A look Back
People just don’t disappear. Look at Germany in 1946 or Athenians in 339 B.C. They continue, but their governments and cultures end. Aside from the dramatic military implosions of authoritarian or tribal societies — the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the end of Nazism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the annexation of tribal Gaul — what brings consensual states to an end, or at least an end to the good life?
The city-states could not stop 30,000 Macedonians in a way — when far poorer and 150 year earlier — they had stopped 300,000 Persians descending on many of the same routes. The French Republic of 1939 had more tanks and troops on the Rhine than the Third Reich that was busy overrunning Poland. A poorer Britain fought differently at el-Alamein than it does now over Libya. A British battleship was once a sign of national pride; today a destroyer represents a billion pounds stolen from social services.
Give me
Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies. Whether at Byzantium during the Nika Riots or in bread and circuses Rome, when the public expects government to provide security rather than the individual to become autonomous through a growing economy, then there grows a collective lethargy. I think that is the message of Juvenal’s savage satires about both mobs and the idle rich. Fourth-century Athenian literature is characterized by forensic law suits, as citizens sought to sue each other, or to sue the state for sustenance, or to fight over inheritances.
The subtext of Petronius’s Satyricon is an affluent, childless, often underemployed citizenry seeking inheritances and lampooning the productive classes that produce enough excess for the wily to get by just fine without working. Somewhere around 1985 in California I noticed that my students were hoping for a state job first, a federal job second, a municipal job third — and a private one last. Around 1990, suddenly two sorts of commercials were aired everywhere: how to join a law suit by calling a law firm’s 1-800 number or how to get a free power chair, scooter, or some other device by calling the 1-800 number of
a health care company that would do the paper work for Social Security on your behalf.
Regulate, not create
Why is it more moral for a federal bureaucrat in a state-supplied SUV to shut down an offshore oil rig on grounds that it is too dangerous for the environment than for a private individual to risk his own capital to find some sort of new fuel to power his government’s SUV fleet? All affluent societies believe that they are just too rich not to be able to afford another regulation, just one more moralizing indulgence, yet again an added entitlement. But as we see now in postmodern America, idle 250,000 acres of farmland for a tiny fish, shut down an entire oilfield, put off a new natural gas find in worry over possible environmental alteration, add a cent to the sales tax, mandate yet another prescription drug entitlement not funded, or offer yet another in-state tuition discount to an illegal alien — and the costs finally equate to an implosion as we see in Greece or California. And as we know from past collapses, a new entitlement in a matter of minutes becomes an institutionalized right whose withdrawal causes far more anguish than its prior nonexistence. Justinian learned that when he sought to cut the civil service and almost lost his throne.
Them
Not that the elite are exempt. Western moral literature, from Horace to Thackeray, focuses on the vanity of the rich who think that a greedy heir won’t really inherit their hard-won or suspect riches, or that their always aging hips and knees will always so briskly power them up the monumental stairs of their colossal homes, or that a fifth sailboat or another 1000 acres will at last end the boredom. But the rub is not whether they are rich but whether they are idle, whether they send a message that affluence can make life better, rather than affluence is inevitably corrupting. In Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars, the theme is not just imperial decadence and cruelty, but also the blind passions of the mob that the elite so cynically manipulate for their own useless privilege and nonsensical indulgence.
This section: “50% of the population paying nothing at all (in) income tax. The latter noble do not bother us as much, but their noncompliance bothers the foundations of our society far more than that of the stingy, but minuscule grasping rich.” is a little confusing.
Very good article, and thoughtful, as always.
It’s all right to delete the comment, Dr. Hanson. I hope it was helpful.
It is a little confusing. My interpretation is the use of the word “noble” is tongue-in-cheek, referring to the 50% who pay no federal income tax. These people enjoy the same federal gov’t provided services as those who write a check to the Treasury on April 15. They have no incentive to vote for politicians who would revise the tax code in a way where they might pay; and they have every incentive to vote for politicians who will “tax the rich.”
The two sentences got fixed, though, so my comment’s no longer relevant.
I think “noncompliance” should be “non-participation”.
Made sense to me. The poor and “working poor” are noble in the sense that we are not allowed to question their status and circumstances. They may buy extravagant groceries with food stamps, and cigarettes and liquor with cash; they may double-dip multiple overlapping “benefits” programs; they may have wasted their chance at an education while the rest of us were prudent, and now can’t hire out their own labor at a “living wage.” But to point any of this out is “judgemental,” and beyond consideration in the debate. To suggest that any of them might not be deserving of every cent of their reward, is to label yourself a heartless cad, and disqualify yourself from speaking further on the subject. They are therefore “set apart” and “untouchable,” just as the aristocratic nobility of old, though not for the same reasons.
Preach it, brother! And this from the third last paragraph,
I want and don’t have, so ergo am poor. It is the government’s job to correct that injustice. That’s why I vote.
And now I’m watching even more commercials and seeing additional things I desire. Thus I am even poorer than I thought at first. Candidate, you better listen to me!
The problem here is that the people who really DO need their SSD benefit, which THEY paid for (forced to do so by government)are lumped into the lot of useless titty-suckers who abuse the system. That is unfair to those people. The solution is to ferret out the titty-suckers and drag them away from the aforementioned appendage, kicking and screaming if need be. That would then leave only those who have true need on the program.
@Constitutionalist: While it’s true that Social Security Recipients “paid into” the system, that payment was merely a tax, that was probably just as often used for something other than Social Security as it was for Social Security itself.
While I feel for those who were duped into accepting the System, and we need to find ways to support those who have bought into the government fraud, we should ultimately view all those who are on it as as feeding off the tit of Government, no different than anyone else “benefiting” from other government programs. Just as those other programs need to end RIGHT NOW, so does Social Security–and we can start by making it a voluntary program.
We need to end the practice of having Government force us to “prepare” for retirement, or for poverty, or for any of the other numerous issues that have been taken care of by charity in the past, and would be taken care of by charity, if government just GOT OUT OF THE WAY.
I put “benefit” and “prepare” in quotes above, because depending on government for your sustenance–and thus, having to live by government’s rules–is NOT a benefit; and depending on Social Security for retirement, or for when you become disabled, is NOT adequate preparation, BY A LONG SHOT.
If you want a comfortable, free-as-in-free-speech-and-not-free-beer retirement, Social Security is the LAST place you should be looking!
Income Taxes: 1. income tax pays for NOTHING but the interested owed to the federal reserve, 2. the 16th amendment was never ratified by the necessary number of states, and 3. there is NO WRITTEN LAW mandating that one pay the income tax. Do your research and don’t be mad at those who don’t pay just because you don’t think it’s fair that you’ve been fooled into paying while they are not. It’s no good thing to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173
You are a troll who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The income tax generates five times the revenue needed to pay interest on the debt (all of the debt, not just that which is held by the Federal Reserve).
He’s not a troll, and he’s right: The income tax pays off the debt made by the central bank. The central bank creates debt by printing money out of thin air (counterfeiting).
This opinion piece is spot on by-the-way, very penetrating and ringing loudly true. People think they have rights to stuff and that a small group of people can simply take some from others and distribute it as they see fit. As we can see with that success, we are in a $14 trillion debt which grows larger by the day, because liberals and conservatives do not care if we are at constant war, so long as they get their stimulus check and doomed-to-failure FIAT money, it’s all okay.
A diatribe without sources for those facts is nothing but an opinion. There are no shortages of opinions….or rants as in Victor’s case.
vdh has topped his own record for insights per square inch. Well done sir!!!
The one that jumped out at me was the first…that decline is inevitable when societies begin to focus on the redistribution of wealth rather than the creation of wealth. Who is creating wealth in America today? Many are attempting to preserve it, but all of the forces are arrayed against its creation. There aren’t many hardy soles still willing to risk what they have. Three more years and the few will have all become preservers, not creators. I’m not sure we can return to the time when it was reversed without a convulsion that might itself destroy the country.
We need a revival of self-reliance (sometimes called puritanism). I don’t know how VDH would feel about my efforts here, but I like this essay of mine, and don’t think that I am criticizing his interesting essay: see http://clarespark.com/2011/04/03/progressives-the-luxury-debate-and-decadence/. He seems to me to be pointing to political and social failure that falls outside of the usual gloomy prognostications by the doomsday prophets.
The problem is that not more than 15 or 20 percent of Americans even know what it is to “make money”. Why do we count government expenditures in GDP? They produce nothing at all. There is indeed a Keynesian multiplier, but it’s way less than 1.00. Government: regulation, taxes, paperwork, are sheer loss. The money is stolen form those who make money.
Let me explain. It is tre simple. I get a load of dirt from a mine or jobsite…whatever. I run it through a screening plant, and turn it into bank run, sand, and glop. The dirt cost me $15 per yard. After my plant runs it, I have 1/3 yard of bank run, 1/4 yard of sand, and the rest is junk (which I now have to dispose of as hazardous waste, even though I just dug it up and washed it with water). I mix it with $30 of cement, put it in my mixer and deliver it to the jobsite, and I get $150/yard. So, by acting upon $45 of material, furnishing the plant, the trucks, the water, and the labor (quite a sizable capital investment) I have created $105.If the cost of maintaining my plant exceeds $105 per yard, I am screwed. If I must use union labor, triple my labor cost. I will go broke. If, because of my ingenuity, I can do it for $25, I have, in fact, produced wealth from thin air. I take $80 and put it into my bank, and spend it at my leisure.
When Obama says he invests, he is lying. There is never a point where government creates true wealth. Some government action is justified. It makes roads, which help my trucks to get where they have to go. It tries, with mixed results, to maintain a legal system so I can get paid. But almost all government functions are more like making me do extensive paperwork on truck mileage, so they can tax me more. I pay excise taxes on every single component of the process. I must submit to regulations that make no sense, because Harvard PhDs know nothing about my business, yet they tell me what to do, and they must be paid first, regardless of the cost.
At some point, screw them. This is that point. Unless you’re Immelt and GE, with the President’s ear, you must simply put up with whatever Valerie Jarrett can imagine.
Screw her, too. Let her give you a job. Good luck with that.
I agree with your post 100%. I’ve been ranting against counting government spending in GDP for about a year now. It should be SUBTRACTED from GDP, and as you say, probably subracted with a multiplier attached to it. In other words, every dollar of government spending should subtract a dollar and a half from GDP.
If the statistics did that, the depth of the depression would be clear, and the marxist couldn’t get 30% of the vote. Even a lot of his hands-out sychophants would see the depth of the destrution he has caused.
Frankly, I’m beginning to think that the billions the country invests in “data” (unemployment stats, GDP, CBO fantasies, the census, etc.) are a big part of the shell game the politicians run to scam the country.
Very true essay. There is something in the psychological makeup of a people that will sacrifice unto death to create a society that will also throw it all away for something “free” from the government.
The generation that grew up during the first Great Depression learned that prosperity or even comfort is not an inalienable right, that it must be worked for, guarded and never taken for granted. Each succeeding generation lost some of the memory of the disaster, and today the majority think a “good life” is something owed them by some ambiguous “they”, and if they don’t get what they believe they are due, it’s because of a criminal conspiracy organized by another ambiguous “they”. The Cause and Effect between work and reward has been lost. It may take a disaster and loss of all expectations of a good life to restore the connection again.
