Mosque monotony
I wrote this today for the NRO Corner, though we are all sick and tired of Imam Rauf and his Deepak Chopra routine:
‘Islam Idiots’?
August 26, 2010 11:17 A.M.
By Victor Davis Hanson
One might understand why Newsweek recently sold for a dollar and apparently went the way of Harper’s from David A. Graham’s “The Islam Idiots.” As a self-proclaimed nuanced expert on Islam, he bashes conservative critics of the Ground Zero mosque project (among them Andy McCarthy and me) while trying, in would-be courageous though actually embarrassing fashion, to contextualize the worries of more liberal opponents of the location — but never quite fathoms why 70 percent of the American people, among them such famed reactionaries as Sen. Harry Reid and Howard Dean, doubt the wisdom of Mr. Rauf’s “outreach.”
In subtle fashion, Graham calls me a “mosque basher” (notice the demagoguery — by opposing the choice of location for a particular mosque one becomes a mosque basher) and criticizes me for calling Mr. Rauf a “self-described Sufi.” Set aside the fact that we were told the Ground Zero mosque was not to be a mosque but a sort of Islamic complex (in politically correct calumny, therefore, I suppose I should be called a “complex basher”). One has good cause to wonder about Mr. Rauf’s credentials as a tolerant healer in the genuine Sufi tradition. I used the adjective “self-described” in the context of Rauf’s disturbing and contradictory proclamations. His public persona, for example, keeps morphing as he reinvents his message to better market his wares — so his book was reissued in paperback as What’s Right with Islam Is Right with America rather than the original What’s Right with Islam. Cordoba House suddenly became Park51 when the public caught on that medieval Cordoba, despite the presidential myth-making of the Cairo Speech, was not quite Dubai and, disturbingly, seemed to resonate a little too much with the “O al-Andalus” crowd. The American Sufi Muslim Association is now the American Society for Muslim Advancement. And so on.
And while Rauf the contemplative Sufi philosopher has a disturbing record of contextualizing 9/11, bin Laden, and Hamas, he has no need of nuance when it comes to America. He can be quite forthright in criticizing the United States for its perceived and apparently singular global transgressions — though he is quiet about far greater Russian and Chinese anti-Muslim violence. He claims he is for free expression, even when it so obviously offends tens of millions of Americans; but he has no problem criticizing the Danish cartoonists for their supposedly unnecessary and gratuitously offensive drawings. In a variety of ways, he has praised the Iranian Revolution, whose end result is horrific violence against women, homosexuals, democrats, and dissidents of any stripe, whether novelists abroad or reformers at home. Others have pointed out that there is no reason to believe the ecumenical Ground Zero Islamic complex will introduce gender or sexual parity into its protocols in the American tradition that Rauf keeps invoking.
In short, Imam Rauf remains what he always strove to be, a brilliant marketeer (in the American therapeutic Tony Robbins/Deepak Chopra tradition) who is able to adopt personas, symbols, and phraseology that cover his flank in the radical Islamic world while offering “bridge building” rhetoric to captivate self-righteous naïfs like Graham — in the process creating quite a lot of publicity for himself, and perhaps a multimillion-dollar base of operations. One can foresee the hype to come as the tour buses tack onto their routes the Park51 Islamic complex. I’m sure copies of What’s Right with Islam Is Right with America will be on sale in the lobby.
Dr. Hanson:
As usual, your diognosis and prescription are exactly correct. However, how do the American people go about removing the corrupt barbarians at the gate of power so that the medicine can be delivered to the patient?
Time is running out for those of us who are alive today.
Suggestion from many of your loyal essayists and commenters would take many years to implement even if possible.
Someone has to smash down the well guarded fortress in Washington D.C. Who is going to do it? When is the movement going to start to get it done?
The “conservative” John McCain is going back to renew the party with more consumables. Where’s the hope? He is the “conservative” icon, the pork barrel denier and the ultimate inside deal maker and crony of socialists and media titans. Did he not just buy all of Fox News?
Who might get the job done?
Victor Davis Hanson for President in 2012?
Dr. Hanson — You’ve said as much yourself — it was demographics that doomed Rome.
In 1940, the US Census counted the population as 89% White, 10% Black, and 1% everything else. America was astonishingly White, and that is why we could sustain half a million dead (almost all of them White). Now, America is 65% White, and Mexico is right across the border. Modern telecommunications, media, and the rest means a Mexican immigrant, legal or not, never really leaves Mexico once he crosses the border.
More to the point, enlistment rates and casualty rates show that the people willing to fight and die for America, today, are almost entirely White. A few Hispanics and Blacks will do so, and have done so, but the casualty list and particularly those at “the tip of the spear” are nearly all White.
It is not just the military. Technological progress, from the Wright Brothers, to Thomas Edison, to Philo T. Farnsworth, to the Lockheed Skunkworks, to Apple Computer, have been the product of a group of people nearly all White. It takes a peculiar combination of independence, willingness to look a fool, gambling, greed, and vision to create a Wright Flyer or Light Bulb or working TV set. Much less build a company to fully exploit the creation.
From technology and progress to the military, TRUST is all. Simply put, humans are not evolved to trust much across ethnic and linguistic lines. Putnam’s work on diversity and trust shows people “hunker down” and trust less, even among themselves. We seem to work OK, if given the right political/cultural/social structure (as you wrote in “Culture and Carnage” one of my favorites), IF we have what can be described as “very distant cousins” but not folks who don’t look or talk even remotely like ourselves and our friends.
We have in history a LONG, long history of “diverse” and multicultural, multi-racial regimes, empires, and so on. They are characterized by: Oligarchical elites (China under the Emperors, Russia under the Czars, the late Roman Empire in the West, various Caliphates, the Ottoman Empire), various privileged minorities the subject of regular purges by the impoverished masses, impoverished masses who get poorer every year, either decay and constant surrender to more organized enemies, or constant aggression to provide by conquest what cannot be provided by trade and native industry.
Mexican immigrants, legal or not, do not assimilate very much. All available data show higher levels of illegitimacy (the poverty factory) in the third generation, lower levels of literacy, lower levels of economic achievement, compared to third generation immigrants from other places (Asia, Europe). Mexicans certainly have not produced any appreciable amounts of wealth even unto the fourth generation. Maybe magically they will change, real soon now. I have not seen any explanation of why.
No. America IS over. We lack the will, to conquer and crush the elites and enforce the borders, and stop population replacement. So we in turn who are not Mexican will be the minority (and surely discriminated against). Some might argue this is justice for America’s past “sins” and that of White folk in general. I don’t subscribe to it, but I’ve heard it a lot. Shrug. Regardless, America will resemble mostly Mexico, and be about as American as the Western Roman provinces were Roman, in 560 AD.
Demography is destiny. White America had children at about half the replacement rate, and Mexican immigrants have them at around 3-4 per woman. You can’t own the future if you don’t show up for it. Rome ceased being Roman when there were not enough Romans to hold the place. America is rapidly ceasing to be America, because there are not enough guys who were the kind of Americans who went to certain death at Midway, Waldron, Moore, Evans, the other brave men of Torpedo 8. Those names are just vanishing. Replaced by folks from Mexico who don’t know or care about what they did. Who don’t want to know about what they did. Who would not care if you told them.
Because they are not American. Any more than Visigoths and Vandals were Romans.
This is sad. But true. America is just gone. It is no more coming back than the Roman Empire could come back by the mid 300′s.
Wow. What a post. And not something I’ve heard before.
This is a good night for an extra nightcap.
Come on. Doctor Hanson crafted you a thoughtful three page blog entry and you thank him with “America IS over?” If you’re the fan you claim to be, you should be ashamed of yourself. You need to go back and re-read his work.
And what the hell is “White America?” Have you ever read that bizarre term in this blog? Hanson writes about “integration, assimilation, and intermarriage” being the solution for America’s immigration crisis with Mexico (once the border is sealed). Does that sound like a man who believes in something you call “White America?”
Hanson’s primary concern is Western Civilization, Western Culture, NOT Race. In fact, Hanson famously rejects ANY racial explanations for the dominance of Western Culture
And you should, too.
Unfortunately, when the Department of Justice announces to employees that they will not prosecute voting rights cases where the defendant is non-white, where white firefighters have to sue to be considered for promotion, where every criticism of the president is met by accusations of racism, you get a backlash. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this country who feel as Whiskey does. They have been very quiet about it and often feel guilty for thinking such thoughts but, unless the constant attacks cease, the backlash is going to grow. My daughter, as a freshman at the U of Arizona, had one textbook for one of her classes. It was on “whiteness studies” and you might glance at it and the reviews to see what I am talking about.
http://www.amazon.com/Privilege-Power-Difference-Allan-Johnson/dp/0072874899
That is a mandatory text for a freshman history class. The only text except for instructor handouts.
Well, so as to not make the last hour a complete waste, here’s what I got from Amazon:
$32.53
171 pages of text
several pages of Notes – one note references approx 50 books/articles
seven pages of Resources – approx 150 authors, did notice Andrea Dworkin
Do read the one star reviews (6) – definitely in a lot of schools. Folksy, casual writing style speaking “truth to power”, that is, how “white racism” and capitalism is oppressing, well, pretty much everyone else. Other than providing the means of a “shout out” to every progressive author of the last decade, there just isn’t that much information there – about the same as a mass-market paperback of 170 pages, for $32.53 (plus taxes), and in classrooms across the nation!
So I guess that, in addition to his diversity classes, Doctor Johnson is doing OK with that capitalism thing…..
I agree too. It is culture. If you take a poor couple from central China and one from central Mexico they will both come in and work very hard. The family from China will make sure there kids get a collage education. Education has been the means of social advancement in China for a very long time. The Mexicans will be very different. The lower strata have no means of social advancement because Mexico is racially stratified. Making $12-15 bucks a hour is heaven for a Mexican peasant and your an adult at 12-13 years old. The Mexican peasant will stop investing in his children at puberty. This gives us the disaster of low graduation rates among Hispanics and gangs. The second generation Hispanic have it the most difficult, but are fine after that.
The above was only for Mexican peasants. Mexican middle class do much better and send there kids to catholic school and these do very well in our universities.
An argument I’ve had about the nut jobs that want to “take back” the Southwest from us evil European invaders. Just what is the history of the “peasants”? They were the indigenous people of Mexico, equivalent to our American Indian. Who were oppressed by, and are still treated as inferiors by their descendants? (“class?”) The Spanish invaders. Then look closely at the people that LOVE to shove their face in the camera in their protests …most show the characteristics of the Spanish bloodline. Which leads to the logical conclusion-that THEY NEVER “OWNED” THE LAND TO BEGIN WITH.
Those who don’t learn their history….
And that is exactly where Hanson has not seen the light, just like Huntington. Or perhaps he has, which is why he tries and finds surrogate solutions (a diluted genome better than none). Huntington, at long last, seems to be coming round. Clash of civilizations? Well, yeah, how do you describe it properly without reference to race? Worthless. Once you do grow up intellectually and get rid of the pejorative notions of “racism/racialism” and all the other Marxist sociology rot that has been inhaled for generations now, you will see for yourself. United States in its essence is White and Christian. E pluribus unum? The “pluribus” is just six European nations. White and Christian. Once the essence is lost, so is the country.
I’m not a racist. but it does seem a lot of people are doesn’t it ?
