Posted on 01/12/2016 12:27:31 PM PST by Kaslin
A new Gallup poll concludes that Americans hate their government much more than they did when Obama first took office. In 2009, the burden of government was ranked fourth on the list of problems faced by Americans. At that time, seven percent of those surveyed ranked burdensome government as the worst problem they faced. At the end of 2014, that percentage stood at 16%. More importantly, government was the most often cited concern above all others. At his inauguration, Ronald Reagan said "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. It is the problem." If we Americans didn't believe Reagan then, after seven years of Obama, a lot more of us do now.
From Obamacare, to Dodd-Frank, to an out-of-control EPA, to myriad executive orders and tax increases, Americans are increasingly appalled by Obama's massive expansion of government, the size of which has not been seen since the Depression, in the early days of FDR. At the same time, Americans continue to witness a nearly jobless recovery, soaring health care costs, civil unrest, rising domestic terrorism, a government that continuously lies, governmental intrusion into nearly every aspect of their lives, and a complete lack of accountability when all problems - foreign and domestic - are growing worse.
Recently more and more conservative pundits are begrudgingly joining the ranks of those who have concluded that the bombastic Republican front runner, Donald Trump, has brilliantly made himself the leader of those who still love their country but hate their government. He's both a presidential candidate and a symptom of their hatred. And while he appears to be greatly enjoying the adulation, there is a serious danger resulting from his fomenting an even greater disgust and contempt for the agencies of the American government.
An article by Victor Davison Hanson entitled, War Will Be War, appeared a few months after 9/11. In it he wrote "War is not merely a material struggle, but more often a referendum on the spirit. No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving."
Hanson's piece referred to the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC where the Greek city states, as the result of one lost battle, gave up their magnificently innovative culture and its associated freedoms to their new Macedonian overlords. In so doing, the Greeks remained a subjugated people for the next 2,400 years.
This essay by Hanson was the inspiration for my book, Lessons from Fallen Civilizations, in which I developed a list of 10 immutable principles which contribute to the fall of great civilizations and which can be seen to repeat over time. The first of my immutables, which I also refer to as Hanson's law reads:
Immutable # 1
No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving
The danger to the U.S. which Trump represents and which the new Gallup poll illuminates can be expressed by the following question—what will happen if the next American president can't or won't reduce the cost and burden of America's now hated onerous government?
In November of 2016, a plurality of American voters will hopefully elect a new president who will lead Congress in rolling government back. But what if that doesn't happen? The Greek Historian, Thucydides was the first to observe that history repeats itself. This was because, in his view, the nature of man does not change very much over time. One of his timeless (immutable) observations was: Power always seeks to increase itself.
Students of history would consider it extremely rare and unlikely that an all-powerful government, such as the one currently governing the U.S., will freely give back a substantial portion of its prerogatives to the people it governs. So if that relinquishing of governmental power doesn't happen in the U.S. and soon, how will Americans' growing distrust and hatred for their government impact its ability to defend itself from the threat posed by resurgent militant Islam?
The answer is not reassuring. Consider that the Spanish "Reconquista" took 700 years to rid the Iberian peninsula of Islamic domination. Greece and Southern Europe were enslaved by Ottoman Turks for 500 years. The war between the jihadist portion of Islam and the Judeo Christian West will likely last generations with the outcome in favor of the West not ensured. Welfare state Europe will likely be of little help in this building clash of civilizations. The U.S. will need to reallocate resources away from the construction of its own welfare state while marshaling its resolve to wage and win a long terrible struggle.
Therefore America can ill afford to let its citizenry's hatred for its government to persist because over time it will inevitably morph into a hatred for the country. Soon a new generation will be coming of military age. But what if our sons and daughters, like the Europeans, do not wish to put their lives at risk to save their culture because they hate their government and because they have no memory of when America was still a free country?
Most Americans don’t remember Economic Growth.
Economic Growth is when you can tell your employer to stuff it because a better job with higher pay is calling for you down the street.
I remember help wanted signs everywhere, even billboards, just before the Dhims took congrease.
I was a tyke in the 80s so everything is hazy and tinged with nostalgia, but I remember it being rather nice. People were happy, it wasn’t a return to the 50s but it seemed like the closest thing to being a modern revival.
All I know is I wish I still lived in the country I was born in.
Do Buddhists eat cheese steak?
Sorry wrong thread
The 80’s were awesome.
If YOU believe a Trump Presidency would be harmful to these United States, compared to what has been happening in the past 25 or so? You’ve been sleeping and all just call you Dick Van Winkle.
I have had this discussion with Conservative friends on exactly how we are going to hunker-down and live out the remainder of our lives in an increasingly oppressive Socialist country.
Cause frankly I don’t see the old one coming back in my lifetime.
Trump can’t possibly be worse than what we’ve been dealing with since Reagan left office. He’s a Hail Mary pass. Perhaps our only shot.
He helped usher in twenty-five years of unparalleled prosperity, flat out revived the American dream.
It was an awesome time in so many ways, I hope we can all see that kind of time return.
Does every article you post have to have a dig at Trump?
Cruz has been in a civil war with most all Senators. Not that it bad. But can he make a deal? I have seen no evidence of it.
Same here, sadly...
How many of us remember when tv stations would sign off with the Flag?
Cruz has been in a civil war with most all Senators. Not that it bad. But can he make a deal? I have seen no evidence of it.
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Why make a deal? Deals give you the recently passed budget. Deals always expand the size and scope of government. If one side wants to increase spending by creating a useless program for $100 Billion and the other side wants no program, a deal gets you a $50 Billion program that expands every year after that in perpetuity.
I want someone that simply shuts it all down at every opportunity. Most people would be surprised to find that they need government for very little.
<>Students of history would consider it extremely rare and unlikely that an all-powerful government, such as the one currently governing the U.S., will freely give back a substantial portion of its prerogatives to the people it governs. <>
Article V is there, right under our noses, for our national salvation.
One thing I particularly appreciated about the 1980s was that it looked like America was getting back on the right track, after the rather chaotic cultural poisons of the late-1960s/1970s, which looked like they might have just been a brief historical aberration.
I miss that most of all. The whole sense that America had just suffered nothing more than a brief derailment, and the train was getting safely put back on its right track. Every year since then has just been a confirmation that my optimism was wildly misplaced, and I was destined to live the rest of my life in a country that has jettisoned all the things I honored and valued.
What the article misses, as do most political articles, is not whether or not the future government will be better or worse, but whether it will exist in a recognizable form.
With commerce moving quickly to less traceable venues, the ability of the state to raise funds to support its operations, good or bad, will simply not exist. We’ll get the government the public is willing to pay for, and that will be precious little.
think about this scenario
cruz/trump
and elect trump speaker of the house and have him preside over every session of the senate
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