No, you have it exactly backwards. The Great Depression generation was the beginning of the end. They abandoned some of their value system. They turned to government programs. FDR is synonymous with all these government dole programs. The TVA and others are still with us today.
A Progressive Democrat Wilson ruined the economy. Harding and Coolidge (who would be called Conservatives today) restored it. Then a Progressive Republican Hoover (a RINO today) ruined it again. This ushered in FDR. When Dems screw up, Republicans can fix it. When Republicans screw up, there is no one left to fix it, and the damage becomes permanent. Hoover brought us a Dem majority for decades. (Stupid RINO.)
Thus did we get the big government disease, the replacement of the social contract, the destruction of the personal responsibility. Sure, their kids fought WWII, but their spoiled-rotten grandkids became the Baby Boom generation, and they completed the discarding of the value system. All in reaction to a tumble of the stock market. All for a temporary crisis, they threw away their values, and brought the decline of our civilization. It takes awhile for a culture to rot and perish.
Well spoken and well put together. It gives me more hope (ack, that word anymore) for the USA that we can recuperate from this half-wit commie presently in the White House in a way we never could from that (expletives deleted) McCain.
*For bonus points, what is the use of my second set of parenthesis based on?
Well, everything has to be put in context. It isn’t right to look back on 80 years ago with what we have learned in the interim.
I’m not a big fan of Wilson or FDR, but it’s hard to deny that they didn’t have the benefit of watching Communism destroy lives and slaughter tens of millions for decades; nor the benefit of watching the social democracies of Europe gradual eat the seed corn of prosperity.
We have that data in undeniable clarity, plus the knowledge of the decline of our own country that is easily traceable to socialism, so I’m not as willing as you to fault those generations and those politicians.
Similarly, having endured the Great Depression and sacrificed so much during WWII, the greatest generation deserves at least a bit of a pass for spoiling their kids. My view is that it was a mistake, but an understandable one.
But if the current generation doesn’t do something about our current fiscal straits, then we deserve no sympathy, because all of the cards are clearly on the table for anyone who chooses to look.
“I’m not a big fan of Wilson or FDR, but it’s hard to deny that they didn’t have the benefit of watching Communism destroy lives and slaughter tens of millions for decades; nor the benefit of watching the social democracies of Europe gradual eat the seed corn of prosperity.”
Umm, yes they did. They either dismissed what those evils SAID they were going to do (ala Hitler) or were in league with and covered for them (ala Stalin).
Early 20th century progressives were entirely in league with Hitler and then Hitler took their ideology and murdered the Jews. Then the Progressives whitewashed their support of Hitler saying it was all the evil Republicans and changed their support to Stalin and literally covered for his evils (go read Duranty). You can be sure they knew it all along. Progressivism is EVIL…
wrong.
Stalin’s initial purges were in the mid-30′s, long after Roosevelt had adopted socialism as his political framework. Mao hadn’t even appeared on the scene. Russia was already bad, but Romanov Russia had been bad has well. North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam…decades in the future for people living in the 30′s. And all of what was happening in Russia was hidden from the American public. It was nearly impossible for an ordinary citizen to know anything about what was really happening in Russia.
You are just looking back with 20-20 hindsight…which of course was my exact point.
I don’t think Mr. Malone’s point relies upon whether people in the 1930s were aware of communist destruction and slaughter or had an appreciation of the unsustainability of European social welfare states post 1950. Be that as it may, the 1919-20 Red Scare gave Americans an education in “anarchist and left-wing political violence and social agitation” (Wiki). In the Soviet Union, the collectivization of agriculture, attacks on the Kulaks, and the famine in Ukraine and the Kuban regions took place approximately between 1929 and 1932 — before or in the earliest months of FDR’s first term. Exactly what was known of these latter events in the U.S. I can’t say without further research, but I’m guessing that probably a lot was known.
Observers of the New Deal and FDR saw much that was shady and manipulative in his buying of votes with public money and persecution of opponents by means of the IRS. Moreover, viewed independently of events abroad, the New Deal was a gigantic turning away from free markets and a thoroughgoing embrace of massive federal government intervention. This and the Supreme Court’s betrayal on the Commerce Clause were well understood for what they represented. Social Security was no mystery at the time and was on its face unconstitutional. FDR and his New Deal met fierce criticism at the time and it’s clear that Americans were well aware of the implications of what they were choosing — a major change of course, one with roots in European fascism and without any basis in the constitutional scheme.
The eduction level of the average american in the 1920′s and 1930′s was even less than it is today; the press was already manipulating the information; and the amount of information available was a tiny fraction of what is available today.
Very few people knew what was going on in Russia and many who did know were mis-informed about it. Even the politial leaders who probably knew didn’t have the benefit of viewing multiple examples of failure and violence. Heck, there still a few leftists today who think that marxism just hasn’t been implemented correctly yet. Many of them thought so 80 years ago.
Again, we shouldn’t view the past through the prism of the present. FDR hurt this country but he didn’t do it with the purpose of creating a tyrannical politburo ruling as an elite aristocracy, as the current marxists intend to do. As Obama and his handlers intend to do.
In the 1920′s and 1930′s, Americans enjoyed fewer YEARS of education, but actually learned to read, write, do at least 4-function math (budget, checkbook,money-counting, job estimating,etc.) before getting into an apprenticeship where they learned specialized skills, including algebra geometry trig material-strength measurements for carpenters/bricklayers/welders/machinists, paper-based spreadsheet calculation for accountants (book-keepers, they called them). Somehow, my Grandfathers’ 8 years at school was sufficient for him to do whatever he needed to work continuously through the 1920′s and 30′s (1929-1941 Depression, ya know, followed by multiple shorter periods of suckage in the 1940′s, 1950′s, 1960′s, 1970′s and 1980′s), be a skilled worker at Kaiser building Liberty ships, and work 40+ hours until his “retirement” in 1975, when he dropped back to “part-time” of 30 hours a week until a quadruple heart by-pass slowed him down at age 85. He’d quit smoking in about 1967 when I was born, but was a moderate (2 cocktails before dinner, at most) drinker until it was interfering with the bowl of med’s in his late 80′s. He only lived another 9 years, putting in about 20 hours a week at painting, woodwork, gardening, and teaching me stuff. Grandma finished 11th grade and wrote more letters than Grandpa, but she had more time to do it.
I found a collection of his pay stubs in the estate: he never made a lot of money. I think that he was pretty happy.
I’ve had way too much Gov’t-approved education, and it’s nothing I couldn’t have got from reading after work. I probably should have been making money full-time since I was 16, but somehow, there is always some credential that escapes me for getting a job that an idiot could do. This makes me resentful, not happy.
Cheers.
Well said, Marc. Too quickly we lost the knowledge in our culture that collectivism is parasitic, similar to a cancer, and inevitably consumes its host. That was easily accomplished by decades of historical revisionism, a “values-neutral” public education system, and with the complicity of the popular media. Statism is the political mechanism of collectivism. Ideas have consequences. We are witnessing the devastating consequences in Europe of the 20th-century mutation of collectivism marketed under the euphemism of “democratic socialism.”
That model was adopted and repackaged by FDR and each subsequent generation of the American political class as “progressive socialism.” With each mutation the strain becomes more virulent and violent and has infected many on both side of the political divide. The postmodernist form of today was incubated in the petri disk of 1960′s radicalism. Progressivism was the dominate worldview of the modern Democrat party, with its emphasis on moral relativism and the nanny state. The Obamanation is the latest mutation with a deep divisiveness focused on racial reparations, a centrally-controlled economy, and environmental radicalism. The tactics include race-based class warfare, confiscatory wealth distribution, and the criminalization of our oil-based economy.
Fortunately there is a remnant of Americans who still remember the Free America. Victor is our prophet. We will take our stand against global collectivism. When necessary, we will hunker down, protect our families, and eventually rebuilt.
That’s just the way we roll.
The word is “dominant”, not “dominate”!!! Please learn the difference (look it up if needed). But don’t feel bad, there are plenty more like you.
What are you talking about? The time after the New Deal was enacted saw the creation of a strong middle class and our country becoming a super power. We were the largest creditor nation in the world. People were being paid a decent wage for a hard days work. After trickle down economics were put into place people wages became stagnant. We became the largest debtor nation in the world. The middle class is being crushed and we will eventually lose our status as a super power if this path continues. Your revisionist history is laughable. Why do people forget that at the time when this country became a shining light on the hill was during the liberal era? You remember those days don’t you. The days when taxes on the wealthy were at 94%-70%. When corporations payed 33% more in taxes than individuals. When wages overall during that time increased by 76% unlike the trickle down era of 4%. I guess you are talking about a different reality then huh?
No comment on the rest of it because anyone who revels in the thought that times were good when (and in any part because) “corporations payed 33% more in taxes than individuals” has just shown total ignorance.
“Corporations” don’t pay any taxes, ever. All of those taxes are paid by people, i.e. individuals. It may be in higher prices the corporation must charge individuals who buy its products; it may be in lower salaries for its individual workers; it may be in the decision not to expand and hire more people/individuals; or it may be that the corporation’s owners/stockholders will get less or no profits/dividends. No one wants to invest in a business that can’t grow and disburse profits.
But legislators LOVE corporate taxes, having demonized the evil corporations so that the ignorant masses are only too happy to demand that corporations pay ever more taxes.
And if a corporation moves to a country where it may earn profits? Just shows how evil it is!!
Your assertions are just not true.
When FDR took office, we were already starting to come out of the Great Depression. When he enacted the New Deal, we were plunged back into it. The Great Depression was only of truly great length here in America. Every time we began to pull out, FDR would sabotage it again. In 1936, he said he was worried that the economy would recover before all his agenda got enacted.
Becoming a superpower was something that actually began after WWI. We owned so much of the debt of Britain, that we made them reduce their Navy, so they could pay us back. This began the process of us becoming dominant at sea, and thus, dominant in the world. The great powers of the world already recognized this fact. WWII made it evident to those who could not perceive it before.
The post-war boom was primarily because so much of the world’s factories (and manpower) had been destroyed. Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, China…. all had suffered enormously. To attribute it to tax rates is ridiculous. We were simply the last man standing. We had the factories and the manpower. They no longer did. As they rebuilt, and as other nations developed, our dominance slipped. We no longer have the monopoly we enjoyed.
As for tax-rates, when Reagan took over in 1981, we were suffering stagflation. It was ugly. He asked Congress for tax-cuts. The Dem-controlled House obliged him, but made sure they did not take effect until after the ’82 mid-terms. When they took effect in ’83, the economy grew 7%/yr each of the next 2 years and remained at a high level thereafter. 22 million jobs were created. 22 million jobs would look really good just about now. Then a moderate Republican (RINO) Bush took over, raised tax-rates, tanked the economy, and screwed it all up. And gave us BJ Clinton.
When Kennedy cut tax-rates in ’63, the economy grew 5%/yr for the next 5 years. Then a Progressive Republican (RINO) Nixon took over, and screwed it all up. And gave us Carter.