I have been wondering about why Whites are racists, and no other race
is…..
Michael Richards makes his point……………
Michael Richards better known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld does make a good
point.
This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his
comedy act. He makes some very interesting points…
“Someone finally said it. How many are actually paying attention to this?
There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab
Americans, etc.
And then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in
my direction. You call me ‘White boy,’ ‘Cracker,’ ‘Honkey,’ ‘Whitey,’
‘Caveman’… and that’s OK..
But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey,
Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you… so why are the
ghettos the most dangerous places to live?
You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET…. If we had WET (White Entertainment
Television), we’d be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call
us racists.
If we had White History Month, we’d be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to ‘advance’ OUR lives, we’d be
racists.
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and
then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that??
A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any color
can be in the Miss America pageant.
If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships… You
know we’d be racists.
There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US ….. Yet if
there were ‘White colleges’, that would be a racist college.
In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race
and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us
racists.
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you’re not afraid
to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer
shoots a black gang
member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a
threat to society, you
call him a racist.
I am proud… But you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists??
Let’s see which of you are
proud enough to speak about this with others. I sadly don’t think many will. That’s why we have LOST most of OUR
RIGHTS in this country.
We won’t stand up for ourselves!
BE PROUD TO BE WHITE!
It’s not a crime YET…. but getting very close!” – Michael Richards
Whiskey,
You are right that trust is a necessary element of a free but law-abiding society. However, I believe you are wrong to be focusing on the “white” aspect of it as the basis of that trust. Being “white” is not necessary and not required to be law abiding, and to be free. America was not a race but a creed, and that was part of the “exceptionalism”. Cuban-Americans, for example, are productive, enthusiastic and loyal citizens in the way illegals from Mexico are not. This is not due to the language or the “whiteness” of people from Cuba v.s. Mexico.
Dr. Hanson,
I believe you are right – there is hope. If certain steps are taken, those who are within the US can assimilate. If the right decisions are made, the educational system can be improved. The only way to get there, however, is for the citizens to be educated and to know the truth. I feel that the conservatives not just in America but in the West in general are failing not just because they fail to properly counter the left on one issue or another, but because they fail to present an alternative compelling vision.
On the issue of immigration specifically, I think the alternative vision should include more immigration, not less, but the right kind of immigration. One of the hard questions is how to include the American “creed” into the basic citizenship, immigration policy, and the overall strategy for the future. Many of the problems you are facing are due to incorrect government policy, and including even more government policy to fix these (i.e. even more government micromanagement of immigration to ensure loyalty, more border enforcement, etc) might not help. Some may oppose immigrants on the feeling that the more immigrants come, the less the of the freebies pie will be left-over for them (including welfare, healthcare etc). The solution to that is not to offer any freebies in the beginning except through charity and not to allow illegal immigrants (who by definition do not pay income taxes to counter any drains on the government’s budget). In fact, if there were no freebies at all, even for citizens, the immigrants would by definition only be coming for the economic opportunity i.e. for jobs, and every immigrant would be a net benefit to the economy & the budget. Some feel that their low-paying jobs are being taken by below-minimum wage illegal jobs. If the illegals are legalized, they will have to quit their below-minimum wage, and if nothing else changes the system will require more illegals to fill their jobs. But the original sin here is having a minimum wage to begin with – there are plenty of people (especially now) who would be willing to work for a bit less, if it was legal. Even most conservatives don’t quite understand that the minimum wage doesn’t raise anybody’s salary – it raises the average wages by simply eliminating the legal jobs for the poor, the immigrants & the young – making them dependent on welfare, illegal jobs or crime. Thus eliminating welfare programs would not make sense without first eliminating the minimum wage.
I feel that you should have no limits at all to immigration of those who are young, hard-working, easily employable, English-speaking, with no criminal record, and generally accepting of the American creed. After my undergrad in Canada, I did my MBA in the US a few years ago, and at the time I would have stayed if possible. But I came back to Canada because it was hard to get work sponsorship – it boggles the mind that you don’t just hand out green cards to people like me.
Getting back to the vision, it doesn’t need to be reinvented: it’s in the founding documents of your nation, and the tea party is right to focus on getting back to the constitution. The constitution is not a 1000-page legalese mumbo-jumbo – it is short, simple and powerful, and it is meant to be read by the people.
…. This is sad. But true. America is just gone ….
Thank you, Teddy ‘Chappaquiddick’ Kennedy and the “Democrats” post-1965 “immigration policy.” (AKA the importation of the foreign army by way of which the treasonous basta*ds are defeating us from within) For as at least one Roman knew: ‘A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor—he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation—he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city—he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague’ — Marcus Tullius Cicero – 42BC
The 1965 immigration policy changes were not meant to de-whiten the country, but to account for the lack of “hustle” that would afflict the urban poor following the wholesale adoption of that same year’s “Great Society” programs. Besides even if the quotas still favored Europeans after 1965, Eastern Europeans would simply be stopped at the exits and Western Europeans did enjoy those halcyon days of socialism, not knowing better of course.
America is not over. Skin color means squat, and anyway the biggest enemies of this nation are whites from Massachusetts and Connecticut, not Mexicans from El Paso or blacks from Mississippi.
America is an idea articulated in the Declaration of Independence. The only good thing about Obama is that now blacks — after two generations of destructive propaganda and premeditated attempts to destroy their souls — now recognize this applies to them. You still have your thug wannabees but in my day-to-day dealings with blacks there is a whole lot less of them with chips on their shoulders and they are now far more willing to listen to conservative ideas than they were 20 months ago.
Frankly, I think they are closet Tea Partyers.
Wonder of wonders a black Democrat state senator just made a serious run for governor in Pa. almost entirely on a school choice platform.
Bill Lawrence – you are promoting the same degenerate, psuedo-intellectual ideals that have driven this country to the brink of ruin. I don’t like what Whiskey said, but he is on to something. Although Whiskey applies as much (if not more) opinion than fact, his argument is orders of magnitude more substantial and compelling than yours. It’s not comfortable or pleasant to stare at these realities and realize that the greatest experiment in democracy ever is probably wrapping up to a close.
HAVE WE SENT OUR BEST AND BRAVEST TO FIGHT AND DIE TO SEE OUR GREAT CITIES BE TURNED INTO WARZONES BY PARASITE SCUM? You go to East St. Louis some night and then come back and try to pull your same lame line. Do you read the news? How can you be so naive?
It just isn’t possible to maintain this same course, I wish it were not true and I hope with all my heart that I am proven wrong but as far as I am concerned we have very little left to be truly proud of. I, like Whiskey, would be really glad if other races would man-up and make honest contributions to American society. This is the only thing that might save America and it isn’t going to happen. Look up a list of black inventors – it’s a damn joke. Most of the claims made are fraudulent and dishonest, as proven by the patent records. The most legitimate and highest impact invention modern invention by a black seems to be the super-soaker, which is no more than a copyright for a mildly modified water gun. Truly sad.
Whiskey;
Your words do not go to deaf ears, nor does your insight to blind eye. A more emotionally desperate and psychologically stunning counter state to Dr. Hanson has not been written. Yes, you have countered what was to me a “Stand-up and sing the national anthem” with the prayer for the lost. Although there is some grief in your tone for the loss of “White Power” and a dire warning of the transfer of demograhic influence, I personally do think that “change” is necessary and a requirement for national growth. What has happened, IMHO, is the waking of the “sleeping giant” . . . the change that Obama so committed to bring forth, has indeed arisen. Not, mind you, in the way that Obama so wanted. A wind is blowing across this country, we are awake and we are shaking off the yoke to destruction. I am not going to cite the statistics, polls or review the evening news, only say that the future right now will be “100% American Patriot” . . . and even though the avenues to success may not be the same as before, new roads are being surveyed across a “New Frontier”. Say your morning prayer, recite the Pledge to OUR Flag, and march forth with the waves of Patriots and let them drink their coolaid as we drink OUR TEA!
Tallgrass:
“What has happened, IMHO, is the waking of the “sleeping giant” . . .”
Can you please explain how the sleeping giant is going to do what must be done if the nation as we have known it is to be preserved, Dr. Hanson’s optimism notwithstanding?
Implementation of good ideas does not come about by wishing it were so.
Who is going to order and implement a one third reduction in federal expenditures so that future generations would have the ability to manage the nation’s debt?
Who is going to bring back to our shores five million jobs that were shipped away so that goods we need and want could be produced by semislave labor around the world while so many people in this country line up for or sit idly by waiting forgovernment sponsored handouts to be delivered?
Who is going to cause the disappearance all of the intrusive and unnecessary bloated federal agencies that drain the treasury along with the bureaucrats that man them?
Who is going to tell the United Nations corruption enablers, no more? And mean it?
Putting the reins of power in the hands of republicans in November will assure us of one thing; the reins of power will be in the hands of republicans who just like the dimocrats are members of “The ruling class”, and the people be damned will continue to be the model of governance.
“The ruling class”, politicians, lobbyists media moguls, and educational establishment king makers will still have keys to the national store of created wealth, and that class is not going to give up the keys without a fight.
If we’re waiting for another O.K. Corral showdown someone had better find Wyatt Earp or Doc Holiday.
The possee made up of The American People can’t shoot straight and someone needs to step up and give them some lessons. Muy pronto.
Of course, all IMHO, and as always, I could be wrong.
One thing most people forget is that the USA consists of fifty sovereign entities that have voluntarily given some of their sovereignty to a federal entity in Washington DC. Those fifty entities (called States) can decide, if necessary, to withold their contribution to the federal entity. In short, secession is an option. I’m thinking Texas will be the first, but not the last.
I think the Visigoths and Vandals got it right eventually, particularly as it related to the Mohamedans and the exploration of a new hemisphere.
Whiskey, I can’t agree. It is about assimilation. I went to a High School that was about 50% hispanic when I attended in the 70s. If one were to walk around blindfolded I doubt you could pick the anglo from the hispanic. They also weren’t taught clap trap about how wonderful Mexico is and how awfull America is.
Most of our troubles would be fixed by a two step process. First securing boarders and making a sensible immigration policy and second, put video cameras in all class rooms all the time so that parents can see what is being taught. Oh and as part of step two end tenure.
America isn’t a color, it is a state of mind. We have let the left poison the state of mind of far too many kids who with no life experience have no defence against authority teaching them idiocy.
Whiskey:
Back in the 1940′s, 1950′s and 1960′s, Mexicans a/k//a Hispancis, Latinos, etc. were considered “whites”. It was only much later that they decided they were not actually whites but an oppressed minority entitled to various benefits available to oppressed minorities.
I disagree. In the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s there were plenty of people in California who definitely considered Mexicans and Californios of non-European descent non-white. I know this from personal and family experience.
So to recap: the Germanic tribes were an uncivilizable race who brought down Roman provinces like Hispania; therefore we should do our best to keep those awful Hispanics from outbreeding people like the Wrights (sons of Susan Koerner, a more obviously German name), and Edison (of Dutch ancestry, right next to those Deutsch). Your theories might still need some work…
Either we vote these bums out of office and elect more representatives that believe in honest work and limited government intervention, or we then get ready to hit the streets and see what happens.
As to those muslims who now want us to “accept them and their religion” where were they when all those “other radical muslims” came to kill as many Americans as possible and since then have beheaded many more, etc.?
