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Our Parasitic Generation
American Greatness ^ | 11 Dec, 2022 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 12/12/2022 4:30:55 AM PST by MtnClimber

Yes, there is a lot of ruin in great nations. But even America is by now running low on it.

Are we sure that there is all that much ruin left in the United States?

We are $31 trillion in collective debt. The new normal is $1.5 trillion budget deficits. The military is politicized and short of recruits. We trade lethal terrorists for woke celebrity athletes as if to confirm our enemies’ cynical stereotypes.

Our FBI is corrupt and discredited, collaborating with Silicon Valley contractors to suppress free speech and warp elections. We practice segregation and racial discrimination and claim we do not because the right and good people support it and, anyway, the victims deserve it. The country has seen defeat before but never abject, deliberate humiliation as in Kabul, when we fled and abandoned to the terrorist Taliban a $1 billion embassy, a huge, remodeled air base, thousands of friends, and tens of billions of dollars in military hardware—and hard-earned deterrence.

We are witnessing the breakdown of basic norms essential for civilized life, from affordable food and fuel to available key antibiotics and baby formula. Old Cairo seems safer than an after-hours subway ride or stroll at dusk in many major American cities. Medieval London’s roadways were likely cleaner than Market Street in San Francisco. Speech was freer in 1920s America than it is now.

The Breakdown of Basic Society

Our California always is a preamble to America’s future. Our present is likely your tomorrow.

Each summer here we impotently expect forest conflagrations. Millions of acres of flames pour more millions of tons of smoke and carbon and soot in the skies. Tens of millions of hated combustion engines cannot begin to match the natural blankets of aerial dirt.

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: communism; vdh; victordavishanson
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To: Empire_of_Liberty

Oh, I agree. Throwing in the towel is not an option, at least for Freeper types.

But republics are corruptible and generally go down for just the sort of issues we are facing now.


21 posted on 12/12/2022 7:31:35 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: MtnClimber

***We are witnessing the breakdown of basic norms essential for civilized life,***

There is a reason for it.

From the book Doctor Zhivago (Not the movie)

Yurii’s talk with Pogorevshikh on the train to Moscow...
Part 2, chapter 5: 16
Imperturbable as an oracle, he prophesied disastrous
upheavals in the near future. Yurii Andreievich inwardly agreed
that this was not unlikely, but the calm, authoritative tone in
which this unpleasant boy was making his forecasts angered
him.

“Just a moment,” he said hesitantly. “True, all this may happen.
But it seems to me that with all that’s going on — the chaos, the
disintegration, the pressure from the enemy — this is not the
moment to start dangerous experiments. The country must be
allowed to recover from one upheaval before plunging into
another. We must wait till at least relative peace and order are
restored.”

“That’s naive,” said Pogorevshikh. “What you call disorder is
just as normal a state of things as the order you’re so keen
about. All this destruction — it’s a natural and preliminary stage
of a broad creative plan. Society has not yet disintegrated
sufficiently. It must fall to pieces completely then a genuinely
revolutionary government will put the pieces together and build
on completely new foundations.”


22 posted on 12/12/2022 7:43:02 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (BACK in Facebook Jail for quoting a line from the Dean Martin movie "Rough Night In Jericho.")
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To: MtnClimber
I'm a yuge fan of VDH...but the last sentence of his essay is wrong:

"Yes, there is a lot of ruin in great nations. But even America is by now running low on it.

We have a LONG way to go. (See Ukraine.)

Besides...the shooting hasn't even started...

23 posted on 12/12/2022 7:50:43 AM PST by moovova ("The NEXT election is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: LouAvul

What’s the answer for an individual? How does one defend themselves against the growing morass? I’m being serious. What are YOU doing to protect yourself and your loved ones?

I’m honestly looking for answers.


24 posted on 12/12/2022 7:56:51 AM PST by moovova ("The NEXT election is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: 9YearLurker
Oh, I agree. Throwing in the towel is not an option, at least for Freeper types.

Sure, but how are we going to save this country when we can't even go a day without paying the leftists to entertain us?

How are we going to rebuild our infrastructure when saving $.10 on communist made paint brushes is more important?

We can't blame Gen-Z for this. These were choices we made long before they were adults.

These are all things we can change right now, this minute, without any organizing, without any marches in hostile Democrat run cities, and without reaching into those 80 billion bullets we keep threatening the left with.

The question is, do we care enough to do it?

25 posted on 12/12/2022 9:31:04 AM PST by TwelveOfTwenty (Will whoever keeps asking if this country can get any more insane please stop?)
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To: LouAvul; All
"Whatever scenario, there is nothing that indicates our sinful, soulless nation has any hope.
Stupid liberals. Stupid libertarians. Stupid complacent republicans"

Add stupid parents paying outrageous amounts of money to have their children brainwashed at "University".

But the biggest factor in our decline, IMO, is that we removed God from our society.

26 posted on 12/12/2022 10:02:12 AM PST by Pajamajan ( PRAY FOR OUR NATION. Never be a peaceful slave in a new Socialist America.8+)
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To: TwelveOfTwenty

It seems you’re perceiving the CCP threat, but not how much they have bought our government and are in frienemy collusion with the globalist/banker overlords.