Harding and Coolidge cut tax-rates dramatically, and we saw the greatest economic expansion in our history. The unemployment rate dropped to 1.8%! 1.8% unemployment would look really good just about now. The average household income grew 75% during those years, the Roaring Twenties.
Then, a Progressive Republican (RINO) Hoover took over and screwed it all up. We got FDR, and Democratic majorities for the next 50 years. We got the decline of our society and massive government.
Stupid, big-government RINO’s. Every time we get on track, they come in and screw it all up. RINO’s make Dems possible, by screwing it all up. Here’s an idea: let’s try Conservatism for more than just a meager few years.
Marc, your on fire. great posts.
You left out the fact that China and India were backward nations, not serious economic competitors to the U.S. And that Japan and Germany couldn’t compete with the U.S. economically because we had bombed them into rubble.
The U.S. prospered in the 1950s because our industrial plant was the only one of the major nations to emerge unscathed from World War II. We were truly the last man standing.
We prospered in spite of, not because of, those high tax rates.
Now sure, we could regain prosperity again by nuking China and India off the map so outsourcing would go away.
But I don’t think you, as a left-winger, would want that.
Though it’s exactly what FDR and Truman were doing.
Mr. Malone, I’m not smart enough to judge a whole generation, but as one born in 1934 at the height of the great depression, I can testify to the unshaken values of my working class elders, their children, and grandchildren, now raising their own offspring with the same values 85 years later.
Just a slight quibble.
Britain did not collapse like 5th Century Rome because of some internal malaise and too much Statism. Britain declined because of the enormous cost of fighting the Second world War and the deliberate policy of the American government to use the war to bankrupt its ally.
The Statism followed and then compounded the decline, it did not actually casue it.
And Britain has not collapsed like 5th Century Rome. Britain is still here. It has its problems but it most certainly has not collapsed.
Please spare us your ‘America was bad’ rap.
Iran humiliated the British Navy in international waters and a community organizer president gave the queen an iPod. The soil and the parliament is still there but the greatness has been diminished.
CH has a point. There was a huge transfer of British wealth to America before America entered the war. That is just a fact.
While true to a degree, it does not explain Britain’s decline. They emerged from the war relatively unscathed, while Germany and Japan were smashed. Volkswagen was completely smashed, while British manufacturers were in good shape. Yet Volkswagen was soon producing high quality cars, while the less said about British cars and their strike-ridden producers, the better. Ironically, British WWII hardware – think Supermarine’s Spitfire and Rolls-Royce’s Merlin engines – was outstanding, while the much feared Panzer tanks were unreliable.
Yes; the British chose to stay on rationing and their war-time economy for years after the war was over. That crippled their recovery.
“…the deliberate policy of the American government to use the war to bankrupt its ally.”
Hogwash.
We propped the British Empire up through two world wars with massive loans, a lot of which were never repaid and never will be, is more like it.
They bankrupted themselves through their idiotic foreign and domestic policies.
Except they aren’t actually bankrupt, just not as rich (relative to the rest of the world) as they once were.
I do love the implication that we’re somehow obligated to pay the expenses of foreign empires. Very amusing.
On the contrary, the strings attached during both wars prevented the empire recovering after each – only Britain itself was supported, the rest being ringbarked. And the debts were eventually repaid, unlike the various American debts to the British and Dutch that got repudiated in the 19th century.
The decline of the British Empire post WWII wasn’t due to the USA ‘beggaring’ it.
It was on the one hand due to the ongoing struggle for freedom in huge parts of the Empire, e.g. on the Indian subcontinent, but also in Africa. This went on for a good fifteen years after WWII.
Much more pernicious was what is described as ‘statism’ above – but which was, in fact, socialism with a friendly face. The nationalisation programmes, the NHS – all were introduced by the Attlee (Labour) government.
It is no accident that West Germany, having to cope with far more destruction of infrastructure and housing, and with the influx of refugees from the German East, overtook GB in industrial output and GDP by the mid-fifties.
Both the UK and West Germany had access to the enormous sums given by the USA through the Marshall Plan.
One prospered because they rejected socialism in any form.
The other didn’t.
Draw your own conclusions …
“Both, the UK, and West Germany, had access to enormous sums given by the US through the Marshall plan”: The UK received 3,44 Billions, France 2,8 and West Germany 1,42. However, till 1950 the US could take all products we invented or had invented without payment(Britain too)and the French transported wood taken from the Black Forest to France). Anyway, the Marshall plan was a success – though in a different way the US had planned: 1 shirt and some socks pro person every 18 months for example, they had calculated. After some weeks, Ludwig Ehrhard, our first minister for economy(Wirtschaftsminister)was commanded to General Clay. “How could you dare to alter my instructions” he said. Ehrhard answered: ” Ich habe sie nicht geändert, ich habe sie abgeschaft”(I did not alter them, I did abolish them).
Ah… no. There was already a system in place to raise the various possessions and mandates to autonomy and full independence using techniques like “dyarchy”, which had already taken place for the “White Dominions” and for Iraq. India was on track to get there in the 1960s, and other areas somewhat later. It was U.S. economic constraints that hastened that process; local pressures weren’t the driver for the timing.
This is not true. The UK began to follow a socialist welfare agenda almost immediately following the second world war. Germany, on the other hand, decided to go down the small government and low tax and regulation path which lead to stong economic growth and wealth creation. You should realise that Britian actually recieved more aid than Germany through the Marshal plan but threw away their future with their attachment to expanding Government and socialism.
Actually, Britain received very little of that aid, which was mainly aimed at heading off destabilisation in the liberated countries (which partly explains why Germany got comparatively little). What Britain got was loans, which had strings attached – at least in practice, if not formally.
Uh…….. Rome is still there, too. If it weren’t for Americans there would be no U.K. or if there were it would consist of England, Germany and Italy.
I saw a video of the 9-11 celebration in London by Muslims. British nationals who tried to protest and carried U.S. flags were arrested by the bobbies. Absolutely surreal! Low has the British Empire fallen.
Nonsense! If Britain had been conquered by Germany, it would have happened in the summer of 1940. The Battle of Britain avoided that, and with the German invasion of the USSR the threat from Germany went away. We could just as easily thank the Red Army as the USA. On the issue of war debts: the UK has payed off all its debt from WWII, but not from WWI. But then, no country with war debts to the UK from WWI has payed us, either (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm).
“We could just as easily thank the Red Army as the USA.”
Nonesense to you. Who to thank is Hitler, for his stupid obsession with Russia, and not putting off the invasion until the following year. He invaded too late in the year, and ended up fighting the Russian winter as well as the Russian army. Without the Russian winter, the Wermacht would have walked all over the Russians. And the US provided Russia with armaments, air planes, vehicles, artillery, etc. all throughout the war, for which the Russians never payed us back. And Hitler again stupidly declared war on the US after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, without which Congress would never have approved war against Germany, while fighting the Japanese.
I believe that the reason the invasion commenced in June was because of the Italian failure to subjugate Greece, which necessitated the deployment of a large number of German forces in the spring of 1941.
Only when Greece was conquered did Germany attack Russia, and as jarmo indicated, by then they had to face an unfriendly calendar and climate.
The lowlife English repudated their World War I debt to the USA. That’s why they had to pay cash for World War II. Don’t complain to us because you were deadbeats. Blame your unions for never caring about what they were supposed to produce.
We are not lowlifes. We are the nation that fought through both world wars. Your nation came in late because you are a bagatelle of cowards offering up windy boasts and feeding off the efforts of true men. You are terrible at war and have only ever won when white men have done the heavy lifting for you. Most of you are descendants of trash who fled Europe because you were too cowardly to fight for your people. You vermin stabbed us in the back and then boasted about how you saved us. You are not a nation but a mere collection of obese catamites with a culture that can best be desribed as arse gravy. Speed the day for when you are incorporated into Mexico. Adios.
That’s right- our ancestors were kicked out of every decent country on the planet, so we built our own! Huddled masses yearning to breathe free fled basket case countries and built one that is not an ethnicity but an ethos. And come on, Britain could never have one the wars without American industry.
As Bill Murray remarked in the brilliant movie, STRIPES:
“We’re not Spartans. We’re Americans, with a capital ‘A’, huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts! Here’s proof: his nose is cold! But there’s no animal that’s more faithful, that’s more loyal, more loveable than the mutt..”
The speech continues, but you get the idea. STRIPES was crude, vulgar and largely made by Canadians, but it was SANDS OF IWO JIMA for the Reagan Era.
Our ancestors left assorted shiteholes around the world, to include formerly Great Britain, because those shiteholes were not good enough for them. The best and bravest, even if they were poor and uneducated came to America because they were not afraid to be free and independent. Britain is a shell of its former self and unfortunately is probably only a couple of generations was being part of the Caliphate. I hope you enjoy being a dhimmi in your own country. If you can read this thank a teacher. If you can read this in English thank an American soldier.
Have an Evil day
For what it’s worth, my mother’s family were Irish who emigrated to France, and she told me that they looked down on those who went to the U.S.A. as mere economic emigrants.
You know, my dear cyberfriend, VDH…the whole problem with leftism is that they need to get over themselves.
Not only are they crumbling society with a focus on redistributing wealth (not to the “have not’s”…but to the “state machine”, which has a burn rate of about 88%, while the Skinner pigeons keep pushing the levers for the leftover 12% crumbs), but they are also crumbling society by making “self-made” a dirty word.
There is one twit in Massachusetts (who looks like the woman in the movie “Awakenings” who can’t cross a tile floor because the pattern is interrupted, played by Alice Drummond), who believes that there is no such thing as “self-made”, and defies anyone to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Of course, these gender studies academicians for years tried to make a war between not just color, creed, class or religion…they wanted to start a war between men and women….(I guess it’s ok to pull oneself up by your own bra straps), so that nobody was left out of the “battle”.
A society that is hell bent on trying to find new and unique ways to pick a fight with itself is in for a headache. This current group is so inane and arrogant, it at once picks a fight, declares the matter “settled”, calls any principled dissent “racist” and then apologizes to the world for our entire past.
Of course, just like “Lucy” in Awakenings…these people have been asleep since 1968. They can’t put a foot forward if the pattern isn’t painted on the floor for them, they wait for someone to give their frozen in time brains instructions on how to react to the world around them.
“I know it’s not 1968, I just need it to be” is their plaintive plea.
The problem, of course…with having the Protest Culture Cult in positions of leadership, is that they can’t produce a budget, have no foreign policy plan, don’t listen to our generals on the ground, can’t fix Wall Street, can’t make a tax program and can’t negotiate a contract with unions…because they have been in “anti” mode for 45 years. They know how to gripe and cry and moan and march in perpetual protest…but, they never had to actually MAKE something, they only had to criticize the efforts of others.
Which is why you see the NLRB try to shut down Boeing in the Carolinas or the DOJ not knowing how to protect the rights of ALL people, or why NO budget is produced for 1000 days by the leftists. They can only respond to work produced and pontificate on it…they can’t create it.
The final analysis is this: They will never understand people who are self-made, because they have lived in the cocoon of the self-absorbed.