Yea, Herodutos wrote about victors erecting “trophies” after a battle…I need to see the self-loathing Jew Bloomberg lecture me about “muslim” rights while he shakes the hand of a cab driver?
“Know your enemy as best you can…”
Dim Sum 904 East State Street
Even if “Whiskey’s” view could be disputed, on one issue he’s correct. The America I grew up in is gone. Back then we’d talk about how we’d never need an internal passport to identify yourselves, how we’d never need permission to relocate to Chicago, New York, Dallas, or wherever, But, if the border is to be controlled, and we can do it, your statement about biometric identifications probably will come true and along with that the very European idea of the internal passport, the relocation permit, the need for more control over where we are and when.
So, the America of my long ago youth is going rapidly. Yet without some kind of greater security and control over American individuals, we become something else. It would be ironic and sad is we became like Mexico or Cuba, either are real possibilities.
I don’t know if anything done by Congress and this administration can be repealed, undone, but there has to be a strong effort to do so. However, whatever is done must be enacted soon before the rot sets in too deeply. We Americans still have a strong will, at least many of us, however ten years from now, without undoing President Obama’s progressive agenda, that might become a forlorn task.
Cheers. Stay vigilant.
Dr. Hanson:
I am in agreement with virtually all that you suggest here, but may I expand on a point or two and offer one alternative suggestion?
One of the traditions that has quite literally ensured American survival is our martial tradition and the civilian skills that support it. We have always been a nation of riflemen, and despite the best efforts of the left, we continue, in significant ways, in that tradition. During and since the Cold War we have engaged in a bit of national schizophrenia over the nature of the next war. We must rely on technology (and as you so correctly observed, we have that ability). We must rely on special forces and boots on the ground. In truth, we need both, thus the necessity that we remain a nation of riflemen–and women.
But like all of our fundamental values, the values that have built and maintained the American character and nation, our current self-imagined betters are doing their best to destroy this essential skill of individual and national autonomy. With Obama and the Progressives in power, how could they possibly avoid trying to destroy the Second Amendment? I’ve been waiting and watching, and with serial Supreme Court rebukes, felt certain that the Obamites would turn to their default position: Ignore or transgress the law and make an end run through the regulatory process. And so they have as the EPA intends to ban all lead products currently used in modern ammunition. It’s an old anti-gunner ruse: If you can’t ban guns, ban the ammo. The question remains whether Americans will stop this, and every other bit of Obamite regulatory deceit and tyranny and retain the republic that Dr. Franklin was afraid we might fail to keep.
Like you, I am optimistic, particularly in this matter. With health care looming large, border enforcement becoming a more serious matter with each uptick in Mexican violence within handgun range of the border, and every other berserk, job destroying, sovereignty sapping, unconstitutional, socialist cult-of-personality Obamite desire and plot, trying to end run the Second Amendment in so blatant a manner might well be what’s needed to consign democrats to the political wilderness for a generation, which may be exactly what is needed to restore the republic.
My alternate suggestion regards your suggestion for college exit examinations. As a secondary level public school teacher I deal with such issues, local, state and federal, on a daily basis. Mandatory testing is a wonderful mechanism for producing jobs in the private educational publishing industry and for producing reams of data which public sector employees–educrats one and all–roll in like cats in catnip. But such testing is worthless for educators, who know exactly what their students are capable of accomplishing long before they take such tests. And for the public? Comparative test scores will only suggest which schools are better at gaming the system.
Back in the 1400′s when I took my undergraduate degree, the nation was in a periodic testing craze and across the nation, college education graduates had to take a series of standardized tests. I was an English major, which was and is appropriate as I was born without the math gene. Oh, I aced all of my mandatory college math courses because I am a capable scholar, but in gazing longingly at equations, I do not see the inherent beauty of the universe and envision the GUT. With this background I took the required exams and scored more highly in math than English, and by a statistically significant margin. This told me unequivocally that that I was much better at math than I thought. Yeah, you caught me. It told me that the tests were anything but accurate and revealing.
The issue is not one that can be solved, or even temporarily band aided by exit testing. Tests will not stop systemic grade inflation. They will not eliminate “studies” courses full of indoctrination and devoid of actual scholarship. They will not reduce horribly bloated administrations and beef up badly understaffed faculty in the classics and core fields of studies. They cannot fire tenured professors who haven’t worked a day since receiving tenure, nor can they fire academic frauds firmly entrenched in many faculties. They will not reverse the trend of encouraging students who are manifestly incapable of keeping their heads above water in a truly higher education environment to attend college, nor will they reverse the dumbing down of the curriculum necessary to enroll such students. They will not reduce tuition, do away with political correctness, abolish racial preferences and affirmative action, or solve any of the other contemporary problems afflicting higher education. Making people take tests is easy. Fixing the myriad problems that render too many degrees under reasonable suspicion of having less value than the paper upon which they are printed is time consuming and hard. Doing it will take much the same will, time and sacrifice that undoing the Obamite damage and rebuilding what has been reduced to rubble will take. Another stimulus will only make things worse. More testing will do the same.
We can keep the republic, but it won’t be done quickly or painlessly. And without a significant first step in November, and another in 2012, we are lost.
I received this following comment apparently written in Eastern Europe and it seems that education is your highest priority in reclaiming your republic
Part of the educational problem is your Media which misled the public, naively reliant on it for information and continues to cover up the sins of the administration.
Yes, it’s true that somehow Mr. Obama got into the Presidency. That’s a poor reflection on American voters, I agree. But consider the choices presented to us. John McCain was the NILR (next-in-line Republican) who by all rights should never have been allowed to run for the office. Too old, hot tempered, thin skinned, stubborn to a fault, poor judgement, and has the baggage of a major scandal (Keating Five). Putting him near The Football (nuclear weapons) would have been unthinkable. So given the choices I think Obama’s election was rational. Too bad the process of getting nominated is NOT rational. Otherwise we would have had choices more to our liking, eg Romney or Thompson (R) vs Cuomo or Clinton (D).
Mike …when are you going to start your own column? You aren’t a split personality of VDH are you? lol
you can find all the personalities on most school yards.
the in people
the thugs
the elitists
the NARCISSISTS
the nerds
the general population (which doesn’t fit into one of the other groups but is itself the biggest group)
well guess what …the narcissist has enlisted the elitists, the in people and the thugs and the nerds when it suits him, to do his bidding.
we are the ones on the outside, the general population.
this is a playground we don’t leave and we are going to end up as another example of failed socialism.
Interesting…there is a Mike McDaniel that has been the head of the RNC in Indiana in the past…hmmmm
Dear Kat in Indiana:
I’m not that Mike. Sorry.
The states’ legislatures are the ones who own higher education. (And we own the legislatures?) The fix would have to happen there. One improvement: simply don’t subsidize soft fields. Offer the *top* students in the soft areas some scholarships to further the discipline, but if a no-talent kid wants a degree in sociology, let her pay for it. Continue to subsidize the hard fields; if a no talent kids wants to learn chemistry, we’ll help her. As far as exit exams, do away with them in toto. The value of an institution ought to indicate the value of a degree from said institution.
This is where people think I’m insane. In my fantasy, I close down ALL primary education. When a kid hits 18 and she can pass what’s roughly a hard GED, we cut a check to the kid in an amount roughly equivalent to the cost of educating her had the schools been open. I figure around 200K. She could spend it on whatever she wants – higher education, booze, a home, a business, whatever. There would be few parents (or kids over the age 12) who didn’t value education with this arrangement.
Tests are just fine. What is lacking is what I had in University in the UK: the dreaded “External Examiner”. The purpose of the External Examiner is to mitigate the temptation for institutions to congratualte themselves on what a fine job they are doing. It stops grade inflation dead, provided only that the external examiner relationship is none too cosy.
And I have a wonderful suggestion for America’s external Examiner: Singapore. Mathematics, the sciences, and English, will be rigorously judged by Hong Kong/Singapore GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations. Unlike the English equivalents, which have seen rampant grade inflation to the point that they are now almost worthless, these Asian qualifications are sturdy indications of knowldge and skills.
Singapore and Hong Kong would like nothing better than to show us a clean pair of heels. Grade inflation won’t be a problem.
Outstanding idea!
The Financial EMPIRE that the USA created after WW11 using the wealth it accumulated in BOTH World Wars by sitting on the fence until the last possible moment and selling to BOTH sides lasted only about 65 years. One of the shortest lasting Empires in World history. Now the Financial benefit you had from your Fence Sitting has gone frittered away by countless useless Governments climaxing in the Obama SOCIALIST REGIME the most profligate debt CREATING anti wealth and anti American incompetent regimes on the Planet. You have no money to buy yourself out of this mess USA all you have is DEBT, your manufacturing base has been exported overseas and you are in hock to China for TRILLIONS. There is no way back and DEFINITELY not a hope in hell with the REGIME you have in power.
Silliness. Of course there is a way back. Just because you hate America doesn’t mean we are going away.
We came it to two wars, one that wasn’t threatening us in the least. WW II was the same until Japan had a case of the stupids followed by Hitler’s usual brilliance. Would any other country have done the same? There was no guarantee back in those days as too who was going to win whether we came in or not.
Oh, and we are getting rid of the current crop of idiots. We do it every two years. We just need to do a more complete job of it.
First of all, we need to confront the fact that we have been complicit in an episode of cultural masochism. We need to stand up to those wielding chains and whips and say “Enough!” Then we need to talk about values, and not in some wishy washy pie-in-the-sky way, but rather very concretely in our daily life. Do we value what we spend our money on, or do we spend money to buy ourselves respect and status we know we haven’t earned? Is the wagyu beef on the table really as important as sharing a more modest dinner with those who love us? Is the piece of paper from a university really as important as the love of learning and the mastery of skills? Is it worth jetting around the world when we haven’t even learned to see and appreciate what we have next door or down the road? Think of this as our homework. Is the celebrity wedding party on a private island really superior to the one prepared by aunts who make potato salad and neighbors who arrange flowers for the tables and musicians you went to school with, especially remembering that those same people will be there for you when your child is sick and your parents die?
Only when we start asking ourselves such questions will we be able to stand modestly but very firmly against our enemies and detractors. Only then will our spending reflect out needs rather than utopian visions. Only then will the immigrants who join us learn to share our values and become a part of us. Only then will the sadistic terrorists know that their efforts are futile because we are made of very tough stuff.
Thanks to the massive debt problem and Wall Street/DC corruption that was not fixed in ’09, we have passed the tipping point and are headed for a massive economic collapse. This will likely mean a Treasury default and bankrupt investment banks, the very banks who own most of the Federal Reserve banks. The Tea Party movement makes me think we can rebuild on the foundation of the Constitution, free markets, sound money and impartial taxation. The progressive stranglehold on education can be broken at the state level when the Feds are removed. The mainstream of America can and will take back the country from a discredited and weakened ruling class.
The biggest threat to America is “Learned Helplessness”. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy life-style that is reinforced and passed on generationally. It is also the keystone of the liberal paridigm.
If you look at the “poor” in America, they are composed of two mentalities: 1. Those who are defeated and have given up – content to live on the dole. and 2. Those who are poor only while the are exploiting the endless opportunities offered by America.
The latter are not a problem. They are the future.
