Maybe they were intermittently replaced with the originals.
Or to quote the great philosopher, Gomer Pyle, "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Great read, although I cannot despair. I'm pessimistic about the future of this country, but my hope lies elsewhere. America, as great and exceptional as it is, is not the ultimate answer. I'm waiting on a certain carpenter turned king who will, when he is ready, provide the only true and lasting government for mankind.
So do I. We are Argentina now.
Hell you find some on here with the same "bastard" attitude towards other's material possessions.
To Hell with the despair, cynicism, apathy, and defeatism. The time for redress is now.
All you punks willing to abandon the Country, the Constitution, our children’s future can go straight to Hell.
Great article. Loved it. I look forward to reading every single article from Victor Davis Hanson and Daniel Greenfield. Truly magnificent minds and awesome writers. Is the single, black mother of three in that government housing in Chicago reading their articles? She wouldn’t even know where to look for them. The first rule of rhetoric is to “Remember the audience”. We sit around and moan about how stupid the Democrat voters are. “Can’t they see the mess they’re making?” probably not, but they still vote. I want that vote. I want to take that vote away from the Democrats. And saying they’re stupid doesn’t get their vote. Who do you know that describes them self as “stupid”? They may not think they’re brilliant, but they think they’re clever or “street smart”. OK. Let them think that. I still want their vote.
“If you understand yourself and you understand your enemy, in one hundred battles, you will never be defeated.”
There are fundamental differences in play here. In the past when America was down, we had leaders who at least wanted America to recover and prosper. 0bama is not an American, having been raised in a muslim culture in Indonesia. His goal is not for individuals to prosper, in fact that is the antithesis of his marxist philosophy, which is wealth redistribution.
His main goal is the destruction of America, not recovery.
Thank you for posting such an outstanding article, Steelfish. It is dark and depressing—but these are dark and depressing days.
What was once America has arguably entered the point of no return, degenerating from being the greatest democracy the earth has ever known, to a petty, corrupt and thugish 3rd world socialist state ruled by a de-facto godless one-Party dictatorship. Bereft of morality; bereft of initiative; bereft of hope. May God have mercy on us.
But have an anti-depressant handy with a glass of Scotch as a chaser :(
I take hope when I see Argentina where 700,000 people showed up outside the capital and said enough with the corrupt government that has bankrupted the country. We need to see those huge Tea Party crowds again in Washington not just in 2012 but every year. Let Congress and Obama know that millions of Americans will not accept socialism.
America’s die was cast when we ceased to be a moral country. My own opinion is that the seeds for this were planted in the 1960s. Whenever it occured, we have ceased to be a nation of moral citizens. Oh, there is a solid minority of moral people, but that is not enough to stave off societal collapse and a race toward communism.
We really are doomed. You cannot use the past as any sort of indicator going forward, because the nation is no longer composed of the sort of moral, hard-working, self-sufficient, courteous, charitable individuals who made this nation into what it is and held it there for so long.
Now we have a majority of selfish, greedy people who have no shame or stigma, thinking nothing of murdering the unborn, are proud of their free handouts instead of ashamed, and believe that any way to riches is a good way, be it gambling, crime or other nefarious means.
The America is doomed because the heart and soul of the average American is doomed.
We are no longer the people who in generations past could save this nation from decline, decay and fall. Those people are mostly long dead. In there place are millions of selfish, greedy, lazy scum who want a free ride paid for by their neighbor.
We are no longer a moral people. The US consitution only works for a moral people.
The nation is doomed. It is just a matter of how long until the fall is complete.
Pray to God and apologize to your children and grandchildren.
I almost cried reading this.
I also know that even if you get conservative leadership many moons from now, the country would be almost impossible to fix.
Once the healthcare system has been ruined, it will never come back as it was. Those choices we had will be gone.
I despair for America too. I am just now coming out of deep mourning and getting around to digesting the coming nightmare in a country where I no longer feel welcome.
“a Briton looks at a man driving a Ferrari and thinks, “What a b*****d,” while an American thinks, “I’ll be him one day.” “
I think, “Damn. Sorry about your penis, dude.”
God grant that he is correct about those rights, they may be the only way we can ever get back what has been stolen.
Regards,
GtG
The bastard mongrel horde voted for 'revenge' ?
I say we give it to 'em .. grind this slobbering pig to a halt with an empty trough and let the barbarian looter scum starve to death.
< /polite version >
People often state it this way, but it misses the all-important fact that those principles were the product of a particular culture.
The re-election of Barack Obama was only on a surface level a political victory. Much more fundamentally it was a victory in the culture war.
Cooke seems to be nostalgic for America as it once was, a land of economic opportunity, limited government and civility. But these characteristics too, were simply by-products of a certain culture.
I’m sitting here with the TV on and I am totally disgusted. I am watching CBS News Sunday which I never watch. But today I’m just too lazy to change the channel, even though the clicker is within a long reach. The bears they show at the end are beautiful. Even Sally Field may have convinced me that the Lincoln movie might not be all that bad, since I’m sure somehow those Hollywood libs will have placed a lib spin on who Lincoln and the Mrs. were. Yet then my good mood changes, when hearing what’s his name, Ben? Stein talk about the election, the GOP and how in the next election the GOP needs to run a candidate like Obama. I can’t tell you what adjectives he used to describe Obama because I have never ever thought of Obama as Stein described. Something about charismatic, yada yada yada. I think he is confused, Obama is a disingenuous obvious liar who people believe because he says what they want to hear, not what he actually believes. The the ad for the movie The Sessions or The Sex Surrogate comes on. The movies in the 70s were often agenda ridden crap which is what this sounds like. All I can say is I really fear for our country. And those bears they showed wandering a remote area somewhere in the USA, at the end of the show, are lucky they are bears and don’t have to bear the delusional ridiculousness of humans.