Spot on.
Amen brother Victor!
I knew Obama’a “jobs” plan wasn’t serious when there was nothing about increasing oil production.
A Mr. Tisch was on CNBC within the past two weeks and he recounted how five deep sea drilling rings moved out of the Gulf recently. Why? EPA and Interior delays in granting permits.
Those clowns in DC have no idea how damaging $4.00 gas has been.
And it was all fixable!
I saw Herman Cain talk to a roomful of Omaha lawyers 20 years ago and I never forgot it. He can set a room on fire. My dream ticket is Rommey-Cain.
Rommey has the experience and Cain has the fire. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan might even work. Getting rid of the compliance costs of federal taxes would be a huge lift.
Cain’s 9-9-9 plan gives the government an additional revenue stream.
A 9% VAT that he calls a national sales tax.
How long do you think the congress will let that new tax stay at 9% ?
How long do you think the congress would let 9% be the income tax rate ?
How long do you think the congress would let 9% be the corporate tax rate ?
All these are daydreams, an entirely new revenue stream for the politicians to squander would be especially pernicious.
For that reason, Cain is not an option.
The politicians will get away with messing with the tax rates only if the voters fail to treat their attempts to adjust them upward as a “third rail”. Blame the voters (“the culture”) not the politicians. Exactly the point that Dr. Hanson is making.
Fair question and Cain answered it today.
He said that he can’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be a change, but he asserted that the public wouldn’t allow it.
The current code is such that what he called “sneakataxs” get slipped in all the time and the credits and deductions raise and lower taxes all the time. And he’s right.
To second what some other posters have said, any change to 9-9-9 would be extremely obvious and would have to be approved (indirectly, by not voting the suckers out) by the voters. Current tax law can be changed (and is changed every year, practically) and the general public doesn’t have a clue.
For that same reason, why would politicians be any more likely to increase taxes than they are now? That argument is ridiculous on its face.
Then let’s make it a Cain-Romney ticket. I think Cain’s catching fire, and may well end up the nominee. Heck, 9-9-9 couldn’t be any worse than what we’ve got now!
Outside of Obama’s vocabulary:
Eagle Ford shale, Barnett shale, Bossier shale, Bakken shale, Colony Granite Wash shale, West Marcellus shale, Monterey shale, Woodford shale, Utica shale, Fayetteville shale, Green River shale
VDH: Right on, well said.
However, it’s going to take something significant for this country to rise up. No idea what that’ll be except it might not be healthy for us at all.
My parents brought me into this world during the great depression and with others struggled through WWII and we came out a better, stronger, healthier country in so many ways. My concern is that whatever is coming at us might not be treated by us in a positive way.
The 9/11 attacks merely set the stage for that next event and should have helped prepare us to meet it but something came up in 2008 to reduce out ability to deal with life as it is.
Maybe we’ll regain that unique spirit that made us Americans or just maybe we’ll retreat back to being just transplanted Euros. This country was born in a unique way and remained so until we collectively apologized for being what we were then. God help us regain what we once had and should have now.
“reduce out ability” Shpould read “reduce OUR ability”
And it’s highly amusing that your correction ended up with a typo!
Don’t be pedantic.
Now see as hear Caption Rusty, Dianna wassn’t bein pedantic, she was just been humerus.
I was kidding! Making a slight joke! Gah! It struck me funny, and I wanted to share. Honestly, can’t a girl have a little fun?
“Little Ice Ages” occur every 500-550 years, the last one was 1500-1750. Others started in 950, 400 and 100bc.
During the warm periods entreprenuers start up businesses and societies grow rich. Laws are discovered that protect existing jobs and relationships. Cold weather arrives. Northern barbarians invade looking for warmer climates. They have beards to keep their faces frost free. Cold weather disrupts economic relationships. But existing laws prevent innovation. Societies fail. Usually with a wimper.
Well, it’s an interesting idea, but – really? What do beards have to do with it?
“Northern barbarians invade looking for warmer climates.”
So, you’re saying we’re about to be overrun by hordes of Canadians?
Scary.
;)
Not just Canadians, BEARDED Canadians.
Cold, bearded, Canadian scofflaws.
In the last “little ice age” (1500-1750) the Canadians did come south. Indeed, the tribes that lived in the area now called the American Southwest also went south and invaded Mexico looking for the warm weather they needed to grow crops and the animals they used to hunt.
During the warm period that followed, the Mexicans came north looking for a cooler climate. They will go back to Mexivo when the next “little ice age” arrives. The next “little ice age” should last from 2050-2300.
Don’t worry about global warming.
Weather, it explains everything.
But aren’t you forgetting the movement of the planets? Surely that is at least as important? I mean, really. I couldn’t get through a day without checking my horrorscope first.
Please don’t fall for the son of Senator Romney.
He is a Harvard Business trained corporate raider.
He’s a breakup artist, not a ‘turnaround’ artist.
His family connections granted him loans to seize cash-strong companies,
load them with debt to the breaking point, offshore the jobs and production, and use the leveraged assets to seize more companies and continue the process.
Please, good people, he’s part of the DC-Ivy mafia.
barba is the latin word for beard.
The “ice age” is when the the Tiber freezes in winter; when Spain, North Africa, and Sicily become sources of grain; when the Nilometer is generally higher and when the farms along the Tigris and Euphrates are fertile. Ice Ages are bad for northern areas and good for North Africa, Spain, the Middle East and Sicily.
Sol, barba is indeed Latin for “beard”, but barbarus, “barbarian”, comes from the unrelated ancient Greek, βάρβαρος, because non-Greek speakers said “bar-bar”.
Yet the Romans considered beards barbarous, to the point that it was scandalous when Hadrian decided to not just have a beard, but to be depicted with one officially.
(No, not his wife; actual facial hair.)
Romans did wear beards in the early republic, but not in later times. I remember a quote from Cicero refering to a time when “our ancestors were still wearing beards”. Don’t remember which speech it’s from.
Slaves to fashion, those Romans were. The clean-faced boyish look started in the ancient world as a fad in imitation of the conquering man-god Alexander of Macedon.
Too much affluence can have a dulling effect on society it seems. We instinctively move away from risk taking behavior, and seek security instead. The mind-set changes, we begin to look inward rather than outward… It is a more feminine way of looking at life. Nothing wrong with that per se. But it needs to be balanced with a healthy dose of masculine outward bound, forward looking, paradigm shaking assertive action (which is not just limited to men btw).
But a large part of it has to do with the relentless campaign of cultural Marixism that has been waged internally for the last several decades. It’s a fascinating story that seems to go right back to the early days of Communism in America, the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse, Saul Alinksy etc. All along they have sought every trick (much of it based on modern marketing and advertising techniques) to modify how we think, how we react to things and to each other. Certain views being branded as “wrong” and then enforced through the threat of social isolation. This btw is something that apparently women are more vulnerable to as well. (In my own life I have found that free-thinking women are generally more fearsomely so than men, but they are also comparatively more rare. Any takers?)
It’s fairly easy to convince someone that their petty grievances (or not so petty) are someone else’s fault. Once that leap is made, it is even easier to convince them that they are justified in seeking redress. It’s what Obama is attempting now with his call for blacks to march in the streets. That, in essence, is what Marxist-Leninism is all about: Relentlessly induce people to focus on the negatives around them, while simultaneously denigrating the positives. Then promise them the keys for escaping the nightmare prison they didn’t realize they were trapped in.
The fact that we live in the freest, most truly egalitarian, wealthiest, most opportunity rich, color blind and innovative society in all of human history is irrelevant; both to the Marxists who peddle these lies and the weak souls who believe them (it takes moral strength to bear the burdens of life).
But it cuts both ways. The totalitarian thugs who seek to build cages for those who are free, are trapped too. In fact its worse for them because, though they go to elaborate means to hide it from themselves, they actually know they are living a lie, and what could be worse than that?
Your insight to the inequality of free thinking (long time since I’ve heard the term) between the genders — marvelous and true, both the extents and the ferocities.
You also correctly percieve the relentless 80 years of Marxist pressures. One must never forget to include the massive and penetrating Soviet Disinformation programs in America, not only of academia and the press, but including addiction to drugs — all since the late 1920s.
Yes, affluence may be the root cause but the thug marxist/royalists are certainly the catalyst.
Pelaut, can you recommend any good books or other sources which detail these Soviet programs? I know they took place (perhaps still do?), but would like to learn more.
The differences between men and women are, of course, what make the world go round! And I for one am grateful for them (some more than others!) But it does seem like the Marxist appeal resonates a bit more among women. Are they more easily fooled by words and seduced by appearances? Are they a bit more naive when it comes to appeasing rather than confronting evil?
At any rate there’s not much we can do about it. I like living in a culture where women have full economic and political freedom. Again I think it boils down to thoroughly grounding our children (male and female) in American history, the western tradition as a whole, the costs of freedom, the perils of tribalism and autocracy and the nightmare failures of collectivism. The Marxist left has done its best to erase all of that and to emphasize hedonism, instant gratification, self-degradation and the entitlement mindset. To undo that, we will need to place personal responsibility front and center once again. We offer a leg-up to those who are willing, and a helping hand to those in need. But to those who merely say “Give Me”, we must learn to say “No”. And to those (male or female) who then tell us we are heartless, we must learn to say “to hell with you”.
(PS – I say all of this as someone who has deep respect and even awe for women like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, Michelle Malkin, Anne Coulter and the many, many other gallant women from all walks who have taken the side of freedom!)
Proreason: I’ve often enjoyed your reflections here. I sometimes wonder if there is another, deeper layer to the statist-totalitarian impulse? Namely: Hate. It seems like these kinds of centralizing power grabs are often accompanied by a certain nihilism, and that a kind of delustional madness infuses all. It seems like no matter what the situation, they always arrange things to induce chaos, suffering and death on as wide a scale as possible. It seems to me that only someone who is deeply driven by towering Hate would seek this sort of outcome. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that?
Oleg Gordievsky — “The Inside Story of KGB Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev”
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn — “New Lies for Old”
Yuri Bezmenov, pen name Tomas Schuman — “World Thought Police”
Thank You
Sure, marxism isn’t genetic but emotions are.
Hate is a part of it, but imho, envy is the most important factor, both from the perspective of a root cause, but even moreso from the perspective of recruiting supporters.
Hate, I think, is a derivative of other emotions…envy, jealousy, unrequited lust. Anger is similar; it springs from other emotions.
One might also say that envy is at least a partial derivative of greed.
You don’t see much envy expressed on conservative blogs, whereas it’s the dominant emotion on liberal web-sites. When I see it on a conservative site, I instantly know the person is a liberal masquerading as a conservative. For example, I’ve had people at PJM go apoplectic because I defend Social Security, which people pay into for decades and deserve to get out what they were promised. But several people here are flat-out insistent that SS recipients are no better than thieves. Envy on steroids. Obviously, those people have concluded they aren’t going to get out what they put in and are angry about it even though it will never happen unless the entire society collapses; which is exactly what motivates every liberal…greed and envy.