THE STATE WE ARE IN NOW IS NOT THE RESULT OF ELECTING A FOREIGN NATIONAL TO THE OVAL OFFICE AS APATHY TO FREEDOM AND THE CONSTITUTION HAS BEEN IN PROGRESS FOR DECADES BUT TO KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THIS ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE WELL IN ADVANCE OF THE ELECTION AND STILL ELECTING HIM PUTS IN SERIOUS DOUBT OUR CONCERN/INTEREST TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL WE ARE IN.
I worry the central government (and many state governments) are broken and unfixable (because by necessity it corrupts everyone who participates). Even Reagan failed to contain government growth.
We need to connect action with result much more tightly so we can get back to the business of America. And the only way I can imagine that happening is to make all domestic governance as local as possible. Then result will be linked tightly (both in time and place) with decisions. And as long as citizens are free to “vote with their feet” it will quickly work itself out to a new equilibrium, with those favoring communitarian living centered in, say, SFO, and those local enterprise in, say, the Central Valley. And both will benefit (and suffer) from their choices.
And then I won’t have to wake up nights asking “is it time to move my business and family to a country that is demonstrably more free in practice, if not in law?”
… On the plus side … our economy is almost three times larger than China’s (which) means (every) American produces more goods and services than do three Chinese …
Um … excuse me, Sir — but, given only +/- 300 million of us and a claimed 1.3 billion Chinese (about 4.3 times as many) — doesn’t it at the very least mean that every American produces as much as do 13 Chinese?
While doing so, the average American also makes at least seven times more money than does the average Chinese.
… On the plus side … our economy is almost three times larger than China’s (which) means (every) American produces more goods and services than do three Chinese …
Um … excuse me, Sir — but, given only +/- 300 million of us and a claimed 1.3 billion Chinese (about 4.3 times as many) — doesn’t it at the very least mean that every American produces as much as do 13 Chinese?
While doing so, the average American also makes at least seven times more money than does the average Chinese.
What an article? This exclamation applies to the comments as well.
The author’s hope gives me hope, and I shall continue to hope that he is correct. Whiskey, you will understand if I start by saying that I wish I could know for sure that you are wrong, but I can’t.
I loathe saying though, that it is not only America that is facing the problem. England has but had it; what is left for them is the Wailing Wall because they have already surrendered. That is just the start of my list but I will let the rest be.
What we have is nothing less than a War; but so many still don’t see it. It is an insidious but sure movement to destroy your most basic values; to make you repent for sins that you have not committed; it is a War with no hardware that you can shoot back at. It is a War to hand over your mindset. You are not supposed to believe in where you come from.
Mr. Hanson you are still young. This ole guy was seventy the other day. I may therefore, miss the era that Whiskey fears but I hope that all the young ones will continue the resistance during my remaining time out here.
Darn, we have to fight this Monster.
Very well said Ike. We are fighting a group of people who seem to have declared war on truth, logic, common sense….With them up is down, black is white, the sky is green….But it is very hard to get people to accept that the enemy is in the house next door. God help us.
Dr. Hanson: please forgive the correction… each American would only be as productive as three Chinese only if the labor force were roughly equivalent in number.
Our economy is three times China’s with a much smaller population. On a per capita basis we produce 7 times the Chinese.
“Our parents and grandparents” gave us the ponzi scheme known as social security (FDR), and stole from us all our working lives, Victor. “Our parents and grandparents” allowed the unionization of government workers (under Kennedy iirc) which corruption now places and unbearable burden on our finances. “Our parents and grandparents” voted for the politicians who passed law on top of law and regulation on top of regulation which is killing our economy (the EPA was implemented in 1970 under Nixon). It Johnson who pushed the “great society” legislation which destroyed the black family. The last President to actually do something significant about illegal immigration was Eisenhower (Operation Wetback). I hope you get my point. Our parents were progressive corporatists (and I mean that in the precise political science definition), they threw out the classical liberal tradition before the boomer generation was born. Another example, does the Gun Control Act of 1968 square with the 2nd Amendment? No it does not. We’re going to have to be greater than the “greatest generation” just to clean up the mess they left us.
Yeah many other good things got done on their watch, and I don’t minimize their challenges. Just skip the hagiography, OK? A return to American values IS possible, desirable and necessary. We’ll just have to get back to values held before our parents generation to do so. Federalism, originalism, and the classical liberal tradition all point the way back to an America faithful to our roots and not bent and twisted by the Wilsonian’s progressive ideology.
I agree, all our institutions need to go up for review and reverse the progressive blight of the last 80 years.
RKV
“We’ll just have to get back to values held before our parents generation to do so.”
How do “we” do so?
‘“Our parents and grandparents” gave us the ponzi scheme known as social security (FDR), and stole from us all our working lives, Victor.’
Tell that to the millions of elderly Americans for whom Social Security is their main source of income.
Here, permit me:
Millions of elderly Americans for whom Social Security is your main source of income, you gave us the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security and stole from us all our working lives.
Oh, yes … and TO THE EXTENT that you cheerlead for it and TO THE EXTENT that you’ve refused to countenance its reform, I don’t care what beach you stormed in the forties: cat food’s too good for you.
Joseph,
What if our parents and grandparents had established private savings and investments? How much would they have today for their retirement if all the money they paid into SS/Medicare had instead been privately invested/saved? What is the historic return on SS? 1% 2%? What is the historic return on other investments? Bonds? Savings? I’m talking about sensible, managed savings and investment portfolios that historically provide a solid 5-8% return, not putting the money in high risk investments in the Wall Street casino. (Those billions would also have been invested in the productive economy, producing more wealth and JOBS). Yes, some people would squander their money, but that’s where private charity comes in. What did people do before we had SS?. Answer: Church, family, private charitable organizations.
I agree with RKV. Our grandparents circa 1930s voted stupidly for socialists who passed devastating legislation that prolonged the Depression, and then were so desperate for any salvation that they gave up significant liberty for illusory security in the form of Social Security. Their legacy passed down to the Boomer generation, who decided they would rather engage in the Cult of Me, Me, Me than become responsible adults. They largely lost the ability to engage in critical thinking, instead adopting the meme “If it feels good, do it.” They supported pols who promised feel-good legislation without thinking about the real-world consequences those laws would produce. It isn’t like it was unforeseeable that a massive welfare program that disincentived work would result in less work. It is human nature–no matter how the Utopians might wish otherwise.
And here we are today, preparing to endure the pain for those ill-advised choices. We’ve made some of our own, building upon decades of bad policy that eroded our foundations.
I do not advocate ending Medicare or SS outright, precisely because of those elderly who placed themselves in the position of relying on SS for their sole support. We obviously cannot just cut them off. I know of no one advocating that. To conflate fixing SS with cutting off elderly people from their sole income, as so many do when the topic of reforming it comes up, is disingenuous at best. It is a cheap, scare tactic used by demagogues.
It is too late for today’s retirees to provide for their own golden years, but we cannot pass a failing, nation-destroying Ponzi scheme to our children. If we don’t fix it, it WILL collapse. What happens to those elderly then? What about the ones nearing retirement who haven’t saved, thinking SS would be there? This can cannot be kicked down the road any more.
The country is finally nearing a point where these serious issues can be openly and honestly discussed. Some won’t ever consider it; their ideology blinds them. Their self-image in invested in it to the point they cannot admit it is wrong without shattering their worldview and possibly their very psyche. But others, not so ideologically-blinded but not engaged or thinking critically about the big picture, are now paying attention and open to solutions. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is one possibility. We must not waste this opportunity to take a different road than the one we’ve been on since 1913 (Federal Reserve Act, 16th & 17th Amendments. No abuses since could have been done without those three.)
Remember, never let a crisis go to waste. They are opportunities to do things you didn’t think you could do before. (That door swings both ways, Rahm.)
I think VDH and the responses dove tail with what Rick Moron wrote on another thread. There are now two distinct visions of America: the left that wants to destroy it; the right that wants to see America continue in the traditions, values, culture and society of around the mid-1950s.
The two cannot co-exist. VDH writes:
“Look at the often cited pathologies that are destroying what we inherited, and note how easily they are within our material ability to cure—and yet how psychologically we simply lack the courage to take our medicine.”
It is not that we cannot take our medicine, it is that the left has controlled the medicine cabinet and will not let us take the medicine in order to regain our health. To the left, to become healthy again (to continue with the metaphor of VDH)is to go back to real America. An America that loves its Constitution, cherishes its values and traditions. An America that is not multi-cultural but one America (no hyphenation needed). This is all antithetical to the left.
The pathology VDH writes of is that of the left. The left is entirely effete, elitist, white progressives who because of their pathology hate being white and American. It is not a national pathology. But their pathology has infected black Americans and allowed them to push their OWN agenda. And both have encouraged the Mexicanization of America. All this is done to the glee of the left. Their vision and that of Dear Leader and his Congress is that of a third world America. Or worse.
There is nothing in VDHs four step rehab program that we cannot do. Nor in my own 10 step program. But it cannot be done with the left in ALL the positions of power and influence.
So we can write, remonstrate, commiserate and cry together or we can act. It is time to come to agreement that elections will not matter-not with this opposition. Fraud will be too great. They have used fraud to get congressmen, senators and now a president elected. Do you think they will just stop using fraud in the future?
And even if we WIN elections, the left still controls the MSM, federal bureaucracy, local governments, academia and most of Wall Street.
What then are we to do?
great essay VDH
I just am not as optimistic as you.
Although all those problems are not insurmountable the elites have a strangle hold on education and the media. (I hear rumblings of how the elites will stifle the conservative blogs. Not that they need to. I work in many countries, (live in Canada) and find that very few people know any of the facts behind the headlines if they even know the headlines. I am referring to both the Canadians and foreigners.)
I guess I should add the elites have a strangle hold on the government as well.
cheers
I am an American living in Ontario. I am constantly appalled at the lack of knowledge of, and disinterest in, global and Canadian affairs displayed by Canadians. They seem to be interested in wine, recipes, and cottage country. There are three Canadians who seem to have any spunk at all: Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, and Rachel Marsden. The others have no fire in their bellies. There is no national identity in Canada, as there is in America. I find it depressing to live here in this socialist nation. (I am stuck here for the time-being.) And, don’t even get me started on the truly awful socialized health care system here.
yes there are a few good writers in Canada ..and decent people.
I still enjoy being Canadian. …but it is obvious that we are a free democracy because of our neighbor to the south. I fear that when obama is done there will not be the standard of freedom to strive for and things will decline all over the world.
health care here has been in perpetual decline since the government took over ..the USA takes some of the pressure off as Canadians (who can afford it or if the government bureaucrats sanction it) would go or be sent there for treatment. This is bound to change.
really I would only want to trade the winters with one of the southern states.
we do have some advantages …we don’t have the victim mentality (if we don’t count our native peoples) as bad as in the states and although they are very left leaning the education system still teaches the basics. So the students are indoctrinated socialists who can read.
Alberta allows for private practice in medicine. There are also some in Ontario.
When the subject of medical treatment is placed in the political arena, it’s a guaranteed loss for everyone. There are elements of medicine where market forces apply (eg. a nominal fee for a visit to the Doctor prevents excessive visits for common colds), but the moral choice trumps all, such as the basis of the Hippocratic Oath in treating the sick.
If mob rule dictates the ultimate solution in medicine, it’s bound to end up like Canada’s – a mess. A real solution requires a leap of faith to follow a set up designed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons (in Ontario) or its equivalent organizations.
