The Next Culture War

New York Times ^ | September 29, 2009 | David Brooks

[rbg81]

Its actually not a bad article, considering the source. I do agree we have outsourced too much of our production and its finally coming back to bite us in the a$$.

[OneWingedShark]

The Kennedies, Murtha, the incumbent’s de facto immunity from law-breaking... I’d say that we already have an elite oligarchy.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I use Attributed to show it may not be the real person.

[Joe 6-pack]

"The Kennedies, Murtha, the incumbent’s de facto immunity from law-breaking... I’d say that we already have an elite oligarchy."

True, but at this point we still have the nominal option of ejecting them from office via the ballot box.

[La Lydia]

I have a problem with legitimate state responsibilities, such as road and bridge construction, being funded through government-sponsored gambling. Gambling is a tax on the poor, any way you look at it. The fact that it is a tax they might easily avoid does not enter into my calculations. It is a vice. If that makes me an elitist, so be it. I don’t know where you live, but where I am on the east coat I am constantly bombarded by advertising for the lottery, gambling resorts, trips to Las Vegas, etc. The lottery ads on the Spanish television networks are an embarrassment. I don’t have a problem with people gambling in private, but I do not believe it is a legitimate state function. Then again, I did not inherit the gambling gene and to me it is as exciting as flushing money down the escusado.

[La Lydia]

I don’t think Christian morality is a part of his world, or a consideration. I think he sees restraint as a virtue in and of itself, regardless of what system of belief encourages it.

[GonzoGOP]

In our case it will take closer to 300 years. Actually my gut feeling is that it has more to do with the closing of the frontier. Every generation has some finite percentage of individuals that are ambitious and talented. If there is a frontier it naturally attracts these individuals. This does two thing. It allows the settled areas to remain "settled" and grows the nation at the borders. On the frontier hard work and talent is rewarded, and stupidity is punished. Not by some government agency, but by the simple laws of nature.

Once the borders are closed those ambitious people turn their ambitions inward. Since it becomes a zero sum game they begin to take away from others in order to build their own empires. The lawyer replaces the miner, the politician replaces the engineer.

America stopped growing in 1959. Anyone under the age of 50 has never known a growing America. That generation, now is coming to power.

[OneWingedShark]

>True, but at this point we still have the nominal option of ejecting them from office via the ballot box.

I doubt that is true anymore. Remember Minnesota’s 6+ month election/recount fiasco, remember the massive multistate ACORN voter registration fraud, and multiple stories about county clerks “finding” ballot boxes...

The ballot box may in fact be useless.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Remember Minnesota’s 6+ month election/recount fiasco, remember the massive multistate ACORN voter registration fraud, and multiple stories about county clerks “finding” ballot boxes...The ballot box may in fact be useless."

Hence my use of the word "nominal". If people would take their votes seriously, educate themselves about the candidates and the issues, volunteer at the polls, lobby for/support voter ID laws etc., the ballot box would remain a truly powerful weapon against tyranny. It's not too late to fix things, but it won't be easy either.

[Tallguy]

Yet despite its amazing wealth, the United States has generally remained immune to this cycle...

David Brooks' perspective is way off-base. I wonder what time-span he's looking at... his own lifetime? Mr. Brooks should brush-up on his history, including the pre-revolutionary, colonial period.

[Joe 6-pack]

"America stopped growing in 1959."

A trifling point, but I'd call it 10 years later than that...

The left's de-construction and revision of history has been very deliberately conceived to disconnect us from what made us great. A nation need not expand its borders to continue to increase in "greatness" as long as that pioneer spirit is kept alive by inventors, scientists, technicians, and indeed artists, engineers and virtually all aspects of human endeavour. Once the pioneer spirit is killed however, stagnation can not be far behind.

[chesley]

The trouble with his theory is assuming that we can regain financial self-restraint whild being self-indulgent in all other areas (the obsolete culture war).

Can’t be done. The love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil.

[GonzoGOP]

I thought about the moon landing. However we were careful to claim the moon "For all mankind". We may have put up the American flag, but we didn't homestead.

In my grade school geography class we had a debate on what would be the 51st state. Some said Puerto Rico, some said a moon base, others said we would take over Canada. But nobody said that there wouldn't be one. It was just unthinkable that America would stop growing. Then Carter was elected and by the time he was done with us all we could hope for was to keep out the Russians, find a job and hold on to what we still had. It is amazing how much damage can be done in only four years. My children, about the same age as I was then, must now unfortunately learn the same lesson I did.

[Nosterrex]

Brooks fails to see these issues in an organic way. Economics and social issues are related. For instance, the biblical axiom, “if you don't work, you don't eat,” has not only economic ramifications but also social ones, too. We live in a self-indulgent society, and that manifests itself in uncontrollable lust for things: sex, drugs, fame, etc. There is no self-restraint in a hedonistic society. It is bad enough when it affects an individual, but when the citizens of a nation demand that the government feed their addiction, we see what happens. We end up with unrealistic programs, such as bailouts and stimulus programs. We expect the government to provide jobs so that we can buy things to satisfy our lusts. Our government does not practice self-restraint, because its people don't practice self-restraint. It time for all of us to get off the government teat.

[Freddd]

When I saw it was a NYSlimes article, I couldn’t even read it...

[TexasRepublic]

I have long considered the late 60’s as our nation’s highpoint. When the moon landings were cancelled, I sensed that something was wrong. The oil crisis in 1973 convinced me then that we had peaked.

[Milhous]

The lawyer replaces the miner

At least one history book (I don't remember the title) about Sierra Nevada gold mining documented two equally popular paths to wealth. One group mined for gold in hardrock while the other group mined for rights in claim offices. (A mineral extraction dichotomy that continues to this very day judging from my own experience.)

My readings as a western mining history buff also revealed parasites, such as the Bank of America (BoA) trying their hand at various schemes. IIRC BoA once tried to corner Almaden quicksilver to use as leverage against gold miners. At that time quicksilver functioned as an essential component in extracting gold from ore.

[redgolum]

Not a bad article, but he misses the point.

If you don’t have good social morality, why do you expect to have good economic morality?

[La Lydia]

In his own weird little way, he is preaching what Marxists refer to as “historical materialism,” which attempts to explain all human activity in terms of material considerations: “money makes the world go round.”