All true. Whatever the root psychology, it seems to be somewhat adaptive in the short term. Historically, most societies have tended towards centralized power and totalitarian collectivism over time. It offers short term solutions to endemic problems, but in the long run leads to stasis (at best), and brutalizes the human spirit. Eventually some outside pressure comes along and shatters the brittle structure and the cycle begins anew.
What is great about the West (and the US in particular) is that we found a way to make individual freedom a pillar of strength, stability and prosperity. An astonishing achievement! And we have wielded power with exceptional morality, despite the mewlings of the historically illiterate left. But just like the Jihadists, our leftist enemies have exploited our greatest vulnerability: our openess. They used our high-volume, high intensity marketplace (of goods, services AND ideas) to spread their poison. Now they are trying to close the trap. But their timing was just a bit off, and they chose the wrong guy to seal the deal.
Like the ancient Greeks, we have broken a number of historical cycles because of our ability to channel individual self-interest without subjugating the individual. Judging the balance of forces as it stands today, I think the net result is that the Left has awakened a sleeping giant now. And that their envy, greed and hate will above all else, consume them.
Thanks
This synopsis is scary as hell. Anyone with two brain cells left to rub together will realize the frightening futility train we are on as we ‘choo choo’ off the rails.
Is ANYONE awake?
ANYONE?
AAAACK!
Where’s the snooze button?
‘I don’t think we wish to live in a quiet but collapsed Greece in the age of Plutarch, forever dreaming about a far off age of past accomplishment.’
Wishing for something not to be won’t stop it from happening, any more than wishing for something to be will make it happen. Wishes are for fishes. It may well be too late to prevent some nasty stuff happening, with or without hand wringing.
Actions make things happen. The question is what actions will we take in the aftermath of an economic disaster? What will we do after TSHTF?
“… live in a quiet but collapsed Greece in the age of Plutarch…”
No worry here. The trolley is off the rails and headed inexorably into the fields of Mad Max. It won’t be peaceful.
Everyone knows what is going to happen.
The problem is that today they are finally forced to confront the
terrifying fact that it will probably happen to THEM,
not some remote posterity.
Which makes them scared and therefore very dangerous in every respect.
Be ready for anything.
If you know what will happen, you will be wealthy beyond comparison.
There are ways to take advantage of anything.
Go for it. Mortgage the house; borrow as much as you can; sell your future services for 25 cents on the dollar; and bet on gold, or short the market, or do whatever you know will happen, becuase it is certain.
Right?
The market can remain insane longer than you can remain solvent. :)
“…a different popular culture that honors character rather than excess…”
The problem is there’s no way to rein in the popular culture as it gets crasser and crasser. I’ve heard some seriously disgusting things on “Family Guy” in the few times I’ve stumbled across it, and then marveled at how many smart and ordinary people tell me how funny it is.
What do you do when we become a society that’s egging each other on to go further and further into the revolting? How can that be turned around?
And the disingenuousness of the producers, performers and writers continues with the old canard “We’re just holding a mirror up to the culture.” BS. Everyone knows that popular culture steers the ship. Jon Stewart knows he’s molding minds through ridicule, but he pretends that he has no effect – it’s the new form of humility or something.
Every recent advancement in homosexual acceptance (whether you like it or hate it) has been brought about ENTIRELY by movies, music and TV. They insinuated it into the culture and the populace went along with it in monkey-see-monkey-do fashion. (Or the modern American equivalent of that, which is “I don’t want to be uncool!”)
Now TV is selling promiscuous sex just like they used to sell dishwasher soap in the ’50s. The entertainment establishment wants to bring morality crashing down the same way a vandal destroys something: just to watch it fall over.
I’m a fuddy-duddy, but I think there’s nothing “anti-liberty” about community standards of decency.
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“We witness the startling paradox that today’s private society is crasser, less honest, and more uncouth even as its government’s official morality stresses gender, race, class, and green ethical superiority.”
For me, this is the sentence that distills the issue. As any teacher will tell you, the more you preach about behaviour, the less behaved is the class. Children (and the rest of us) respond instinctively to self-righteous nagging and lecturing by testing the limits, wanting, hoping, waiting for the self-appointed judge to fall in the mire and collapse in tears. It is called sweet revenge.
Only by casting aside pretensions to the moral high ground can we defeat these pompous, boring hypocrites. Frankly admit to imperfection. Deny them the right to judge. Ask them what they have done or given up, personally, to alleviate the ills of which they speak. Holier than thou won’t cut it but honest humanity will.
Great comment.
“Self-righteous nagging”? Huh?
I’ve seen perfectly nice teachers doing their level best and they get nowhere with the kids and it’s not because the kids are so bloody sharp that they know hypocricy when they see it. Kids use the word “hypocrite” every damned time they don’t like something. It’s a vocal twitch from someone who is dead-set on misbehaving and doesn’t like being called out on it.
The problem isn’t self-righteous hypocrites; it’s the continual bombarment of children’s ears with the “be cool” message. The entertainment media are hedonists and cultural vandals.
The problem is not the rule-enforcers; it’s the rule-breakers who get away with it and laugh it up in front of the world.
Good comment and over the years I’ve come to see this as pure truth, or as pure as human beings can approach.
For many years those who are in the field of psychology have convinced way too many people that you can get a child to have better behavior by loving kindness and showing them that good behavior is the best way. Bull! Do you really believe that somehow those who stick to a code of morality for guidelines are called “hypocrites” by youngsters? This is a liberal definition and I’m sorry to see it rearing it’s ugly head on this website. Children need guidelines to be set for them because they have no frame of reference to do so themselves. Those who truly care for their children not only love them but want them to grow up to be good, productive adults. Letting them run wild to be as rude and unthinking as they naturally are does nothing but wreak havoc on our society. Appeasing all their wants only makes them demand more.
You don’t “preach” about good behavior. You tell children what is correct and enforce what you say. Most important is setting a good example; letting them watch and listen to whatever TV, music or internet they want to is not helpful either because it is full of immorality. Why allow them to fill their minds with trash? “Cool” is really not very cool, only faddish.
It’s always easier to stand on the sidelines yelling “hypocrite” at people who are trying to see that children are raised to have decent standards of behavior. However, it is not very productive. Pitching in to help correct bad behavior would be productive.
Well said, spot on
“The entertainment media are hedonists and cultural vandals.”
Nailed that one. I heard a speaker once ask his audience to unplug the tv; then after a week take another look and see if you still think of it as harmless entertainment.
Even the commercials are trash, brimful of everything that is helping to turn us, as Rabbi Dan Lapin wryly observes, BACK into apes.
An excellent article. The moral decay of California in particular is amazing. Regardless of what the people say w/ votes, the fascists in black robes throw it out. Regardless of what the people want, the legislature spends more money they don’t have & constantly increase entitlements to buy votes. Just wait 20 yrs. or so. CA will be so incredibly impoverished that people will keep clear of wide swaths of the state. There will be islands in certain areas, but all the people w/ any brains or businesses will leave. It will be the poor taxing the poor for yet more entitlements. I drove from Tracy to Azusa, & back, this summer & saw the “gov’t created desert” w/ my own eyes. 20 yrs. from now we will have Delta smelt, college scholarships & aid for illegal aliens, an open border w/ Mexico & homosexual marriage, but there will be no farms, there will be outrageous tuition for normal people, & an aging & declining population of the worker bees & nothing but drones, greens & foolish politicians left seeking to blame someone for what they created. My home state, CA is a hellhole & is rapidly spreading it’s cancer over the entire US.
If California becomes a Mexican colony, there will be no “gay marriage”.
Ha ha. How little you know. There may be a lot of Catholic Mexicans, but that country’s ruling class is pretty much anti-Christian, anti-clerical, and pro-atheist. A lot like California as a matter of fact.
Try again.
“A British battleship was once a sign of national pride; today a destroyer represents a billion pounds stolen from social services.”
Ain’t that the truth. Hard to believe that once Great Britain had the largest navy in the world. Today, it’s surface fleet is arguably smaller than that of India’s, it’s former colony. And that’s how great countries die. When there is a greater emphasis placed on social welfare services rather than on defense, then you’re finished. And you had better hope that the country that HAS a stronger military is kind to you when you lose a war or decide not to fight at all simply because you don’t have the means to do so. Sort of like France in 1940 with the Germans. And how did that turn out for them?
Actually, the French spent plenty on their military in the build-up to WWII. They had more tanks, more artillery etc. than the Germans. Their navy was bigger. They had built the Maginot Line. They still lost. Sometimes the bigger force loses to the smaller, better force.
India was bigger and richer than Britain when they were conquered in the late 18th century.
The French had poor political leadership.
What the good professor is describing is a crisis of values. It boils down to the simple fact that what is not earned is not valued. As true for the ultra-rich as it is for those in the dependent class. The wealthy purchase expensive goods of no intrinsic value (think designer goods) as an act of vanity, but they have little appreciation for the system that produced them and even less satistaction for owning them. The “poor” comport themselves likewise though on lesser scale. A ghetto is created because the people living there have no vested interest in their own lives much less their community. That which comes for free has no value. Joe Six Pack is the far more noble character because his respite along with a little mild intoxication was earned over a week of hard labor. He finds satisfaction in a job well done, in the knowledge that his bills are paid, and in the rest afforded him over the weekend. His tastes are pedestian and his lot is common, but no less noble for his efforts.
I was struck by the comment that “what is not earned is not valued”. One of my daughter’s “bosses” (a Gunnery Sergeant, USMC) once told her, in reference to the “self esteem” stuff taught in US schools, that “you cannot be given self esteem, you have to earn it”.
She is a US Marine (and a musician), and does a lot of recruiting in secondary schools. She has been struck by the fact that when she goes to a school concert as part of her duties, the performance of every student is cheered equally by the students (and especially by the teachers!), no matter how bad or how good.
This has two pernicious results. First, the students do not learn to distinguish between students who give better or worse performances.
Worse, the students who do well and are obviously quite talented, have no feedback from the audience to tell them that they may have a talent in that direction and should maybe pursue it.
In the end, they are all “equal”.
Your story about the good and bad musicians being applauded equally is disturbing. It reflects an attitude that says the effort is all that matters and the actual achievement is completely irrelevant. You’re right, pernicious is the right word for this phenomenon.
I have no problem with effort being encouraged and recognized but not to the complete exclusion of achievement. After all, if any effort at all is enough to get praise, then surely no effort at all will also get praise, which seems to be sending a very twisted message.
There are many times in life where achievement is crucial and effort alone simply doesn’t cut it. I don’t want to live in a world where the dentist gets paid simply for trying to fix my teeth. Suppose he pulls out a good one and leaves a bad one in my mouth? That just isn’t good enough. Nor do I want to pay for concerts where everyone plays different songs simultaneously and out of tune or where the fire department goes to the wrong street and lets my house burn down. I’m simply not going to say “Well you tried, that’s all that matters” in those situations.
If the idiots who designed these school music programs have their way and their attitude makes its way into everything – as political correctness seems to have done – this world will be absurd almost beyond imagining.
In his masterpiece “The Condition of Man” Lewis Mumford made a very similar observation about the declining Roman civilization: life became a vast conspiracy to gain something for nothing. How true of our own times.