In a world so rife with cynicism, it’s a difficult outcome to imagine, but I choose to be hopeful. Somehow we have to get there again.
“70 percent of the American people . . . ”
Majority rules, does it? Ok then, let’s move the mosque, and end the Bush tax cuts, and add the public option to health care reform, and develop clean energy, and allow gay marriage, etc.
You gotta deal.
20% is not a majority (the % of self-identified ‘liberals’)… none of the proposals you cited could gain 2/3 of the Democratic caucus…. i.e. none of it would or could pass. It is ludicrous to think otherwise… case in point, the number of Democratic reps/senators running campaign ads highlighting their (supposed) independence from the Obama/Pelosi/Reid nexus… would they be doing this if the legislation were popular? Why are they not running on their noble/courageous health-care/stimulus votes? Why? The left hoodwinked the electorate into believing that they would govern from the center… this has not happened. Prepare for the inevitable backlash & relegation to minority status until the electorate, in their infinite compassion (or lack of memory), believes your faction will govern as they campaign.
Gone through another identity crisis have you? Think a new handle will help?
Antagonistic Betty, Belligerent Better, Bellicose Betty, Bigheaded Betty, To Big for one’s Britches Betty, Combative Betty, Oblivious Betty, Backward Betty, Betty Boop, Blustering Betty, Betty Bing, Betty Bong, Wayward Betty, Wingnut Betty, Whacked Out Betty, Betty the Insurgent, Cantakerous Betty, Blithering Betty – these handles are a better match for your posts… lol
A correction on the numbers. The GDP of the US is 3-4x that of China. However, the GDP per capita is 16x that of China. Thus:
“That means each American produces (and consumes) more goods and services than do sixteen Chinese.”
Fun with numbers.
It is highly unlikely that on an individual basis any American is x times as productive as somebody from another country.
In China’s case, the billion plus people who remain subsistance farmers are mixed with the educated techinicians and factory workers, and therefore dramatically impact the average.
A person in China who supervises a robot that paints cars is exactly as productive as an American who does the same thing.
Which brings us to what the word productivity ought to mean, instead of the stupid accepted definition of “monetized economic output”.
Productivity ought to mean “making more with less human effort”. Almost 100% of real productivity gain is created by a miniscule fraction of any population. Sorry union people, not a one of you improves productivity. Sorry bricklayers, not a one of you improves productivity. Sorry grocery store meat managers, not a one of you improves productivity. And every single bureaucrat decreases proctivity by multiples with every rule he makes and every breath he takes.
But the people who invent the robots, new building techniques, and methods to deliver meat to stores more efficiently, THEY improve productivity.
A few thousand or so people in the US in the past 30 years have created 99% of the productivity improvements in this country, and probably more than 50% of the productivity improvements in the world. The rest of us have been along for the ride.
And our plan now, thanks to power-mad marxist thugs, is so squash like bugs the rare geniuses who make our lives better. It certainly has happened for the last 18 months. Whether the US can ever return to the time when a person with a vision can survive long enough to make it happen is an open question.
It certainly won’t happen under a marxist regime.
Footnotes: the USSR
What our parents and grandparents did not leave us with is a solid religious foundation on which to build our lives.
This is the primary and pivotal failure of our society. John Adams warned us.
You can blather on about politics forever and you will not even begin to fix what is wrong with America … and the ‘world’.
Scott, I’m in full agreement with you. The root of the greatness of the West, and the foundation of Magna Carta and the Constitution is Judeo-Christianity. This is a FACT that, it seems, most people, even on the right side of the political spectrum, are unwilling to acknowledge. E.g., I’ve watched Peter Robinson’s fine, most recent interview with Thomas Sowell. Sowell identifies the loss of personal responsibility as a root cause for the decline of the USA. When asked, more than once, about why this has happened, the word “Christianity” never crossed his lips. There IS a connection.
“Love the Lord thy God . . .” is the first great commandment. The second is, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”. A Christianity that is both serious about and sure of itself, looks outward. Its followers understand that they are creatures, created by a loving—and exacting—God. They understand that there is a Being greater than themselves—a good antidote to the rampant self-centredness and arrogance in our secular society. Observant Christians understand that it is their duty to serve others: what a quaint idea in the age of Me-Me-Me. (In his book “Religious Faith and Charitable Giving”, among many other indicators, Arthur C. Brooks documents that observant Christians give more to even secular charities than non-believers do!)
Consider what a Christianity that is both serious about and sure of itself managed to accomplish in Europe: the creation of virtually all of the universities, hospitals, and great art, of all kinds, which served not only Christians. The more successful of the newer democracies and republics of the world are based on the Judeo-Christian dispensation. We cut ourselves off from this root—the EU has deliberately left any mention of God and Christianity out of its Constitution—at our peril.
Melanie Phillips suggests that the Jews have always been universally disliked for introducing the moral code called the Ten Commandments, also revered by observant Christians. WHAT a way to rain on the “Do-My-Own-Thing” parade that’s being running rampant up and down Main Street for the past five decades! Putting the genie back in the bottle’s pretty unlikely, but, unless the Judeo-Christian virtues are taken seriously again, and citizens are willing to contemplate personal sacrifice—versus licence—for the greater good on a large scale, we’re not going to have the intestinal fortitude to turn off the “Party-On 24/7” any time soon.
Kyrie eleison.
Consider imagery and how much it affects us. Films generate hundreds of millions upon release, tv is consumed en masse and daily, and now the internet delivers every sort of image possible, still or video. The industry of images – be it film or otherwise – is arguably the most significant as a percentage of the current economy.
How much do these images and content influence our beliefs and attitudes?
To what degree do traditional religions adopt these media to deliver their message?
Where is the moral standard in the consciousness of populations today, be they American, Canadian, Mexican, or any nationality?
IMHO, these are questions worthy of reflection, thought, and discussion.
Dr. Hanson summary is correct; economic solutions will fix the situation America is in, as they would have for Rome.
Rome fell because it was spending massive amounts of money to sustain a system that was not producing revenue in return; paying barbarians not to invade, paying tribute to visigoths, spending massive amounts to entertain people and distract them from the troubles they were actually facing. When push came to shove, there was no reserves to raise the army, fund the campaign, or manage the infrastructure. Rome could only watch helplessly as it crumbled.
The art of war is a well known system of strategy, one of its main tenants is not to engage in a campaign that does not produce some type of profit, as it will certainly deplete resources and cause pressure that cannot be sustained. It will weaken any nation or army to the point of collapse, as has occurred so many times in History
What the USA has done the last 40 years is engage in actions that spend massive amounts of funds on adventures that do not produce profit, as well as decisions that truly have no basic common sense;
Removing the gold standard, allowing the Federal Reserve to control American Economy, the Tax system, foreign policy decisions that demand trillions of dollars in spending but produce no return, massive entitlement programs that have no manner of funding, a military / industrial system that demands constant state of war, and so much more.
The solutions Dr. Hansen lays out are basic common sense and would work. Simple and efficient.
Alex:
Right you are. But do you or Dr. Hanson know how to get the implementation process underway?
We seem to be caught up here in the ring of fire that Johnny Cash sang about before he died.
Does anyone here have an action oriented idea to lay on the table? Think November and then think John McCain.
Some talk is good, but it’s also very, very cheap for the most part.
“I have lost confidence in American arts, in the sense of fiction and poetry, which are now in large part warped by the cult of race/class/gender orthodoxy that brings intertribal awards and recognition, but American scholarship in science, medicine, and the professions remains preeminent.”
Look to see who is winning the Nobel prizes as one measure. Not the utterly foolish “Peace Prize”, which apparently is now based upon potential, and not being George W. Bush, than actual achievement. Nor the Literature prize, which is based upon leftist racist ideology (let’s pick someone from some exotic area, just to show how hip we are). Even economics I am suspect of, as that is more dismal than science.
But the hard sciences, chemistry, physics, medicine, do not depend on feelings but rather actual results. And Americans are usually picking at least a share of one of those every year. And by “American” I mean those who do their work here and are citizens either by birth or by choice.
Most bestest country ever.
VDH, if all roads lead to Rome, then could it be said that all roads, including the one we are on…lead to ruins?
I am feeling so crestfallen these days, my dear cyberfriend. You and I, born in the same year, have been handed a nation of inspirational exceptionalism. (I share a birth date with Dennis Prager and a birth year with you…talk about basking in reflected starlight)
I’m afraid we will be handing down a shell of what we have been given. Once, the vast majority of citizens of this land would bust their vest buttons, swelling up with pride in the accomplishments of this land of ours, would stand shoulder to shoulder in building her, keeping her safe, and would defend her honor against all comers.
Today, the entirety of our mass communication empire is entrenched against her. They slander her at every turn. They tear at the flesh of her virtue. They espouse the propaganda of her sworn enemies. And, against our countrymen who try to stand shoulder to shoulder in her defense, they spout filthy lies, hurl invective and spray venom, call them racist, xenophobic, stupid, lacking in nuance, and dream of throwing them through a plate glass window.
They have stolen our ability to obtain facts about virtually every key topic necessary to self-govern this land of ours. They say we cling bitterly to religion and the Constitution. They have created a distorted caricature of who we are as a people and what we are as a nation.
And, they have infused a self-loathing element into our national conscience, replacing healthy self-reflection with kneejerk blame and vacuous apology for our very existence.
They have crushed the voice of faith based folks and question morals from the perch of High Hedonism in the morning, in the afternoon they issue smug and pedantic homilies about tolerance of repressive 4th Century belief systems that are antithetical to all they claim to stand for and against, and by evening they spit on the flag and grind their heels on the notion of truth and the American way.
Who are these people and why do they have such influence over our daily lives? Who let them choose the narrative of our nation and why have we adopted their lexicon?
They are not “mainstream”, representative of mainstream thought, morals, ethics, or of virtually anything American in nature or belief.
They are not “liberal”, far from it. They are intolerant, abusive, narrow-minded and closed off from divergent points of view.
They are not “progressive”. They are stuck in a decade, four decades removed and incapable of recognizing, much less adapting to…the changes in modern society.
And worse, they not only do not believe in American exceptionalism, they don’t believe in American rugged individualism, they don’t believe in American liberty, American freedoms, or the basic goodness of the American people.
Not only have they stolen our mass communication system and soiled our information stream, they plot to keep facts from us. And, they “install” through distortion and deception the candidates who adhere to their treachery and treason. Our own government, currently in place…calls those who advocate for small government…”teabaggers”, a sexual slur befitting a delinquent adolescent mindset.
They call 70% of the nation “Islamophobes” because their instinct to stand shoulder to shoulder against a mosque that has all the earmarks of being a shrine to the mass murder of our countrymen, in a declared war against us. NOBODY is saying that any one religion may not worship in friendship and in peace in this land. Yet, the Ft. Hood massacre, the Christmas day bomber, the attempt at Times Square…these were not raging Presbyterians. The jihad is not being advanced by Methodists.
If Islam is at war with American ideals, if it is the sworn duty to replace Judeo-Christian law with sharia law, we ought to have that debate out in the open.
The building chosen to “advance” the dialogue, this “complex” is less than 600 yards from where the twin towers once stood. It was hit and damaged by the landing gear of one of the planes that held our innocent countrymen as it was slammed viciously into the offices holding others of our countrymen. Those innocents deserve that we stand shoulder to shoulder in defending the meaning of their lives.
