RE: While much of this is true, the American people are simply not willing to accept curtailment or even reform of the entitlement state. This nation’s people are firmly wedded to the social welfare system and it will probably not be till the brink of collapse that folks are willing to do a thing about it.
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Some thoughts :
1) The more people become addicted to the drug of government largesse courtesy of other people’s money, the more difficult or near impossible it is to implement any reform. In fact, reform itself can be demagogued to scare people into believing their entitlements will be taken away.
Notice how Paul Ryan’s relatively mild and timid Medicare reform plan is being demonized ( and effectively too I might add... see the most recent NY-26 Congressional Election results).
2) The most recent survey that shows that nearly 51% of adults in this country pay NO TAX is a very bad sign.
3) As Greece, which is on the brink of collapse, shows, EVEN THE IMMINENCY OF COLLAPSE DOES NOT CHANGE THE ATTITUDE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE GOTTEN TOO USED TO ENTITLEMENTS.
Yes, all your points are absolutely correct.
And what is worse, the mainstream media is flat out refusing to cover the extent to which this nation is in deep trouble in an effort to keep Hussein and the Democrats in charge.
I suspect even many in the MSM understand a dire crisis is coming, but they figure they’d much rather have the Democrats in charge when it actually comes time to fix the problem. So they will simply help demagogue the Republicans and cover for Obama by just refusing to cover the poor economic indicators and the obvious calamity coming our way.
Politics trumps all things, and the majority of our media are desperate to keep the left in power. Even with the rise of the new media, the MSM has massive influence. People simply don’t believe disaster is coming unless the likes of Brian Williams, Bob Schieffer or the NY Times say so. Oddly enough, in a certain way the rise of alternative conservative media has actually pushed the mainstream media further to the left as they try to push back against outlets like Fox. So while the right has more media to choose from, the still dominant outlets are more inclined than ever to cover for and outright support Democrats.
We are headed off a cliff. If we get some real economic growth happening it may delay things for several more years, but at the rate we are going our economy is going to be in dire straights very quickly (it already is). Demographic changes and years of MSM/entertainment and leftist education propaganda has helped create a population that is now absolutely wed to the welfare state. This nation has slow growth, an unemployment rate of 9%, $4.00 gas, housing market in the tank, etc, etc - and STILL Obama is at 50%+ popularity. Any president presiding over such a mess in the past would be in the 30’s approval wise - that just shows you have much power the MSM retains and what a poor crop of Americans currently shape elections.