Not that you’re wrong about our fat, unattentive and dumbed-down elders; but what goes for them goes doubly for our Millennials and Zoomers.


27 posted on 12/12/2022 10:03:54 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Sicon

Just the illegals are probably over that at this point.


28 posted on 12/12/2022 11:32:06 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: texas booster

Nothing needs to be added but my emotional connection to his brilliant “Voice”. Thank you VDH.


29 posted on 12/12/2022 1:08:02 PM PST by Glad2bnuts ("None of the people I know who didn't take take the Jab regrets their decision" ZERO)
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To: Tell It Right

Even on this august site, we are but whistling past the graveyard I fear.


30 posted on 12/12/2022 1:09:24 PM PST by Glad2bnuts ("None of the people I know who didn't take take the Jab regrets their decision" ZERO)
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To: texas booster

On your PING list please. Thank you for collating this.


31 posted on 12/12/2022 1:10:27 PM PST by Glad2bnuts ("None of the people I know who didn't take take the Jab regrets their decision" ZERO)
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To: LouAvul

If a horn sounded to warn of attack, it is not of doom and gloom. It is a call to action. The purpose of the minds suck as VDH is to inform and wake up people and hopefully the nation.

Can you suffer what is happening in silence?


32 posted on 12/12/2022 1:28:37 PM PST by Glad2bnuts ("None of the people I know who didn't take take the Jab regrets their decision" ZERO)
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To: Glad2bnuts

Such not suck..lol


33 posted on 12/12/2022 1:34:15 PM PST by Glad2bnuts ("None of the people I know who didn't take take the Jab regrets their decision" ZERO)
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To: 9YearLurker
It seems you’re perceiving the CCP threat, but not how much they have bought our government and are in frienemy collusion with the globalist/banker overlords.

I am fully aware of this, and I am equally aware that it's our consumer dollars they're doing it with. That's the disgusting part. We knew what communism is, yet we were willing to fund their goals and projects at the expense of ours for the sake of saving a few pennies on communist made paint brushes. How's that working for us?

We want to point the finger at everyone else, but I was in on those free trade debates, which many Freepers defended. One even called me stupid for being willing to pay more for made in the USA.

As for the Millennials and Zoomers, they didn't give themselves the participation trophies.

34 posted on 12/12/2022 4:02:32 PM PST by TwelveOfTwenty (Will whoever keeps asking if this country can get any more insane please stop?)
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To: TwelveOfTwenty

It’s also those banker-created dollars and debt that moved manufacturing to China and have done us in, with what could maybe more accurately be called fascism, but in either way is creating a serf/slave class for those they don’t simply do in.

And yes, it was the elder generations that essentially ruined the Millennials and Zoomers, but it is the Millennial and Zoomers who are essentially ruined.


35 posted on 12/12/2022 4:10:25 PM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker
It’s also those banker-created dollars and debt that moved manufacturing to China and have done us in

No, it was "you" who sent those jobs out of the country.

Maybe not you personally, but all of us who chose to buy cheaper made by communism over Made in USA sent those jobs out of the country and encouraged more of it.

If we're going to bring the jobs back, we need to make those Made in USA labels proftable again.

36 posted on 12/13/2022 3:27:43 AM PST by TwelveOfTwenty (Will whoever keeps asking if this country can get any more insane please stop?)
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To: Tell It Right

And it’s why Deep State has to steal elections.

There was always a risk that Americans could vote their country into extinction.

But Deep State didn’t want to wait.

Couldn’t afford to wait after Trump got elected.


37 posted on 12/13/2022 3:35:41 AM PST by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: TwelveOfTwenty

We need to restore our republic first.


38 posted on 12/13/2022 3:36:08 AM PST by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: moovova
Your query is open to all, but posted to me. I don't know how to approach the future in an imploding Republic. This is new ground for all of us, and a curse upon the RATs and RINOs who are doing it.

Re advice. I'm in a solidly Red State with at least one state representative who's trying to do the right things. This link is an example: OK state senator trying to limit an out of control federal govt.

But I'm in a bedroom community of Tulsa which is a liberal dump run by liberal trash. They mollycoddle minorities who, as usual, are high on crime. I need to get a bit further away from OK metropolitan areas.

Reduce your indebtedness (if possible) since the economy is being run by demons (whoever it is that owns pedo joe and kongress).

Other than those common sense suggestions, it's anybody's guess. The rich are buying bunkers and islands just in case. People like me are forced to defend a fixed position, so to speak.

Our future is America reaping what it has sown. We are an incredible evil and sinful nation, and God will not be mocked. See my tagline.

39 posted on 12/13/2022 5:08:43 AM PST by LouAvul (Daniel 4:17: "..the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.." )
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To: MtnClimber

VDH, my favorite read....
He hits a home run, sadly, with “Our Parasitic Generation!”


40 posted on 12/13/2022 1:03:17 PM PST by BatGuano (2020 = Stolen Election. Believe it! Molon Labe.)
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