To build a victory tower on their ashes is disrespectful and a disgrace toward their memory. To break ground on September 11th is provocative and intentionally inciting. To stand against such a display of callous bravado, is the NATURAL reaction. The unnatural reaction is to slander the 70% who want to keep this land safe from those who mean to disgrace her.
Building a shrine to peace and understanding must seek to first extend an olive branch in peace. The place to do that, is on ground that does not insult and incite feelings of hurt and resentment. What would the Graham’s of the world feel if we decided to plant an Oliver Stone shrine to Hitler in Skokie, to advance a better and more nuanced “understanding” of him? In peace and harmony?
Or a how about a confederate flag planted on every Martin Luther King Drive, in every city where such a street exists? In order to advance better understanding and healing?
Would Graham embrace those notions? Suggest the intentions were pure?
Or would Graham and his ilk begin intense investigation into who was behind such an idea and question their motives. Instead, Graham attacks 70% of the people, almost all of whom he does not know and cannot know…and blindfolds himself against ANY investigation into the imam and his long record of fork-tongued tributes to Hamas and the destruction of Israel as a nation.
No, VDH…I don’t hold out great hopes that we can pass along something better than was handed to us. We can’t even pass along an information stream that honors the truth, or a government that doesn’t hate us as a people.
If anyone is owed an apology about what America is today, it is our children…and our ancestors…they would rightfully be issued one.
“They have crushed the voice of faith based folks . . . ”
Really? A little early for the annual conservative whinefest we know as the War on Christmas, don’t you think? Unless you’re referring to some other crushing of faith-based voices. If so, what might that be?
Surely, you jest.
(A better name for you might be Betty, Miss Informed.)
The incessant slander against anyone who takes a moral position based upon their interpretation of religious teachings.
The “whinefest” about which you spew your venom, would pale in comparison, if the stranglehold on the information stream and its concurrent unfair caricature was aimed at leftists instead.
Every “hot button” topic of the day is infiltrated by this system of corruption of facts and distortion of the “debate”.
I ordinarily don’t clean up the puke left behind by trolls, but, your especially nasty demeanor just caught me on a day when I didn’t feel like putting up with it.
Still waiting for the crushed faith-based voices you spoke of. Where are they? What good-hearted god-fearing Christian is being muzzled? Let me guess, Glenn Beck. Until you can provide some examples, I have no choice but to take your overwrought distractions from the question as an inability to answer, puke notwithstanding.
Where I live, Christians (never a Muslim), including a Roman Catholic bishop, who have publicly questioned gay marriage, have been hauled to the Human Rights (sic) Commission, which is run like a kangaroo court: guilty, as charged (99% “conviction rate); one pays for one’s own, expensive defence, while the accuser, no matter how baseless the charge, has all expenses paid by the taxpayer; hearsay evidence is allowed; the tribunal consists of one bureaucrat—always left-wing; one is not allowed to know the name of one’s accuser, unless he/she OKs it; the accuser does not have to appear at the kangaroo court hearing . . . at this point, the vast majority of those accused, under this draconian system, has been white, male Christians. (A Quebec radio host laid a compliant against an imam, who opined that homosexuals should be killed: the Human Rights [sic] Commission’s verdict? Move on, we see nothing hateful here . . .)
Public school boards now have “Equity” policies: they are administered with the utmost prejudice. Certain groups are definitely more equal than others. Teachers who have the audacity to express an opinion, other than the secular, humanist, “progressive” ones held by the gulag commissars, and who are unlucky enough to be reported, are sent to “re-education” sessions. If the dissenter won’t recant, he/she can be fined, suspended, transferred, demoted, or even fired. As observant Christians definitely do not go along with the “anything goes” board policies—including providing both contraceptives and access to abortions to minors, without either parental knowledge or consent—guess what category of person keeps his/her mouth shut? (Before the so-called equity policies, this wasn’t the case.) Guess what category of person can be freely ridiculed and marginalized?
From your condescending certainty about something you obviously know zilch—your comments border on bigotry, if you ask me—I most definitely think the name, “Betty, Miss Informed” would be much more suitable than the present “Betty Knows”. Think about it.
Betty “Knows” writes, “Still waiting for the crushed [how about demonized and marginalized?] faith-based voices you [cfbleachers] spoke of. Where are they?”
I’ve responded. Where are you, Miss Informed?
Betty’s right. Despite hundreds of attempts to muzzle conservative free speech, ranging from attacks on Rush Limbaugh from the White House itself within the first 100 hours in office, to the Moron’s famous “I don’t want them talking” about solutions to the country’s problems, to the Journo-list’s successful effort to obfuscate Wright’s treachery, conservatives have still persevered to win the debate.
That’s why 60%+ of the country is vocally, even violently opposed to every plank of the radical leftists’ agenda, and why the salivating left will not be able to regain office for decades, if ever.
In the marketplace of ideas, the marketplace that the criminal Obama has done everything in his power to slam shut, the debate is over. America is true to its conservative roots and wants to return to the principles that made it great, not radically left and juvenilely willing to sell our souls for a $400 tax credit.
Now, onto expelling the criminal cabal from the public square forever, and then onto reinforcing the firewalls that the totalitarians nearly breached in their indefatigable effort to lie and steal their way to world domination.
AMEN to that, cfbleachers!
AMEN to that, cfbleachers!
Also in the natural resources department, America has untapped potential in forestry (try logging!) and hydro-electric power. You mention our farming status, and there is even more potential there. Also, oil resources – need I say more? My hope is that we straighten our economy out, and work to make profits via these huge natural resources.
The arts. I hope we still show talent. I’m heading through on the 5 to show at Sausalito Labor Day weekend. A conservative in la la land. The amount of money spent on art in the USA is tremendous compared to other nations.
Yes, we have great natural resources, but in the current free market, too much stuff can be brought in from where labor is many times cheaper. We don’t want wage and price controls, but right now, the gap is too great between foreign goods, which we can buy at the cheapest prices, and our own domestically produced stuff, which is and would be a lot more expensive. Until gasoline gets to $16 a gallon (all other things being roughly equal) the imported Chinese stuff will be more economical.
Just for the hell of it, imagine if Obama, or Palin for that matter, proposed massive tariffs and tried to rebuild our own domestic economy. What would we gain and what would we lose? The answer is beyond my pay grade, but I suspect that most of us would pay twice as much for many things we buy, but there would be much less unemployment.
“thuggish tribes”?
hardly historically accurate. Drawing parallels between Rome and America does tend to be counterproductive, particularly as Rome never had the supreme military dominance that America has. Rome fell not because of demographics but because the technology and organisation that they tried to suppress in others eventually caught up with them – and to their enemies. Which is why – Holywood stereotypes aside – the Goths and Vandals were just as Roman as the Romans.
Otherwise, you could not be more right that American decline is psychological. It does not have to be so.
An absolute freeze on federal government spending is great, but what about an absolute cut?
Gov. Mitch Daniels did it in Indiana.
Professor,
I recall how Tacitus begins the Annals. Rome was beset with political corruption, civil wars, despotism, nepotism, and had long since lost any republican virtues.
“How few were left who had seen the the republic!…all looked to the commands of a sovereign without the least apprehension”
Are we there yet?
Hear, Hear! The ideas and solutions you are (and have been) proposing are thankfully gaining traction with the electorate. I hear Mitch Daniel talk publicly of raising the retirement age & privatizing portions of infrastructure and I cheer loudly (alone in my condo… I may be disturbing the neighbors) [sidenote: I can't understand how it can be public policy to not means-test social security/medicare... why are my payroll taxes used to send SS checks to Warren Buffett, et al? SS is a redistributive system... not an investment program... always has; it is disingenuous to state otherwise]. I read Paul Ryan’s Roadmap & innately understand that the path to individual (let alone collective) prosperity lies in individual choice and initiative… not ‘it takes a village’ or ‘collective salvation’ nonsense. Entitlement begets entitlement until we all degenerate into a ‘gets mine’ culture of greed & selfishness with no honor. I hope this election year will be a wake-up call to the American people on the bankrupt mindset of the progressive movement. I am 27 years old, & have read at least half of your published books (as well as practically everything you publish online), and will eventually get to them all. I hope you don’t seem surprised by the popularity of your blog and/or other writings…. We just need to somehow convince you to run for office one of these days!
You most certainly are NOT Greece America you do not have the CULTURE.
We’ve got all kinds of culture – just not the kind you prefer us to have.
I grant you that we’re not Greece: America, after all, didn’t expend its entire cultural capital and military potency centuries before Christ, and hasn’t spent its last few millennia as a third-world boil of a nation that makes Turkey look civilised. And for God’s sake, man, stop trying to type while rolling stuffed grape leaves for the lunch crowd–you’re shedding shoulder hairs into the food.
I agree with VDH’s 4 prescriptions for an ailing Republic. Particularly the admonition that “it is time to drop the race/class/gender affirmative action industry.” The collectivist speech / thought control technique known as ‘Political Correctness’ has done untold damage already. It is one of the chief weapons in the Progressive’s arsenal, and is a big part of the reason we find ourselves in this mess, with an anti-American President to boot.
However I’m not so sure that we can just undo its ravages so easily. It infects not only the media and academia, but huge segments of the bureaucracy as well, and a lot of power resides there. Many are heavily (i.e. totally) invested in the PC anti-American, anti-white, anti-male, anti-capitalism and anti-Christian narratives. Many have found meaning and have evolved their characters from that nihilistic vision. Many have gained power and influence by peddling and enforcing its narrow parameters. Many depend on it for their livelyhoods. It has become a religion of sorts for no small number of Americans. I don’t think they will just go quietly. The bureaucracy will close ranks to defend itself. The grievance mongers will take to the streets. The Unions will call for strikes. The tribes will bang the war drums… There will be outcries internationally as well, from all sides. We nod, smile and press on.
We can (and will) take them all on, and win, but it will not be easy, or pretty. It’s best to understand that going in.
Most of us realize by now that November is only the beginning. The hard part starts afterward. I think guys like Darrel Issa are on the right track. Follow the money. See where it leads… And expect the unexpected.
Spot on as usual.
In further elaboration of his point regarding energy reserves, contrary to the perception preferred by the Luddite Left, the US has massive reserves of virtually every form of energy resource. Almost all of it could be extracted using processes that are environmentally friendly. I believe a government policy to actively encourage energy production rather than thwarting it at every opportunity, could be the jump start we need to get the economy moving again. Drill, baby, drill!
P.S. As a Federal government employee I am 100% behind an immediate pay freeze, an immediate reduction in force to staffing levels in place prior to the Obama spendathon, and reduction next year to a FY2006 level budget. We should not be insulated from the economic pain the private sector is suffering.
Dr. Hanson
“When students are taught the evils of Westernized food among indigenous peoples”
‘Westernized’ food is bad for western people too. It causes all sorts of chronic conditions like obesity, diabetes, depression, and heart disease. Maybe even kidney stones!
Check out the research of Weston A. Price, and google paleo diet.
Which is why people in the West live longer healthier lives than those in the 3rd world. Right? /S
Sorry, not buying it.
That’s the sanitation and medicine, not the diet.
The way I see it is that America still experiences the decline. Take, for instance, the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico? This may be freely regarded as the beginning of the end. And the consequences of the crisis? Millions of Americans are still suffering. Taking all this into account it’s hard deny the decline you’re talking about which is not only psychological.
