this stuff is. Because people do get annoyed about it, but again, it — they don’t — I think a lot of people don’t quite fully understand the implications of it. A society in which you need 500 dollars worth of permits to put a lemonade stand on your lawn is not a free society.
You could have the Second Amendment. I mean, a lot of people when I mentioned — I think it was on Rush I mentioned the lemonade — like, half a dozen lemonade stand stories from around the country. And a couple guys e-mailed me and said oh, this isn’t important stuff, Steyn, you shouldn’t be talking about this. We’ve got the Second Amendment, so nobody’s going to do all the — you know, nobody’s going to come and take away our freedoms.
That’s all very well, but you could — you can easily wind up in a situation where you still have the Second Amendment and every other freedom has been lost. A society in which you cannot legally sell lemonade in your front yard is not a free society. A society — you mentioned the hardware store. A society in which a hardware store in Ventura County, California cannot put out complimentary coffee and donuts for its customers is not a free society.
And at some point people have to get real about this. I think this is the way — this is one of the reasons, by the way, where the sort of codification of the U.S. Constitution actually gets in the way of looking at things clearly. Because clearly what’s happened over the course of the last eighty years is that successive governments at the national level, but also at the state and county level, have ridden a coach and horses through the principles of the U.S. Constitution. But because it’s still there on a piece of paper that some guy put down on parchment with ink and quill feather and it’s actually written down, people still think that it’s there and it’s effective even though eighty years of big government expansion has basically driven a coach and horses through it.
It’s up to each citizen to grab the control stick and yank back to pull America out of a power dive. Vote as if your life depends upon it — it does.
Our elites are like the pilots of Air France Flight 447, who stalled their aircraft 35,000 ft into the Atlantic, killing everyone.
Well, Technically, the problem with flight 447 is that one of the co pilots WAS yanking back on the stick the whole time. But that’s the difference between a stall and a power dive.
Just as one is either pregnant or not pregnant, one is either a friend of Free Speech or an enemy of Free Speech. There is no in between. There never has been and there never can be. Anyone who does not understand this, knows nothing about free speech.
With his war on constitutionally protected Free Speech and his pushing Americans to submit to Shariah, Obama is guilty of high treason and so are the Joint Chiefs. May Justice find them and may Mercy scorn them. Under it’s current traitorous rat b-astard generals, our own military is now America’s enemy.
It’s simply all a drive on the part of Muslims, with their allies Obama and Hillary and our traitorous Generals, to take away the basic constitutional rights of Americans. No wonder Jefferson was against standing armies, and this one doesn’t even have the “free spirit” of any non careerist “Citizen Soldier” draftees like WWII’s Army had actually in the majority. The most important right we have is Freedom of Speech. If we lose that, all the others will go and sooner than later. If we lose Freedom of Speech to Islam, we have surrendered on bended knee to Islam and Mohammad and OBL and the Founding Fathers wouldn’t even want to admit that we are their descendants. Even the French wouldn’t want to claims us.
As part of his entreaty for the passage of the Resolution 16/18, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Turkish Muslim head of the OIC, issued a veiled threat implying that the failure to act against religious “hate speech” would result in acts of Islamic terrorism. It appears that the overriding purpose of the resolution is to limit and criminalize criticism of Islam. The resolution also would place the blame for terrorist attacks on its victims for their non-compliance with Islamic doctrine, or sharia, which prohibits criticism of Islam under threat of death.
There were no movies and there was no internet back when a real American President, and one with a brain and a clue, said this: “Muhammad declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion against all the rest of mankind.” -John Quincy Adams
This is an act of war for subjugation against God, Western Civilization, the Founding Fathers and all of true Humanity. I purpose Resolution Crusader 2/1: no American military forces will be in a Muslim nation unless they level at least one mosque per day per battalion at the minimum. Marines are expected to level at least two. If any Muslims kill any non-Muslims for “Insulting Islam”, not only will the “insulters” be held completely blameless, 100 Mosques will be leveled in the nation of each of the Muslim attacker’s birth. If the nation of their birth can not be determined, a Muslim nation will be selected by lot. It is further resolved that the birthday’s of Pope Urban II, Charles Martel and Ritter Johann von Österreich will be declared American National Holidays.
So should be June 28.
Thanks for this link. Bookmarked for future use. ‘Excelsior’, to you and yours.
That was also Herrnstein and Murray’s fear, as expressed in their book The Bell Curve. It would seem that there’s more than one road to “the hacienda on the hill.”
We have a long, hard road to travel, if we truly want to save this country.
Oh the irony, the irony! The islamist world comes to the point of assembling a caliphate, giving us a real target, and we can’t afford to go to war with them cause we’re broke. We spent all our money, strike that, we threw all our money down the welfare rat hole.
Fantastic stuff on our financial cliff. Enjoyed your the stuff at the end on Britain.
I read a HuffPo piece blaming, entirely, the British for what’s going on in Bahrain with its Saudi tribal government. As though drawing lines on a map controls the actions of every subsequent human. The author denied there is sectarian violence, all while attacking the Sunni leaders of Bahrain, being an Iranian-derived Shia Bahraini himself. Because mostly in the Middle East the dominant sect or tribe is kind to the minority sect apparently.
The Left needs to massively update their reflexive blame generator.
