3 Positive Trends That Might Transform Our Country for the Better In the Next 2 Years
Conservative at work!
So last week, in what was perhaps a moment of madness, I posted a request on my Facebook page: Tell me your political predictions for the year. Among the more restrained answers: “Hyperinflation,” “Civil War,” “financial collapse,” “terribly awful things.”
Optimist though I am, I can’t help feeling there’s something to this downhearted consensus. After living through the most peaceful and prosperous half century that any nation has ever experienced in the history of humankind, it seems impossible to believe we would re-elect a mediocre reactionary out to “fundamentally transform” our success into failure. But we did, and that’s — well, let’s call it “less than cheering.”
On the other hand…
One of the central weaknesses of radicalism is that radicals seem to lose track of the causes and foundations of the things even they value. They don’t understand that peace is always and everywhere the end result of superior firepower, improved health the result of greater wealth, wealth the result of hard-headed and often greedy business dealing, and liberty deeply linked to a specific concept of man’s relationship to God. They never consider that it may at least be questionable whether the cornerstone can be removed without the structure toppling over.
Conversely, one of the central weaknesses of conservatism is that conservatives see all too clearly how every good thing we have is linked to everything else. They can trace in a moment how any change in the system might lead to disaster. Expand the definition of marriage and civilization falls. Raise taxes and end up in chains. Allow women to vote and government will become an all-embracing, over-protective mother state infantilizing the population. Okay, maybe that last one’s true, but you see what I’m getting at.
So in the interest of letting a little light into the room, and with a full realization that our president is doing a bad job, the congress incapable of stopping him and the media protecting him with coverups and lies, let me list three positive trends that might transform our country for the better in the next two years.
1. Fracking.
As I’ve said before, Obama and the EPA will ultimately be splatter on the windshield of this progress. There’s energy in them thar hills and eventually we’re going to get at it, whether these luddite environmental knuckleheads like it or not. That means wealth, energy independence, jobs, power and a reboot of Dallas. Obama may be choosing decline but the rest of the country may well choose prosperity and growth in spite of him.
2. Federalism.
Around the country, conservative governors are taking action that could galvanize reform nationwide. Right to work laws, state budget cuts, reduced property taxes and creative approaches to education. As prosperity follows these practices — and abandons California and Illinois and other lagging states — they will gain credence with the general population and make political stars of the governors who supported them.
3. Reality is on our side.
When I call Obama a reactionary, what I mean is that he adheres to a grievance-based, socialist ideology he learned in college from professors who were probably old even then. As these academics die and go to hell for all eternity, up-and-comers may begin to notice that the poor suffer under left-wing programs and rise under the free market, that education improves under conservative guidance and gets worse under liberals, and that big business actually gets more entrenched and powerful under the left while the right helps the little guy thrive. That, after all, will be the off-beat, radical position, and academics love to be off-beat and radical as long as everyone around them is being off-beat and radical too. A new generation is already on the rise that understands entitlements are unsustainable and that freedom works. It won’t be long at all before we begin to hear their voices in the mainstream. I hope.
Look, I’m not exactly sanguine. Our republic has gone past the 200-year limit for republics. Islamist fundamentalists are on the march — and history shows religious fundamentalism is never a good thing for anyone. The free market is unfairly in disrepute and the family disastrously in decline. Non-fundamentalist religion is corrupt where there’s any religion at all and atheism is massively destructive whenever it takes over the majority. Things, in other words, are almost as bad as they always are.
But while there are cycles and phases in history — and while everything made by mortals surely dies — modernity has shown itself full of unique moments and last minute rescues. I think of New York City before Giuliani; America before Reagan. Things can look pretty damn dark before the sun comes over the hill.
So really the only question is: you want to grumble and despair or start pushing the sun up the hill? That’s what I figured. Start pushing.
*****
Image courtesy shutterstock / style_TTT
Cross-posted from Klavan on the Culture: “Why So Serious? Is Conservative Despair Justified?”
Previously from Andrew Klavan at PJ Lifestyle:
Sorry, Mr. Klavan, we’re not going to see any sunshine until the storm has passed.
Your problem is that you seen to have forgotten the story about Pollyanna…who had to endure the storm before things got better, for her and for everyone around her.
You cannot escape the storm, Mr. Klavan. You cannot hide from it. You cannot run from it. There is no sanctuary or protection against that storm.
Afterwards, things get better. Much, much better for freedom-loving fools. But, it won’t be the same world you’ve lived in for your entire life. Complacency and wistful dreams will have no part in that new world.
ref:
“Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A Vision of the Future,” by Colonel Kevin Benson, USA (ret), 2012.
“Of Alarms, Militias and Destiny” by Bob Owens.
“Dear Mr. Security Agent” by Matt Bracken.
With all due respect:
1. Fracking. Obama has always opposed it, because it leads to American power and prosperity. And it is in those nasty Flyover Country states. He is consolidating power. Once that happens, fracking will become illegal.
2. Federalism. He is consolidating power. Once that happens, Federalism can be crushed with Executive Orders, regulatory decrees, and financial strings attached to everything. Blue states are now Satrapys. That will spread, and the Institutional Republicans will cheer it.
3. Reality is on our side. As far as how things really work, and cause and effect, yes. However, there is another reality. The normal state of mankind throughout its history has been poverty for the masses and tyranny. With the exception of about 1 1/2 generations in Athens long ago [and that being in an economy dependent on slavery] and a bit over 200 years here; consent of the governed has not been a factor. It is less and less of a factor now. Tyrants are the norm, and we are returning to the historical norm. There is a slim chance that liberty can be prolonged for one more generation; but that chance is not based on faith that the trends favor us.