For those who don’t know, David Graham was last seen as a student Editor at the Duke University Chronicle, the university’s student newspaper. Some links are below.
He apparently has a “certificate” from Duke in Islamic Studies. As with anything at a university these days, the interposition of “Grievance” between the name of a group and “Studies” is understood.
His first action as Editor was to shut down the newspaper online message board because commenters were being critical of the Duke administration and President Brodhead, in particular, in the wake of Duke’s feckless response to the infamous false rape allegation put forward by Crystal Mangum against three student athletes. So much for his commitment to free speech.
He spent most of his term as editor NOT asking the hard questions the administration need to answer.
His final act as editor was to reveal the identity of a blogger/source who had been critical of the Chronicle, Duke and Graham and who wanted to remain confidential. So much for his standards of journalism.
http://dukechronicle.com/article/graham-elected-editor-chronicles-103rd-volume
http://dukechronicle.com/article/why-we-pulled-plug
http://dukechronicle.com/node/146123
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2008/04/dukes-chronicle-outs-jinc.html
As always, a delight to awaken to a VDH column, it’s most refreshing.
Should it be “orthodoxy that brings int*RA*tribal awards and recognition”?
Geez, thought I’d pop back in to see what was written.
You guys sound like the left patting on the back on Jon Stewart, MSNBC or David Letterman. The nation is going in the direction they want it to go so they can sit around and feel good about themselves. Your trouble is that while patting each other on the back, nobody has come up with any REAL solutions to getting America back on track.
Sure VDHs four Rx’s are fine but do you think the left will let them happen? Even if we take Congress and the Senate….a big if! Do any of you think for one NY minute that the left will legally give up their positions of power at any level. Have they given any of you an indication that they abide by the rules? Do you think they will NOT commit such massive vote fraud as to turn the election around for them? And wait until Dear Learder and 2012 comes around for a vote.
I am not in disagreement with anyone here and cfbleahers did write a great post. But we can not act like the Roman Senate and talk all day. At some point we must act. So what are we to do? It is as if everyone is afraid to say what they are thinking. Afraid to say what might have to happen.
And if you think we are not “there yet” then what will it take for the left to convince you that future elections do not matter keeping in mind what Lenin said. Heck reread what LM@36 wrote and then multiply that by 1000 and you may get an idea of what the left is doing in Congress, DOJ, and the MSM.
Alex@24 is also spot on.
Well, since you ask, I assume that if the left loses elections, the replacements will be whoever is elected. What are you babbling about? Ah, more paranoid mutterings; got it.
Good post Blotto – I’m in full agreement. Winning the election is nothing. Since the Taft administration, a “Republican” administration has only SLOWED the movement left, it has never stopped it. I see no evidence whatsoever that this election is any different.
It’s simple- if they steal the elections or refuse to abide by the result, we start shooting. Stealing an election or refusing to abide by the result constitutes a coup de tat, an act of war against the Republic, and therefore, We the People are empowered to defend ourselves against such an act of war every bit as much as if Obama had sent the Army down to the Restoring Honor rally and opened fire.
“…refusing to abide by the result constitutes a coup de tat….”
It certainly does.
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
Refer my previous Comment [# 14[
A friend has just emailed me this link from England and I thought some of you may find it relevant:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100051663/europes-cultural-suicide/
It’s a worldwide struggle against the same Monster.
” There is simply nothing like the farmland in the Great Plains ” , I saw this quote about the Midwest Farmland and wanted to bring to Victor Davis Hanson attention this water shortage issue and ask if this could be a reason why we are seeing all the restrictive policies coming out of the Liberal progressive movement ???
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/04/time-water-running-out-for-americas.html
http://www.notcot.com/archives/2010/03/water_our_thirsty_world.php
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-fossil-water-radioactive-science-environment/
http://www.aolnews.com/earth-day/article/time-water-running-out-for-ogallala-americas-biggest-aquifer/19446923
And why we see the Hard left calling for Climate Change / population controls worldwide .
http://www.metatube.com/es/videos/36359/U-S-Depression-Empty-Store-Shelves-Coming-to-America
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D – This is a 8 part video that a well Known professor describes the issue of finite theory in earths carrying capacity .
” There is simply nothing like the farmland in the Great Plains ” , I saw this quote about the Midwest Farmland and wanted to bring to Victor Davis Hanson attention this water shortage issue and ask if this could be a reason why we are seeing all the restrictive policies coming out of the Liberal progressive movement ???
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/04/time-water-running-out-for-americas.html
http://www.notcot.com/archives/2010/03/water_our_thirsty_world.php
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-fossil-water-radioactive-science-environment/
http://www.aolnews.com/earth-day/article/time-water-running-out-for-ogallala-americas-biggest-aquifer/19446923
And why we see the Hard left calling for Climate Change / population controls worldwide .
http://www.metatube.com/es/videos/36359/U-S-Depression-Empty-Store-Shelves-Coming-to-America
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D – This is a 8 part video that a well Known professor describes the issue of finite theory in earths carrying capacity .
Now the next question is do we lose our independence as Government consolidates our Liberty in the face of this Threat , and we the people lose our voice in this debate over if we choose to try and innovate our way out of this or consolidate and eugenically try and neutrallize the situation , and who goes first ??
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1123236
The bureaucrats behind Obama’s “Great Outdoors Initiative” plan on wrapping up their public comment solicitation by November 15. The initiative’s taxpayer-funded website , http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf , has been dominated by left-wing environmental activists proposing human population reduction, private property confiscation, and gun bans, hunting bans, and vehicle bans in national parks. It’s time for private property owners to send their own loud, clear message to the land-hungry feds: Take a hike.
Obama Taking Your Water and Your Land: Great Outdoor Land Grab Initiative Underway
http://maggiesnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/08/obama-taking-your-water-and-your-land.html
What is Going on in the Links above is just more of the Plan to Consolidate YOUR LIFE !!!!!
I know its hard to believe but do your own research on Overpopulation and see what the Internationalists are talking about , it ain’t pretty and you and me sheep are not a favored species .
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/armageddon-wars-overpopulation-vs-global-warming/?src=busln
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/621146/cia_predicts_the_future_2015_overpopulation/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAGasF6Hfo&feature=player_embedded – Bill gates wants population control
“… psychologically we simply lack the courage to take our medicine….”
It is worse than that. After two generations of poor parenting, poorer public schooling, and media propaganda, too many people believe in the politics of entitlements, victimization, and nanny statism.
Entitlements: Many people believe that the government is now the problem-solver of FIRST resort. Lose a job: get 18 months of government mandated unemployment payments. Get too old to work but didn’t save for retirement: get the government to raise Social Security and Medicare benefits again. Get pregnant while unemployed and unmarried: get the government to provide medical care, rent, infant formula (why bother breast feeding?), and food.
Victimization: Every time something bad is publicized (Enron, home foreclosures, credit card fraud, internet “bullying,” etc.), there are cries for new federal laws, regulations, oversight, and bailouts. Every time one group has a worse outcome in any way (lower high school graduation rate, more loan denials, a low percentage of neurosurgeons, etc.), there are claims of victimization and demands that the government make everything better.
Nanny Statism: Despite the lowest violent crime rates in over fifty years, the lowest pollution since the 17th century, and the best medical care in the entire history of the world, the media, the “expert” fearmongers, and our governments have convinced most people that their lives are continually in peril. Thus, the cries for the nanny state to save them from salmonella eggs, muggers, child pornographers, identity thieves, and “recreational” drugs.
Counteracting two generations of false teachings and moral relativism will be nearly impossible since governments, think tanks, political organizations (such as the NAACP), public schools, and the mainstream media benefit from a misinformed, ovine-like public. As our economic situation worsens, there will be a massive push for more government rather than more self-reliance and free enterprise. I see no way to escape our downward spiral.
Very good analysis. I have only a couple of qualms: we don’t really want to go there when it comes to the biometric cards — there are some issues with invasion of privacy, and a small step (but still a step) towards more totalitarian measures (I realize that we are at a rather hard place concerning our illegal problem — but I would hope that we could fight the problem without doing away with our freedoms, as I fear any more infringement on our inalienable rights as citizens). If we had the salt to go after illegals without all of this “racist” navel gazing, vigorously enforce our laws and perhaps bolster them to address the issue (such as the anchor baby issue)then we’d be doing much to stop the problem. Perhaps we need to take a look at our requirements for citizenship again — people should not come here to immediately get welfare or create little versions of the countries they came from without any desire nor impetus to assimilate; we should not allow criminal elements to stay here, period.
As for education: get rid of the curriculum we have now! It’s a mess, and until it gets revamped no amount of the other things you mentioned will do a blasted thing. On the issue of tenure — it’s a very dicey thing. On one hand, no, teachers should have some sort of safety from getting canned on a whim (and with the way most school boards are composed and teacher evaluations are conducted, this could be a problem)but by the same token teachers who engage in unprofessional (nay, unethical…immoral even) behavior shouldn’t just be relieved or fired. They should have their teaching certification revoked, possibly for life, for any infraction. In fact, education and assimilation are very tied — my family did not get special consideration as non English speakers…perhaps it’s time to go back to that?
I would also really like to see some conservative American thinkers who did not appear to desire to throw the humanities out completely. The humanities, at least as they once were, are important; they are one of the cornerstones of the classic American liberal arts education that created so many wonderous things in other fields. They can and should be cleaned up; not every humanities graduate is a dyed in the wool progressive (but I will admit, I’m a humanities major…I would like to see that department ressurected from its current sorry state…and I don’t believe I am a progressive or anything of the sort).
Almost every country on Earth went trough hellish cataclysmic events at certain times in history after which some recovered while others disintegrated.
Only those countries remained afloat which had strong cultural, ethnic, religious, historical and linguistic bond between their citizens.
The Soviet Union has broken up along aforementioned lines yet the Russian nuclei remained unshaken: the Russian people share common national values and the Uzbek and Kazakh drifted away.
Yet the Germans are still Germans and so on.
Contemporary America ideologically based on two mutually exclusive and incongruous premises that reveals the absolute chaos which is the first symptom of the eventual break up of this quite loose collection of States:
You cannot proclaim Melting pot and Multiculturalism simultaneously without acrobatic spinning and twisting verbs and adjectives;- either or the other.
Please for the argument sake answer the question:
Do you think that the replacement ethnicity will be able to attain the same achievements than the host (invaded) country)?
Will the Turks in Germany produce a Beethoven?
Latinos in the US a Thomas Edison?
Pakis in London a Shakespeare?
Duo cum faciunt idem, non est idem.
Translation: “When two do the same, it isn’t the same.”
My conclusion is identical to that of #2 Whiskey namely America I immigrated to some 35 years ago from an E. European prison camp is no more.
And the change is final and irreversible.
The last century has been a long process of ratcheting statism. When it began, the federal government was a limited appendage of the states, created in order to perform functions they could not without conflicts. Now it almost totally overshadows them. We are less a federation of states today than national government with various prefectures or territories. In my state, Utah, “the government” means the federal government which owns the majority of the land. Actually, it’s not just in Utah that it means that. I would venture that it means that to nearly everybody in the country.
The mechanism for this shift has been the fact that it’s easier to pass laws than it is to repeal them. To turn the tide would take a veto-proof majority in both houses for repeal of most of the landmark legislation from the past 80 years.