Just a WAG, trillions of oil dollars spent in part on radicalizing Muslims worldwide from places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, the main antagonists in the Sunni-Shia civil war as well, could be a factor. Of course the author hates America for supporting the Saudi regime. And his sycophants chime in with the usual blame America for the base in the South of Bahrain crap. But it’s hard for me to imagine a nation (SA) which is Wahhabi Muslim except in the East where it’s Shia coming up with a progressive Left internationalist in favor of gay rights.
So maybe it’s time to stop knocking off governments (not counting Iran, little conspiracy to genocide there) to see what happens. I think there might be some bipartisan consensus.
In terms of colonialism generally, the success of former British colonies, as opposed to say French, speaks for itself. Pretty sure somehow that’s racist or colonialist or something.
I bought and read “After America” last year. I found it to be a typical Mark Steyn blend of humor and a depressing outlook. This year I keep getting daily reminders of the depressing outlook I found in the book. It is “Empty Chair Monday” and we have to get those chairs out with stupid slogans to get the attention of stupid people so that we can get those stupid people to vote against Obama so that we can have at least some hope for change. Kind of depressing, I know, but we have to defeat the Fascist/Communist in our White House or we will never get a chance to fix this mess. I have no delusions about the ability of Romney to fix or understand the gravity of the situation, but I still have hope that he will slow the spread of the nanny state enough to allow for a little optimism. Public sector unions have to be destroyed first and there is no chance for that with a public sector labor union lackey as our President. ABO2012
I think Mark has nailed it, but I fear it is already too late. As he noted, too many people are willing to say give me my welfare and foodstamps, and you will get my vote. The last 40 years of indoctrination by the liberals in control of education and the media have removed the stigma of dependency. I fear it will be Mad Max on I95 before I slip this mortal coil, and I’m only 47.
Very scary possibility that as Mark says half the world does not understand.
I feel I’m in the game so to speak but I’m very concerned about my kid’s futures.
We have far too much PC thinking and zero leadership that wants to put this touchy feely garbage in the box and go back to common sense.
Of course in Bahrain it’s the Shia who are the majority dominated by the Sunni minority. I’m so used to saying minority for oppression. The point about the dominant sect consistently abusing the sect or tribe out of power is still good. Though mostly ignored by the media, the Shia in Iraq have been squeezing out the Sunni and three Sunni provinces have called for independence and self-governance. Which sounds good, but really just means Balkanization and further conflict.
Soyuz Spacecraft Carrying Russian-US Crew Headed Back to Earth by Mike Wall, Date: 16 September 2012
http://www.space.com/17612-soyuz-spacecraft-undocks-space-station.html
I’ve said this more than once, and that is it won’t be Obama who destroys America, it will be the people of this country who choose our destiny who will destroy it. It is shocking to me that there are so many people who will choose LITERALLY the worst president who has ever breathed (from ANY country), and that the media will turn themselves inside-out for this empty-suited moron. Obama is who he is. He is a man on a mission, and the American people either haven’t got the intestinal fortitude, the spiritual discernment, or mental capacity to know when the worst possible man is sitting in the White House, and he’s laughing at them. If Obama ruins us, it will be the fault of WE THE PEOPLE.
#11
Your comment here is the most intelligent one I have seen on PJM in a long time. You are exactly right and the most important words you used were “spiritual discernment, or mental capacity”. Add to that the total loss of the work ethic and of any usable skills by a large portion of our populace. That element is actually voting their interests and their interests are bound up in welfare, socialized medicine, rental assistance and food stamps. And, the banks and corporations are really no different. They can afford to buy legislators to help keep them on the dole. The question is; what happens when the money either runs out or the dollar becomes worthless.
The American people have been spoilt for a very long time. It may well take total economic collapse ala Argentina 2001, Zimbabwe, Weimar to burn away the “entitlement mentality” and get “reality” back into their lives.
4 more years will put that to the test. Got gold?…
If we don’t get our national debt under control, it won’t be long before we end up using dollar bills as toilet paper.
It is more than probable that Mark Steyn has accurately recorded current events but is too pessimistic in his analysis of them. He must assume that if the social and economic order are generally upset that the motivations of the majority are dubious or would be ineffective. Its one thing if his crystal ball can’t see how it would play out. I can’t do that either. Its another thing to assume, in the U.S. at least, an ossification or paralysis of the people.
A collapse of the present order might be the only path to renewal. It wouldn’t be the first time in human history.
I think Mark Steyn is too optimistic. We are in even worse shape than he thinks because people are even more depraved and degenerate and reprobate than we can understand. I think that the carcasses of significantly more than half the world’s population must be left to fall in the wilderness before the tiny remnant can make a go of it. But God is able, even when we are not.
EPIC Prevails in Mobile Body Scanner FOIA Case
http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanners/mobile_body_scanners/default.html
I don’t know about ‘isolationist’, but the US can certainly stop being ‘interventionist’, and spending all the blood and treasure that requires so the rest of the ungrateful world can free-ride on our military’s back. America spends tremendous sums to guarantee freedom of the seas, international trade, and especially access to oil. If we’re not extracting a tribute in some form to pay for that, then we’re getting fleeced, and borrowing money to do it.
The US military should be wound down to 50% of its current size, and the nuclear arsenal expanded. Our defenses should be adequate to protect the US from invading enemies, but let the world pay for its own stability. And if there’s any existential threats abroad that develop, nuke ‘em.