I have been reading a lot of Saint Augustine who lived at the time of the collapse of the Roman empire. A loyal Roman he remained but he was able to point out the moral rot that destroyed the Roman civilization which produced him. In his City of God he showed the delineation between two societies one dedicated to the Christian ideal of love of God and man and the other the secular society of amorality and corruption. Augustine did so much to save that which might have been lost from both early Christian society and from classical Roman and Greek society. We need a new Augustine and a new network of monasteries to preserve that which was good in our society in the dark ages that are to come. Perhaps in a few centuries a new Karl der Grosse (Charlemagne) will arrive on the scene in order to restore civilization. Until then O tempora O mores.
Don’t overlook Benedict, who started pulling Europe in the Dark Ages into the light. Why do you think the current pope chose the name Benedict?
I nominate VDH!
Gylippus:
I tried that repeatedly starting more than a year ago. Unfortunately, Dr. Hanson declined in each instance.
I suspect that his level of intelligence makes him aware that too many people prefer to support candidates they feel will best meet their “needs” monetarily. Dr. Hanson I’m sure would never be inclined to command a ship manned by fools.
VDH would make a superb President I think. But I was actually nominating him as our present-day Augustine! He has a knack for zeroing in on the social pathologies that have led to the current financial and political crisis. And though he often paints a dark and baleful horizon, I never get the sense that he is prepared to relent. We need to look fixedly into the darknes if we intend to ever make it back into the light. For there be monsters, and there’s no point in proceding with our eyes closed…
No argument here. I’d support Dr. Hanson in either proposition.
That self-righteous presumption was exactly what God told the prophet Ezekiel to warn the people against: “If a virtuous man presumes his virtue and because of this turns from virtue and does evil, he shall die for it, and none of his former virtue will be remembered.”
A few other posts seem to be saying, “Be a proud hypocrite”. Glad you see differently at least.
There is a book called “When Nations Die” that goes into a lot of this. It covers the 10 symptoms common in nations and cultures when they are about to collapse. Government fiscal insanity is one and the coarsening of society is another. According to the author, most nations had maybe 3 or 4 of the signs but the US has all 10.
Is this the epitaph for The United States, and other Western countries/cultures? Dr. Hansen, a great student of history and a great writer, has boiled it down to a few salient paragraphs. What saddens me the most, is that when the spagetti hits the fan and the slow spiral of our civilisation down the toilet violently accelerates, will the majority of our fellow Americans understand why? Or will the ensuing pain and anguish of that convulsive decline come as a surprise to them…
Or will the ensuing pain and anguish of that convulsive decline come as a surprise to them…
I think it will come as a surprise. To fix a problem you must first correctly identify the problem. I think most people go stumbling through life half aware and have no conception of the ‘big picture’ and how their actions either support it or undermine it. I am cursed with having an almost obsessive fixation on the ‘big picture’ – understanding that any unethical or wrong action on my part chips away at the foundations of our society. I am afraid that too many others couldn’t be bothered to understand that picture and merrily rain hammer blows on those foundations by their unchecked and un-reflected on actions.
I think the signature of our culture’s moral collapse is that so many of what were once called “The Seven Deadly Sins” are now more like “The Seven Civic Virtues.”
Envy? Sloth? Greed? Those are just signs of enlightened social thinking! It is good for lazy people to covet the results of someone else’s labor. That’s what “paying their fair share” and “sharing the wealth” are all about, after all.
Reality ALWAYS bites—and, bites back
Basic truths, whether known or not, ever lawfully keep things in order—or, chaos!
To wit—there is really no such thing as “hope”.
“Hope is for dopes” was the way it used to be put. With the latest electoral iteration of “hope” by Obama in his “hope and change” advertising slogan, we have the perfect expression of way too many dopes exposing their “inner child”.
While “Obama is the One” is true enough, we each forget that “I am the One” as well—and so, here comes “hope” as a form of seeking, which of course leads to all the depredations VDH so eloquently and expansively always lays out.
I hope it doesn’t or does rain tomorrow!
Do not societies, in essence, go through the same creative destruction that Schumpeter outlines as the essence and essential fact of market driven capitalism? America has always been about reinventing itself, and that reinvention has happened at various points all along our history as we have adapted and changed to changes in the world, in technology, and across so many fields.
We are at another of those changes, where we will be reinvented again to adapt to a new set of circumstances both here and around the globe, just as we did in the early 1980′s, just as we did in the early 1940′s, and just as we did in the early 1860′s……
Speaking of La Raza, on Saturday mornings here in New Mexico, there’s a local Public Radio “social justice” show hosted by a La Raza spokeswoman. Can’t recall her name. I caught her view on the current economic situation the other day. Here’s a summary:
“Times are hard. We all have to tighten our belts in this economy. If only the rich people in this country that consume all of the resources and pay none of the taxes would do their fair share………” And the co-hosts in the studio all murmured their approval.
Just dismaying to hear such ignorance, but apparently that’s actually what they think.
I’m not prepared to peg “La Raza” as a front group (and Bill Richardson as an all-American agent), but they sure fit the mold for that. Almost any broadcast the appeals to radicals is likely a trap.
“But just because the state now thankfully mandates disabled parking spaces does not mean that we honor a crippled relative more than in the past, or that our children are more likely to write a note of thanks to a grandparent’s gift. I can surely see an erosion in the public expression of manners and morality even as I sense our government is now more “fair” and “equal” than ever before.”
About twenty years ago, I was working in Berkeley, and decided to spend the lunch hour browsing in the bustling campus bookstore. I met a blind couple there, who needed someone to guide them on the short walk to Wheeler Hall (one of the biggest, most prominent buildings on campus). They had been asking passers-by for help for twenty minutes, and amazingly enough, every one of the passers-by claimed not to know where Wheeler Hall was.
The joke was, since I hadn’t gone to Cal, that I was probably the first person the couple had asked who really didn’t know where Wheeler Hall was, but the campus has prominent maps posted for navigation purposes. I did find myself wondering whether in the racist, sexist, incredibly backward 1950′s, a blind couple would have had to wait for twenty minutes to find someone willing to briefly act as a guide.
“Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies.”
The left, and supporters of a statist country in general, are entirely focused on the redistribution of wealth, in part, because they do not understand that wealth does not exist until it is created. Partly to blame is their lack of exposure to the study of economics. More to blame is their lack of exposure to the creation of wealth. The self-employed have no difficulty with the concept, even those with very little education in an academic setting.
I blame the imposition of minimum-wage laws and the all-but-banning of youth labor. The kids who have delivered newspapers to neighborhood doorsteps, mowed lawns, babysat other people’s kids, or picked fruit in the summer grew into adults who understand the worth of labor and what money is.
The other kids grew into adult-sized bodies with kids still inside. Lazy, ignorant kids.
Democracy sucks.
A while back, Bob Zimmerman – a widely known space colonization advocate (http://behindtheblack.com/) – wrote an article (in Analog magazine, I believe) describing the importance of the colonization of the Americas in bringing prosperity to Europe and generally driving technological progress and the concept of individual freedoms. The frontier in the New World gave the lower classes in the highly stratified and rigid Old World social order an escape hatch. Even if they chose not to leave they could threaten to.
The question that Bob raises is an important one: what is our new frontier? Where can we leave for in order to find freedom, if necessary? When Greece fell, Rome picked up the slack. When Rome fell, Northern Europe took over. When Europe entered the Dark Ages the New World was the frontier. Once a country falls, it seems that it can never recover; it has been 1500 years since the fall of Rome, and Italy has never recovered. The problem, of course, is that once a government succumbs as described by VDH above, the cycle is self perpetuating; the only way for individuals to recover their freedoms is to leave and start elsewhere. Overthrowing the government never seems to work, because the social structures that encourage dependency are always left intact. If the U.S. falls – as seems inevitable – where can we turn?
Ah, found it:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-frontier.html
If you like, ignore the Mars stuff; the description of the American Frontier’s importance is good.
The New World destroyed the basis of aristocracy and created the basis of democracy. It allowed the development of diversity by allowing escape from those institutions that imposed uniformity. It destroyed a closed intellectual world by importing unsanctioned data and experience. It allowed progress by escaping the hold of those institutions whose continued rule required continued stagnation, and it drove progress by defining a situation in which innovation to maximize the capabilities of the limited population available was desperately needed. It raised the dignity of workers by raising the price of labor and by demonstrating for all to see that human beings can be the creators of their world. In America, from Colonial times through the 19th century when cities were rapidly being built, people understood that America was not something one simply lived in — it was a place one helped build. People were not simply inhabitants of their world. They were makers of their world.
The question that Bob raises is an important one: what is our new frontier?
That’s the easiest question I’ve heard in a long time. All you have to do is look up, way up, and you’ll see the stars. Many of those stars will have planets. Many of those planets will have the ability to be colonized “as is”. Many of the rest have the potential of being “terraformed” via chemical and engineering processes that will make an environment humans can live in. We don’t have all of the engineering skills we need to do all of that yet but we’re getting there. We know enough to do some local exploring until we reach the point where we’re ready to go outside the solar system. The Universe awaits….
A must-read from Dr. Hanson. I wish I thought America was going to “snap out of it.” Every day we seem closer to fiscal collapse, followed by political and social collapsed. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog.
Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
(All royalties go to a charity to help wounded veterans)
I have another quibble which may have already been addressed here — about a seeming generalization that public jobs may pay high and involve no work. My hard-working teacher-kids are an obvious exception to this.
Yet those same teacher-kids would fight me tooth and nail about most of what you have said, Dr. Hanson. They are long-time entitlement believers, who think that ALL hard work deserves roughly equal pay. Additionally, they despise most of the wealthy for their supposed “greed,” and support practically all unions blindly.
This is as good a sociopolitical piece as I have ever read. Thank you.
Of the three elements of wealth creation, innovation, capital and labor, labor is the least important. You can get it anywhere.
Without innovation and capital, society is static, at best. Nothing new would ever be created.
But we are rapidly headed down the path of enforcing the truism that moving dirt from one side of the road to the other is as important as the genius of Thomas Edison.
proreason:
It used to be, way back in the olden days, that “land” was considered one of the three elements of wealth creation.
Have the new economists replaced land with innovation or is it the fourth element now?
It’s just what makes sense to me. I’m not an expert on economic theory.
But in my opinion, the ability to innovate is the most important element of wealth creation. Even capital is easier to come by. Millions of people have capital to invest, but how many people geniuinely have the ability to come up with something new that makes life better. Of course, I also say that wealth is something that makes life better, so maybe my own definition leads directly to innovation as the key element. According to this thinking, Steve Jobs is the greatest wealth creator of our time. He doesn’t put his products together. He isn’t really a capitalist in that, at least in his last stint as Apple CEO he didn’t put his own money at risk; but he seems almost totally responsible for some of the most widely used and admired products in the world. Since he has done it for so long, he must be among the most innovative people who have ever lived. Now think about Warren Buffet, the consumate capitalist. His capital has probably wended its way to products and services that people use, but I have a hard time believing that he is as important to the quality of modern life as Steve Jobs. Ergo, I put capital behind innovation.