Conservatives have pinned their hopes on replacement with something rather than flat repeal, a kind of weaning from big government. If we started now, what are the chances of restoring our republic to the status quo ante? Practically nil. The best we can hope for is to get back to a system where the people really govern again, instead of an elite political class and bureaucracy.
The natural human condition is to be ruled by a cruel dictator. If there is a more cruel person in the society he will emerge as the replacement dictator. Iraq under Saddam Hussein is the perfect example of the natural human condition. Free America is an aberration in human history and is about to come to an end. Freedom is too much responsibility for the majority of people requiring considerable education to sustain and so they will gladly embrace totalitarianism for any perceived security. The election of Obama is proof that freedom is too difficult for most. But do not fear Obama. He is only now paving the way for the one to come who will be the first of our cruel dictators. We have dumbed down our education to the point that few embrace individual responsibility and they will cheerfully elect the one to come who will then put an end to real elections. Then the cycle of increasingly aggressive challengers will start fullfilling the continuation of the natural human condition. This may not be optimistic but it is reality. In clear fashion Dr. Hanson outlines course corrections for our society, but none of these will be initiated let alone accomplished. My conclusion about our fate is inevitable.
I think the whole thing hinges on the liberal educational establishment. A “Classical Liberal” education is a good thing, but that’s not what the Neo-Marxist in control of public education are in for.
If we as concerned Americans could do one thing only to turn the ship around, the single most effective effort we can make would be to create a new educational establishment that is centered around American values.
Note that you can’t do this by “reforming” the existing system. Basically the existing Dewey system for K-12 Ed and the modern liberal arts university are hopeless. Any one who wants a serious education in America goes for the professions, and sends their kids to cram schools after their public classes (ask any Asian). It’s the ones who still play “Woodstock Revival” on their iPods, and their brainwashed kids, who think the existing system still has any value.
Getting the federal government reformed will be bad enough, but the educational system can’t be reformed. Better to start from scratch, bypass all of the existing NEA-driven organizations, and set up a new system from the bottom up, and use the strong arm of Federal authority and local pressure from the Tea Party and others to allow it to grow and keep it in check.
It would be interesting to hear from VDH about the possibility of starting up a new educational establishment in American and what form it should take.
“a very poor america defeated imperial japan in 1941″
Ever wonder what is the difference between now and then? A now current stubborn refusal to recognize the enemy for what he is—e-n-e-m-y.
No country in the history has every won a war without *naming the enemy* and spelling out clearly how he operates. I am talking about the Left. (muslims are but a minor inconvenience compared to the Left.) A historian should be the first one to point out that we are at a war—an existential one at that. Both, for us, and for the enemy.
” But do you or Dr. Hanson know how to get the implementation process underway?”
It will take something that i don’t think America is capable of ;
1) setting aside Political differences
2) taking back the control of our Economy from European Central banks
It is changing the way we think, and have been taught to think for the last 50 years. We have been taught to think Change means going from Republican to Democrat and back again. It doesn’t work and will never work. We get caught up in we said/they said situations that do nothing but place red meat on the table for each core, Big deal.
The root cause is not being addressed; control of the American economy and self determination. The violations of US Constitution in allowing an entity like the Federal Reserve to operate in secrecy and refusing any supervision of its actions by elected officials.
How can America be so sheepish that we place ourselves as collateral for loans we are not allowed to review, audit or even question?
Nobody on this Website would sign a Blank check or a blank contract, yet each day the Federal Reserve does just that, and signs OUR name to it.
They can do this because we are divided. We fight liberal / conservative battles that exist only in rhetorical political campaigns, and within this divide exist diversion, smoke and mirrors, and the opportunity to extort and embezzle trillions from the US economy.
Fixing the American economy will take setting aside personal Political issues and taking control back from the Federal Reserve. Once congress grows a Backbone and re assumes its constitutional authority to coin, regulate and value money, we can rebuild America.
Dr. Hansens writing strike home because they are based in rational, thoughtful origins and common sense. These are not wild accusations about who was born where, or stock holdings in Halliburton.
It is a blueprint to fix the problem, nothing more, nothing less
Here is a core issue which runs a lot deeper than most of grumbling about the guvment:
We have created this culture ourselves and are up to our ears in it, each and every one. With the revolutionary advancements in science and technology since the days of the Founders, we can CONTROL so much more of our lives (which is not to say that we can control everything) than we could then. Therefore, a majority of the people feel the obligation to try to control and protect as much as they can with life insurance, health insurance, advanced medical procedures in every area, instant communication of news, weather, and where Obama is vacationing or the Tea Party is meeting.
So it is not much of a leap for people to, if not embrace the nanny state, or at least expect it to react to their problems. That is a major hallmark of our current culture, embraced by a solid majority, and it seems to me that the best you can do is peck around the edges, to try to show where the logical limits of financing and reality, make further expansion counter-productive and possibly entail a little down-sizing. Rational,(well, sort of) self-interested discussion about how to define these limits is what politics is supposed to blunder toward.
It is obvious that in the Age of the Founders, that there was so much uncertainty to living, that folks had to leave things in God’s hands for so much of what they did, since they could lose a wife to childbirth, a child to fever, a husband to an accident etc. RISK defined their reality and FAITH was a major player. They could not conceive of the government even being able to do, what it is EXPECTED to do now. The radical changes in how we perceive our responsibility to protect ourselves, really has changed the cultural perception of what it means to be a citizen. How, exactly, is this supposed to change?
And we have multi-national (private-public) corporations of such size and power that we “need” huge government to regulate (or pretend to) these leviathans. And yes it is bumbling, ponderous, and inefficient; and the rascals need to be thrown out on a regular basis, but the new rascals tend to go down the same path, time after time. Hell, people like Reagan can even get elected claiming that they will trim government, but does government get trimmed? No; its growth may slow down for a while, but people WANT what they want and see NOT getting what they want as being the equivalent of going back to the horse and buggy. Ain’t happening.
Please give examples of powerful corporations that endanger us and require powerful central governments to control. Are you worried that AT&T or Exxon/Mobil might steal your property; decide what jobs you can perform, what salary you will receive, and how much of your salary you can keep; or draft your teenaged children into corporate service? At present, the only entities that do such things are big governments. I would gladly swap our current system for one with “unrestrained” multinational corporations and small, limited national governments.
Hmmm, let’s start with BP. Did they pony up $20B out of the goodness of their hearts, or because Obama held their feet to the fire? If Phizer, let’s say produces a new thalidomide, are individual lawsuits going to be as effective as an FDA, hopefully CATCHING it early and doing some bludgeoning? There are attendant evils that come along with Big Governnment, for sure, but the idea of not having one is more libertarian fantasy. What are the two sure things in life; death and what?
A wise and perceptive post, Dwight.
I believe you are quite right. People these days are allergic to bad news that might actually affect them. We live in an age of magic thinking–and it’s likely to be the death of us, later, if not sooner.
It is readily apparent to me that the two party system, industrialists, media moguls and many religious organizations have conspired to control the money. Propaganda spews forth with excuses asking that we continue to support them. Partisan hacks, on the take, keep the rhetoric and mood always at odds, but under control. The money continues to flow to the oligarchs.
We are no longer a truly free society. The pioneers who headed west, (now condemned for their actions by many) are turning over in their graves by what we have become.
prôtos metaksu isôn….Dead right.
“A very poor United States in 1941 defeated imperial Japan and helped to defeat Nazi Germany in less than four years.”
The United States in 1940 was BY FAR the richest country on earth. No one else was even close to us.
By 1945 U.S. GDP was more than the USSR, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and France COMBINED.
That’s kind of why our side won.
Agreed. Without the obstinate experimentation with “progressive” ideas, the economy would have recovered far sooner. In the late Thirties, when FDR saw that war was coming in Europe, he dropped his war with private enterprise and adopted policies that allowed business to be productive and create jobs. Like FDR, Obama has created a great deal of uncertainty and prevented capital from being applied appropriately.
Very good points, you make, but the underlying problem is spiritual, not psychological. Faith in God is what makes people want to adhere to good values and work hard. Faith in God is what gives people hope in the midst of failure.
The mormal ebb and flow of economies would have done more good than all of the interference caused by: a) Bush43 who was scared into the TARP deal by Secy Paulson pursuing his own interests rather than that of the nation; b) Obama and the insane $800+ billion phony Stimulus bill concoctd by “Pelosi and Reid”; c) the rest of the really bad legislation pushed and approved by Obama, Pelosi and Reid – which of course, none of the three have ever read.
Besides the Trillions of dollars worth of oil, natural gas deposits that our federal government has under its control, there are significant billions of dollars of mineral deposits that await taking … to pay off our national debt. This is the underlying reason why China has no fear of buying our debt, for they know we have the natural resource assets to pay off many times the current debt. We owe it to the next generations to start using these assets to bring the nation’s finances back into line before the damage leads to destruction of our system.
Although the U.S. is not Greece, there are many different paths to hell.
It would not take much to create a financial crisis in the U.S. All that need happen is for the international bond traders to decide that the U.S. is no longer good for it’s debt.
That’s it. That’s all it would take. And it’s no longer difficult to imagine scenarios where that happens.
Whiskey, your post makes some good points but it is a mistake to focus race, rather than values. It is clear from the demographics noted in your post, and elsewhere, that America is no longer predominantly a white, Northern European nation, as it once was. Of itself, that should not be worrisome. What should be worrisome is that the unique values that informed our founders derived from very specific sources within European civilization of that time. America was and is exceptional because anyone who adopts American values can be one of us, regardless of birth, parentage, wealth, nobility or all the rest. Dinesh D’Souza has remarked many times in his books, that there is no other nation on Earth where someone like him, an Indian by birth, could become what he has in this country. The same is true for immigrants from other places. The United States of America is nothing if not a set of ideas and ideals. Lose those, and we lose our country; retain them and teach them to our children and would-be Americans from other places, and then be willing to insist upon assimilation – and we can save our country, indeed make it prosper into the future. There are grounds for pessimism, yes, but the idea of America, is an immensely powerful one with appeal around the globe, in places and among people you’d never imagine. That argues for a bright future, if we will only do the hard work necessary to preserve and transmit our values. And no, I don’t mean all that P.C. pablum you hear these days about “our diversity is our strength,” and such. I mean the values the real “greatest generation” held, those of the Founders.
In other words, America cannot die, unless we allow it to in our own hearts and minds… and don’t know about you, but I am not giving up the fight.
Dave Surls wrote, “A very poor United States in 1941 defeated imperial Japan and helped to defeat Nazi Germany in less than four years. The United States in 1940 was BY FAR the richest country on earth. No one else was even close to us. By 1945 U.S. GDP was more than the USSR, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and France COMBINED. That’s kind of why our side won.” Of course our economic might was critical to victory, but it was far from the only reason. The America of that time believed in itself and its values, and their basic rightness. There was a deep wellspring of spiritual and moral strength upon which to draw.
Read “Why The Allies Won,” by Dr. Richard Overy, for a very good discussion of this same subject, as well as the other factors which swung victory to the allies in that darkest of times.
hello. the Roman Empire extended for thirty generations. we gloat for one generation about a two generation reign, and it’s paranoid decline. lay off the drugs.
Thank you for any other informative site. Where else may I am getting that type of info written in such a perfect manner? I have a venture that I am just now operating on, and I’ve been at the look out for such information.