We will have to become Americans again, and have another “Merriam’s Corner moment”. And what happens after that moment is neither sure, nor easy. The latter point being repellent to most of the people.
Subotai Bahadur
Yeah, we should all remember Bush’s re-election in 2004 did not signify the ascendency of a permanent center-right block in the US. (Not that I am comparing Bush to Obama.)
Now that their 2012 “Year Of Romney Hate” is over some of my more honest Leftist friends are starting to realize how putrid Obama’s policies really are. They’re saying, “you know we really need to start pushing him more.” I will be interested to see what happens when they get the same middle finger response that the rest of us do.
Sure, the sun could be just over the horizon – or things could be about to go completely black.
Are we on the verge of a new sunrise, or a sunset?
Hopefully it will be a new sunrise, but I wouldn’t put money down that we aren’t about to go the way of the old Roman Empire and lead the world into a new dark ages….
Dunno.
1. Fracking. It’s fairly expensive. It’s nowhere near as cheap the days when you could just drill a hole and the stuff would come squirting out under its own initiative.
2. Federalism. Maybe. In time, we may look back on Justice Robert’s Arizona immigration decision as a BIGGER abomination than his obamacare decision. He set state’s rights back a long ways. Colorado’s new marijuana law may clarify the issue soon.
3. Reality. The leftist brain is immune to reality as a penguin is immune to cold. They have convinced themselves that their ability to destroy fragile institutions is proof of they can build better ones. Reality will crush their grandiose schemes, but, like arguing with an amnesiac, they’ll never realize it.
We do know the tools of tryanny, and these tools are almost perfectly countered by the Bill of Rights. We’ll need to preserve knowledge of the bill of rights in the dark days ahead.
“…radicals seem to lose track of the causes and foundations of the things even they value.”
Old radicals do. But before that happens, they usually manage to raise up a new generation of fresh, energetic, and stupid young radicals – people who will carry on the “struggle” because they don’t know any better.
What to do about that?
Just to address federalism…
The problem there is that most states are effectively welfare recipients, often because OF welfare recipients. This holds for many red states as well, particularly those in the South. If governors resist too much, Obama can withhold welfare and food stamp payments if he wants violence in the streets, or just Social Security if he wants old people whining in the streets. The same goes for holding up the Post Office, road funds, etc.
Now, if the Republican governors can tough it out, and honestly many have not and have gone back on pledges not to set up Obamacare exchanges, so there is no guarantee they will stand fast. That is to say instead of using the last funds to deport welfare recipients to blue states and attracting people looking for work, to start businesses or farms and the like that they would give Obama what he wants to keep the free money flowing.
There are plenty of other things Obama could do from cancelling contracts with companies in those states to flooding those states with federal inspectors to rip apart businesses, farms, hospitals, etc.
270 million guns in private hands, and increaing
Sorry but I think all this is wishful thinking unless Conservatives begin fighting back at all levels. First conservatives should organize and fund journalists to investigate and report on all the issues that the current administration has whitewashed. Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the massive voter fraud are just a sample. The Conservatives need a news channel which answers the propaganda of msnbcnews. Conservative politicians need to get energized and bring the message to the American people that the country is going bankrupt. Being politically correct is a losing formula. All Americans appreciate a winner. It is time Conservatives took off the gloves and started actin like one.
well, what are upstate new yorkers, oklahomans, and south dakota types like? I’m asking, I don’t know, it’s a real question. Oil is an extraction resource, not a manufacturing resource, so societies that rely on it become more themselves, and not necessarily more Swiss. Oil bankrolled Pennsylvania. California, Oklahoma, Texas. Two are liberal, two are conservative.
Oil bankrolled Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Nigeria. Saudi is exports religion, Iceland exports Ikea-type stuff, Nigeria exports email spam.
Federalism. I don’t know why anyone isn’t pointing out this is about like the fights over property law, as we settled the West. The East Coast had this cramped vision of everything registered through Washington, DC, while the people on the ground created what they thought were fair and decent laws. Really- Hernando de Soto- The Mystery of Capital- reproduces land contracts, and mining contracts, drawn up by California gold miners. California land use laws, based on these miners’ laws became how W,DC handled property, eventually. This is just a different type of property- privacy property, information property, earnings property.
What are Upstate New Yorkers like? Easy answer, it depends.
We are very much the tail wagged by the hundred pound dog that is New York City, so it really doesn’t matter that much what we want. Some, mainly in the larger cities, go along and get along quite well. After all, one in seven is a government employee.
The rest of us pay our taxes and wait to escape to a better place.
You have to be a Mario Cuomo level of antagonistic failure to lose a statewide election with a D after your name in this state. Like 1970s era Detroit automobiles showed us, nothing good comes with no competition.
That’s what Upstate New Yorkers are like.
What you say is true of many places. In Virginia, we used to be a pretty solid Red State. But then as DC grew, the government leeches swarmed into several Northern Virginia counties and Hampton Roads. Since they we’ve shifted left. Even where I in the southern part of the state, most of the people in this middle class neighborhood are government workers now, replacing the retired folks who were hear and moved out.
I’m wondering though: do upstaters get plundered taxwise to help support NYC and the bedroom communities? we do in Virginia. The leeches are demanding all kinds of new roads but don’t want to pay locally higher gasoline taxes or tolls. So they are plundering the road budget for the state which means roads in counties and small towns are crumbling while they get new free roads.
Then there’s Birmingham, Alabama. Google that city and the sewer fiasco. Simply put it is one of the largest municipal failures in US history. Naturally that Democrat stronghold is trying to get the rest of the state to bail it out.