I see the point about land, since land is important for so many of the things that make life enjoyable; food, animals, scenery, building materials, etc. I would probably prefer to expand land to resources, which seem more aligned with modern life. I could own silver without owning land, and be able to create wealth by putting the silver to use in a product that people would want to use.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Robert Heinlein
The article is spot on but misses the more fundamental piece. The socialization and political correctedness of America is directly proportional to the disintegration of the family unit. As traditional values began to be dissapear in the home, as children began to take a more “enlightened” approach, the core values that built a nation now began to threaten it. If parents still taught their children the fundamental principles that our forefathers lived their lives by, our nation would never tolerate the nonsense that is happening now.
I’m glad someone is keeping an eye on the bigger picture. As we argue about Obama or Rick Perry’s gaffes, our whole American society peaked in the 1960′s and has been in a slow decline since.
Tim Simon:
Rick Perry’s lying and dissembling are not gaffes. They are intentional and they are what they are. That is a fact and no amount of give the good ol’ boy a chance rhetoric is going to change it.
Who is John Galt?
I graduated from a UC school in 1989 with an Engineering degree. I think the Engineering field was a little ways behind on the path to degeneracy. As our graduation neared, when we talked about where we wanted to work, the hierarchy went like this: First choice was a job at a high tech firm like Lockheed or General Dynamics. Next was one of the big national Engineering firms that did massive projects like pipelines and suspension bridges. Third would be a small local private firm doing mostly commercial work. Finally, if none of those panned out and no private firm would hire one of us, we would reluctantly go to work for CalTrans.
Which may explain why CalTrans projects seem so ill-advised.
Of course, Lockheed and GD fell on hard times with the end of the Cold War, and big engineering projects don’t happen any more because there’s a Snail Darter or some other inconsequential but endangered species in the way. So now it’s small local firms or go work for the government. One of my classmates finally gave up, closed the private Engineering Consultant firm he’d inhereted from his dad and took a job as City Engineer at a small CA town.
This struck me as particularly insightful:
The outsourcing of private morality to the state is a particularly modern affliction, but equally as pernicious. We witness the startling paradox that today’s private society is crasser, less honest, and more uncouth even as its government’s official morality stresses gender, race, class, and green ethical superiority.
—–
We need to make the moral case for Capitalism and never flinch from the belief that the free market is the source of true compassion. Once you begin outsourcing your duties to the less fortunate to the government you weaken your own morality.
One thing I have never understood is how the “entitled” can be so immune to applying their standard to themselves. Others are indebted to you? Why aren’t you indebted to them, to the people who make all of the things that you want? Why shouldn’t you owe them exactly what is asked of you, payment for the things you want? Why, based on your own demands’ standards, should you be immune from having a person worse off than you taking YOUR things?
P.S. Under “We Are Good and Can Therefore Act Badly” : “The frightening worry is that the two are connected: the more the state steps in to to assure that we are cosmically moral, the more we assume we can relax and therefore become concretely immoral.” Is “cosmically moral” correct, or should that be “cosmetically moral”? And thanks for another excellent article!
The following excerpt is from Livy’s preface to his histories of Rome. He is explaining why we should study history. Every time I read it I am struck by how much this looks like today, when we might know what is killing our country but seem to not have the fortitude to take the medicine needed for a cure. I teach junior high students, and we study this passage so they understand, but I’m never sure how much they fully grasp the current situation. Let us all continue to fight the good fight.
“To the following considerations, I wish every one seriously and earnestly to attend; by what kind of men, and by what sort of conduct, in peace and war, the empire has been both acquired and extended: then, as discipline gradually declined, let him follow in his thoughts the structure of ancient morals, at first, as it were, leaning aside, then sinking farther and farther, then beginning to fall precipitate, until he arrives at the present times, when our vices have attained to such a height of enormity, that we can no longer endure either the burden of them, or the sharpness of the necessary remedies. This is the great advantage to be derived from the study of history; indeed the only one which can make it answer any profitable and salutary purpose: for, being abundantly furnished with clear and distinct examples of every kind of conduct, we may select for ourselves, and for the state to which we belong, such as are worthy of imitation; and, carefully noting such, as being dishonourable in their principles, are equally so in their effects, learn to avoid them.”
At T.R. #39: John Galt is a character in “Atlas Shrugged.” I haven’t read it, so I can’t be more specific, but a quick search should yield info for you. :-)
Perhaps TR knows who John Galt is but is using that famous phrase to express his own feelings of helplessness and despair.
If so, I understand Tr’s feelings. It gets to the point where the old phrase “If you can’t beat ‘em then join ‘em” comes to mind.
‘John Galt is a character in “Atlas Shrugged.” I haven’t read it…’
You don’t know how lucky you are.
$16 Trillion in debt tells me “the good life” is actually financed with debt.
The debtor is slave to the lender.
It’s only a matter of time before we become slaves.
Your history is accurate, but your conclusions are wrong. The cause of past fallen civilizations is not political. The cause is on what undergirds politcal ideas: ethics, epistemology and metaphysics.
The Welfare State Metaphysics (nature of existence): reality is a product of consciousness, either an individual’s, a collective’s or a supernatural deity’s.
The Welfare State Epistemology (nature of knowledge): Emotion is the means for discovering truth and a guide for action.
The Welfare State Ethics (nature of right & good): Self-sacrifice & selflessness are good; Self-gain (profit) & selfishness are evil.
Those categories represent the foundation from which all subsequent ideas spring. They are the three most important branches of philosophy. The philosophers to blame for those fundamental propositions above are, moving backward in time:
William James (Pragmatism):
The true is only the expedient in a way of our thinking….Truth happens…It [truth] becomes true, is made true by events…For the feeling to be cognitive in the specific sense …it must…create a reality outside of it to correspond to its intrinsic quality…. (James, William. The Meaning of Truth. 1909 New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.)
Immanuel Kant (German Idealism), who writes in _The Metaphysics of Morals_:
Thus the selfish maxim conflicts with itself when it is made a universal law, i.e., it is contrary to duty.
For Christianity, duty is following the requirements of God. For Kant, duty is following the imperative of pure selflessness: Self-sacrifice for the sake of self-sacrifice, as both means and end; not as a virtue to achieve some selfish, ultimate goal—not even the salvation of one’s soul—but as an ideal practiced for the sake of nothing, save the wiping out of one’s existence.
David Hume ((modern) Scepticism), who divorced morality from reality in his treatise, _Concerning the Principles of Morals_, thus paving the way for his successor, Immanuel Kant.
David Hume divorced fact from value in his sceptic philosophy—claiming that facts were objective and were approached by rational methods but that values were approached subjectively, the result of men’s biases and prejudices, i.e., the result of men’s feelings, which Hume claimed were intrinsically a-rational. He identified these two approaches as, respectively, Intellectualism and Sentimentalism. This (false) opposition of Hume’s is known in philosophy as the is-ought dichotomy (which, in justice to Hume, is a derivative of Descartes’ (and, before him, Plato’s) mind-body dichotomy).
What Hume did, in essence, was to render unto reason the world of science but unto emotion (a-rationality), the world of ethics and morality. Thus, one could prove—using Hume’s argument—that increasing the yield of crops on a given acre of land was in fact possible. But not that it was moral. One could prove that freedom increased men’s prosperity but not that this was necessarily good. One could prove that anesthetics relieved men’s pain, but not that this was right.
Hume had, in essence, placed morality outside the realm of reason. No one, after Hume, could state with any certainty—unless they refuted his argument at its base—that murder was objectively wrong; that progress was objectively good; that increasing men’s life expectancy was objectively right.
Augustine of Hippo (formalizing Christianity) who, in c. 440 CE, wrote in _The City of God_–in which he admonishes mankind to reject life on Earth to assure everlasting “citizenship” in God’s city: “The obedience of Abraham is rightly regarded as magnificent precisely because the killing of his son was a command so difficult to obey…” Augustine clearly enshrined self-sacrifice as one of the cardinal virtues of Christianity and the means for entrance into heaven.
Christ (founder of Christianity and its ethics of self-sacrifice):
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. … Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you … For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses … Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 5:1-7:29; passim)
Plato (Idealism) (the originator of the two-reality proposition, from which derived the mind-body dichotomy, which later under Christianity became the soul-body dichotomy) establishes the basic blueprint for the totalitarian state:
The best ordered state will be one in which the largest number of persons … most nearly resembles a single person. The first and highest form of the State … is a condition in which the private and the individual is altogether banished from life… (Plato’s Republic & Laws c. 370 BCE)
The point? If one wishes to find the root cause of the welfare state–including the debacle in which the USA now finds itself–one need only look to Plato and the neo-Platonist mysticism and Christ formulated self-sacrificing ethics of Christinaity.
PS. Given the Judeo-Christian root of modern American conservatism, this is what is called irony.
Sacrifice is not a virtue. Love is a virtue. Failure to distinguish between the two causes one to miss the message entirely. The problem is not Christ’s teachings are flawed, but rather that you don’t understand them. You don’t understand them because your worldview is wrong.
Augustine was not arguing in favor of self-immolation (real or metaphorical), but rather the Christian position that this world is passing away, so it is foolish to be caught up in it. Not that this mortal life or our human bodies are anything to be hated, mind you, but that we must not live like the pagans do, focused on materialism and pleasure, but rather lives of holiness and devotion to God. Since life does not consist of possessions, a life led in pursuit of money and pleasure as its ends is a life squandered, and worse, making an idol out of money or pleasure is the root of many evils- they abuse their own bodies and violate the rights of others in pursuit of money and pleasure, and the New Testament warns that God will not let them get away with it.
Dr. Hanson is insightful but dour. I do not share his pessimism. Conservatives would do well to learn from Reagan’s sunny smile and away from Goldwater’s scowl.
And this is not just a mental trick. America is not any of those other societies. They none had the constitution we have. They none had the origins we had. They none had a song that said “God shed his grace on thee.”
We are unique. Even as it appears our society is breaking down, nigh-invisible agents are repairing and replacing the metaphorical aging hips and knees. The birth of the tea party is living proof that you cannot kill the American spirit.
Keep writing, Dr. H., but smile a bit more. Things aren’t near so bad as they seem.
Yes. There are many reasons to be optimistic. It is actually the Dems who are in serious trouble. Many of them still can’t see it, but some of them can. With some resolve and a little bit of luck we will beat back this assault, then there will be a new dawn.
The good life ends because people forget what it took to create it. Hard work and sacrifice and delayed gratification, just to name a few. And those same traits result in an appreciation and a gratitude for what was earned. And the residual benefits endure, often for several generations. But as time passes, those that follow – if not taught gratitude and appreciation for the good life they enjoy – will take it for granted. And eventually scorn it and fritter it away.
That which you do not earn, you take for granted and lose. And when you’ve lost it you shouldn’t scratch your head too hard, wondering where the hell it all went.
…boy that sounds preachy and smarmy and I certainly don’t intend it as such. It’s just that it does seem that simple to me. Most of the answers in life are easy, I think. It’s actually executing them that is the hard part. Or something like that (I know I’m paraphrasing Reagan here).
