The self-induced decline of America
By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed-of new finds of natural gas and oil, the world’s preeminent food production, continual technological wizardry, strong demographic growth, a superb military, and constitutional stability.
Yet we don’t talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality, rather than liberty, is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.
In August 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles, while Detroit was among the most innovative and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Hiroshima now resembles a prosperous Detroit of 1945; parts of Detroit look like they were bombed decades ago.
History has shown that a government’s redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector’s creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.
Blowback
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VDH is one of the best.
ConservativeLA on February 14, 2013 at 6:26 PM
VDH nails it again. We’re witnessing a decline of choice.
These Leftists still salivate about being “more like Europe” just as the EU plunges into yet another recession.
Economic illiteracy is the foundation of the modern Left.
visions on February 14, 2013 at 6:31 PM
There must be two VDHs…
Read this instead. I thought it much better and probably a more accurate assessment of our plight.
We just need to call the cesspool truck to suck the **** out of Washington.
turfmann on February 14, 2013 at 6:36 PM
We’re falling from within.
The communists/socialists have been a very patient lot.
And look what is being reaped from their careful machinations.
Badger40 on February 14, 2013 at 6:37 PM
So, why is VDH praising Obama’s intentions?
OldEnglish on February 14, 2013 at 6:40 PM
Decline? Liberals see this as progress!
The left hates success because not everyone is or can be successful … therefore no one will be. This is how liberals see “equality”.
darwin on February 14, 2013 at 6:57 PM
Where exactly does history show this? I agree with Brooks Adams… the decline of civilizations of the result of warrior spirit being replaced with economic spirit… and in the last part of the economic spirit age the elites will see the underclass as interchangeable with foreigners… and then the end comes.
America will decline because people will cease to identify with it… and will seek opportunities elsewhere. The globalism that changes America will eat America.
ninjapirate on February 14, 2013 at 6:59 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Law_of_Civilization_and_Decay
ninjapirate on February 14, 2013 at 7:01 PM
No offence, the the twin forces of capitalism worship of the right and multicult-uralism of the left if what will screw us… till the point there isn’t a “us” anymore.
ninjapirate on February 14, 2013 at 7:03 PM
Absolutely right.
One of the major mistakes the Republican Party made (one of many) a few decades ago was talking about small government exclusively in economic terms. Freedom is about more than money. Keeping government small is not simply an economic issue as I think gun owners and many others are realizing more than ever these days.
Django on February 14, 2013 at 7:25 PM
One other thing…Americans also increasingly see America as interchangeable with other nations. It’s just as easy to be overtaxed and under the thumb of the state here as it is anyplace else so what’s so “exceptional” about America? Why fight for it? Why die for it? Why commit to living here and giving most of your income to it?
Django on February 14, 2013 at 7:29 PM
Fail. The USA was the only “winner”. Britain was absolutely broke after the war. Whoop de doo that Liverpool survived! Dozens of other cities were severely damaged. Ever heard of the now groovy “Docklands” are in London? It took over 50 years to rebuild that area as it was flattened to the ground by the Nazis. Over 50,000 civilians were killed in London alone. Newflash: there was always a class system in England. Yes, we were war weary, and broke.
The USA did everything it could after the war to help dismantle the British Empire; not that I wouldn’t have done the same thing. All the effort (meaning money) went into rebuilding Germany and Japan, to the benefit of the USA.
It is true that the war kick-started the decline of the British Empire when they threw out Churchill (thanks very much) and allowing the “peace loving” commies to take control. All it took in the USA was one incident on 9-11 to allow the bleeders to take over.
yubley on February 14, 2013 at 7:44 PM
Leftists want us to be more like Europe except without any actual Europeans, save the ones who live in the Beltway and run the Universities.
OxyCon on February 14, 2013 at 7:59 PM
Economic liberty trumps all other liberties for one reason: without economic liberty, no other liberties can exist. This includes religious liberty, free speech, the 2nd Amendment, etc. Economic liberty allows other liberties to exist and to flourish.
If you look at what Obama and the Left are doing, whether it’s AWB, forcing religious people to pay for other people’s abortions, Citizens United, ObamaCare, etc., these can all be broken down as assaults on economic liberty.
visions on February 14, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Subscribers to Marx’s theory of history think it is inevitable and not self-induced. They have convinced a majority of the US electorate that America’s decline is “not their fault”. In Comrade O’s new America, nothing is anyone’s fault, unless they are evil greedy capitalists, rich people, or old white men. Socialism is inevitable, according to Marx and his admirers.
farsighted on February 14, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Detroit, the “Paris of the West” the “Arsenal of Democracy, was overcome by a Demographic shift in Single 100 year period. It went from 100% White to 96% Black in the space of 100 Years.
The Symbol of Detroit, with its Spirit of Innovation and Culture was replaced when blacks took power in the 1970′s. The symbol of the City Government went from this to this as Whites fled, taking their businesses, children and tax base with them. The images are telling, one is a symbol of refinement and advanced thinking, the other the symbol of racial hatred and revenge.
If there is any decline in America, it is its self-flagellation of Whites and its stupid worship of “Diversity”, which is simply a code work for Anti-white. Does anyone say Detroit is too diverse? No, because the Whites are gone.
Bulletchaser on February 14, 2013 at 8:43 PM
For those unfamiliar, an intro
Marx’s theory of history
farsighted on February 14, 2013 at 8:49 PM
I wonder why more people don’t see that.
MetaThought on February 14, 2013 at 9:32 PM