“Christ formulated self-sacrificing ethics of Christinaity.” (sp?) BZZZZT – false.
“He who does not work, neither shall he eat.” II Thessalonians 3:10
Turns out Paul and the other early Christians didn’t much go for freeloaders. Nor do you find in the New Testament that the government is to provide for the poor. Nice try, maybe you can play again another time.
I disagree with your take on this. A very few of the progressives of that day knew what was going on, just as you say. But the bulk of them were dreamers and do-gooders who allowed the promises of scoundrels to sway emotions and cloud judgement. They thought the reports of bad things occurring elsewhere were lies. They though they were doing what was best for society. They thought a bigger government would be a more humane government. They earn a fail in logic and common sense, but to ascribe “evil intentions” to most of them is neither fair nor accurate.
This was intended for not so much, sunshine‘s earlier comment @ 2:06 PM.
I’m more worried about when than why. I figure 10 more years ought to do it. My kids are both smart and resourceful. No grandchildren. Soooo 10 years max.
Dr Hanson, I will be 80 next birthday, agree with this and other writings. I don’t believe we can EVER go back to the culture of the “greatest generation” and the current culture is in a tailspin. Truly, I fear for the Republic. God Bless your work, Ron in FL
I am sorry but your article is TRAGICALLY FLAWED……why must the good life end…hmmm…ever read PLATO and his discussion of Atlantis ? Why is Atlantis so set in the Human psyche ? Why because it speaks of a GOLDEN AGE that ended tragically – in a single day and night! That such wealth, sophistication and brilliance could be at the whims of our Natural World and the fancies of this Universe. Thats why we Human today HATE this World, we curse Mother nature everyday and raise our wrath at the heavens…we are the most unhappy of species as we have sentience but still have to take that shit and die at some point i.e we are stuck in the gross and cannot even with our superstitious religions see ourselves as nothing but the tiniest specks of dust – inevitably to be wiped away.All the riches and comforts, all the love and family must pass….age and death overtake us. Thus we harbor a devouring unsustainable economy that is out of sink with the creative forces….we suck like vampires the oil, food and ecology in a vicious delight of vengence before we ourselves are over taken as compost, we fight WAR, Kill and torture for pleasure…our idleness is misguided….etc etc you get my point – WHY MUST THE GOOD LIFE END – it never ends and yet it must ….develop ,evolve….we have lost the basic tool that guide our sentient evolution thru the various levels in this Multi-verse…in truth evil despotic elites have kept us enslaved and stupid….but the sage have left us clues be it the christ or the buddha on how to keep that eternal Energy source enjoying the GOOD LIFE FOREVER….it’s all a matter of prespective…in the end we are but sub-atomic particles that re-group ……..I have been living to read the Source Field and regularly read The Diamond Sutra…….Vajrachedikka Pranaparamita Sutra………..The Good Life need not end…..it only changes…everything is a dream…..make it a wonderful worthwhile one. “Reality is an Illusion, albeit a persistent one” Albert Einstein
A great article. Though I must point out, it is one thing to say that we must grow the private sector, it is another thing to actually do it. There is only so much room in any economy for another franchisee, another retail outlet hawking wares made in China, another for profit college promising a fictional job, or another restaurant. In our descent into a nation of shopkeepers and housekeepers, we would do well to recall the glory of American manufacturing that drove our prosperity and now drives China’s.
In Obama’s (flawed) worldview, much attention has been paid to the offshoring of wealth while in the Republican’s (flawed) worldview little attention has been paid to the offshoring of capital, that creator of wealth. The knee-jerk reaction of the conservative is to say that it is an imbalance in regulation that drives this offshoring, while in fact it would continue unchecked were all these regulations summarily stripped simply due to the difference in the cost of labor in third world nations and the disposability thereof.
Excellent point! Our main problem is that we have people who spout one party line…or the other, and the China thing goes deeper. Corporations invest/produce in China because they will make the most profit there; we buy Chinese products because they give us the most bang for the buck. How to get us back to making some of the things which China makes, or making things which have yet-to-be-developed seems beyond the calculations of either side.
Do we need to judiciously subsidize certain industries beyond what we do now? Explore tariffs? Settle for 2-2-2 in our own economy? Health care is a big lump that is choking us and what do we get? Talk of universal coverage on one side, talk of death panels on the other. Adult conversations and compromises are hard to come by.
On the other hand we have always grumbled, described the current times as the worst ever, seen the end-time days at hand etc. and muddled on. I assume that we shall continue to do so.
If there’s a problem in your own back yard, then why not take care of it?
Since when do people lack the will to defend their lives, liberty, and property?
Why do people choose to be victims, waiting for someone else to come save them?
Waiting for BigBrother to solve your problems?
Only you can save you.
If someone is stealing your private property, take care of it.
If you believe in private property, then defend it.
Or accept that in your world, there is no private property; only the collective.
They’re your problems. Roll up your sleeves and do what needs to be done.
Learn history, or be doomed to be the example for future history professors.
“Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
-Ronald Reagan
Outsourcing responsibility, ceding control to another entity- Is choosing slavery to that entity.
Stop expecting others to make you free, safe, fed, etc.
Be free. Take responsibility.
It’s heartening to see so many here at Pajamas Media, taking off their bedroom slippers and putting on their work boots.
We’re not finished quite yet.
“I don’t think we wish to live in a quiet but collapsed Greece in the age of Plutarch, forever dreaming about a far off age of past accomplishment.”
I know of no examples of a rebirth that recaptured lost greatness, certainly not by rediscovering the old success formula. And we already dream of that “far off age of past accomplishment” when we pine over the last time this nation did anything great — the Apollo program — as if it were the achievement of a long vanished classical age.
Towards the end of the Roman Empire, the Persians overthrew the Parthians who had overthrown the Seleucid Macedonian dynasty that took over Alexander the Great’s eastern conquests from the first Persian Empire. After that, the Persians grew into another empire that almost conquered the eastern Roman Empire; if they had managed that, they would have exceeded the first Persian Empire.
as long as America remains a violent and severely combatant nation, you will continue to share one more characteristicc of the Soviet Union; you squander your surplus wealth on weapons of war and slip slowly but surely to a pont of bankruptcy. If the Russians had been happy with an uncontested 2nd place and provided consumer goods instead of day long queues for staple goods they may have been still firmly in second place manufacturing the consumer goods that China has completely taken over.
The whole “It’s better to create wealth than redistribute it” trope is a false argument. At any given time, there is only so much “wealth” in society, and where it goes and who gets it not a matter of any individual’s genius, is a matter of who has the most clout. The working class, what’s left of it, is working harder and more productively than ever, and has less and less to show for it. Precisely because wealth = clout, the wealthy can destroy unions and then blather on about the “Right of Contract”, they can buy politicians and vast chunks of the legal system, and then shut out the individual, and then they can take your ideas, claim them as their own, and dare you to do something about it. Hanson has absolutely no idea what it’s like to function as a productive member of society, because he has bounced around between academia and wingnut welfare… and he has managed to thrive despite being unable to tell the difference between “wealth” and value.
Why is it more moral for a federal bureaucrat in a state-supplied SUV to shut down an offshore oil rig on grounds that it is too dangerous for the environment than for a private individual to risk his own capital to find some sort of new fuel to power his government’s SUV fleet?
One of these things is not like the other,
One of these things is prevention of harm!
Thanks for the reminder. I wish the GOP candidates of today were more like Eisenhower.
Re: “Thanks for the reminder. I wish the GOP candidates of today were more like Eisenhower.” John E., so do I. These days, to even question how our military spends money is to risk exile from the GOP. Unfortunately, the neo-conservatives have seized control of foreign policy in this country, not only in the GOP but on the left also. One hears these pro-war republicans called “neo-conservatives,” but in reality, they are Wilsonian Democrats. Wilson, one of the founders of modern progressivism, had a messiahanic belief in “making the world safe for democracy,” as did FDR after him. Today’s “endless wars for peace” are the logical endpoint of such thinking.
The Founders would never have approved of such foreign policy adventurism; indeed, John Adams warned us not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we are now doing. Imperial over-reach bankrupted and ultimately brought down the British Empire, and we will suffer the same fate if we do not change our ways. The distinguished historian Niall Ferguson has written and spoken widely on this very subject.
Satch, re: “The whole “It’s better to create wealth than redistribute it” trope is a false argument. At any given time, there is only so much “wealth” in society, and where it goes and who gets it not a matter of any individual’s genius, is a matter of who has the most clout.”
False? Hardly, because wealth creation isn’t a zero sum game. Granted, those with clout can and do hijack wealth for themselves, but such behavior is much more common in a mixed socialist-capitalist economy like ours than in true free-market economies like Singapore or Taiwan. America is actually now a quasi-fasicist state, not in the sense of Hitlerism, but in the way Mussolini meant the term, i.e., as the fusion of the state and corporation. Il Duce originally wanted his movement called corporatism, not fascism, because he felt the former term better described it. Corporatist states are more easily-hijacked by wealthy and politically connected elites than pure market economies, or nations that have higher barriers between politics and money than we do.
Left to their own devices, people in free market economies create wealth better than in any other economic system. If you know of a better system, please share it with me, because I’d like to be first in line to sign up. In sum, as messy and “unfair” as free markets are, the alternatives are vastly worse. The proof, it seems to me, is that even the hard-line communists in the PRC have become capitalists, at least in the economic sphere, while remaining Marxists in the political sphere. They, too, have discovered it is better to be prosperous than ideologically pure.
The proposal to redistribute wealth is the hallmark of an aging society? What does the good Professor mean by aging?
Let us consider a few such societies. Solon settled a proposal to restribute wealth and property at Athens in the 6th century BC, before the great theatre and Marathon and the Parthenon, by a compromise which redistributed some of it to the most needy. Cypselus at Corinth, and Theagenes at Megara, rode such movements into power even earlier, and did not compromise. The politics at Rome, rested on the inequalities of property, and the resulting inequalities of power, back as far as we can trace it; the secession to the Sacred Mount was not much later than Solon.
The movement for the redistribution of property may go back as far as the invention of property; it certainly goes back to the invention of money. If those are aging societies, where is there a “youthful” one?
Re: “As long as America remains a violent and severely combatant nation, you will continue to share one more characteristicc of the Soviet Union; you squander your surplus wealth on weapons of war and slip slowly but surely to a pont of bankruptcy.”
Canuck, your point is well-taken, but please do not tar all Americans with the same brush. It is more accurate to state that our political elites are combative; everyday Americans – to the extent they think about it at all – are tired of “cabinet wars” in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and all of the others. We Americans have a rather daunting problem – we have allowed our military and foreign policy establishment to be co-opted by neo-Wilsonian ideologues, who are now using it to remake – at last count – more than a half dozen nations. Unfortunately, short of open revolution, we are powerless to stop this behavior at present… we’ll have to depend on the ballot box, and the possibility of electing a constitutional conservative who knows that foreign adventurism is tolling the death knell of our republic.
Just a note on the first part – people do sometimes disappear. Eastern and part of Central European Jewry for example. If the Arabs / Persians get their way, so will the six million Jews (and likely others) in my country.
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