Waltzing on the Titanic

American Thinker ^ | November 15, 2008 | Larrey Anderson

[vietvet67]

America's young people helped elect Barack Obama. Way to go kids! This article is for you. Let's take a look at your future.

We won't need a time machine. We will just need to visit Europe and talk to the youth of France, Italy, and Greece. Don't worry. They won't mind. They have plenty of time to talk. They don't have jobs.

Young people in Western Europe tend to sit around, smoke Marlboro cigarettes, drink espresso (and Coca Cola), and (at least until this election) bitch about America.

They have been taught, since their first day in school, that capitalism is evil -- that the government can, and should, provide health care, employment, and eventually, guaranteed retirement benefits for everyone.

In their leisurely conversations when they have finished condemning capitalism, they go on to praise the idea of socialism. They do not praise their own countries. They are not stupid. The health care stinks. (Young people don't care much about that.) There are no jobs. (But there are unemployment benefits.) And the retirement systems are bankrupt. (But old age is way, way, way in the future.)

So, they argue, in the next election they are going to replace the loser socialists who currently run their countries with some real socialists -- politicians who will finally keep their promises. I heard this discussion in France thirty years ago. I heard it the last time I was in Italy. It is taking place in Greece right now.

The last time I was in Rome I listened as a very bright young man explained to his friends, over lunch at a sidewalk café, what was really going on: Most European countries have become, essentially, plutocracies. The socialist governments give lip service to wealth redistribution but they are tightly interwoven with the "old money" in the banking system and in big business.

This came as no surprise to his educated friends. Their response was (same as it always is): Of course the system is corrupt. We will throw out the old socialists and put in some new ones. It played in their minds like a broken record. I have heard it for years and years and years.

The only thing that stopped the conversation from becoming a perpetual loop was that one of the conversationalists eventually proclaimed, "Ah. But at least we are not America!" The Marlboros got lit up. The espresso amd Coca Cola were sipped. And they got back to the serious business of bashing capitalism.

Well, not all of them. It turned out that the bright young man who had so eloquently described the current corruption was the bus boy at the café. He had a university education ... and a job!

I had the opportunity to speak with one of these young people alone. Actually, this fellow was not so young anymore. He was thirty-four. He still lived with his parents.

He could not afford his own place. His family was having problems even paying their electrical bills.

The reason the price of electricity was so high was that the "greens" had for years stopped the Italian government from building nuclear power plants.

He drove a taxi a few days a week (the only job he could find). He had a girlfriend but could not afford to marry her. He was not planning on having children. But in the next election, he assured me, a brand new socialism was coming. He started to rattle off the names of the experts he had read in the newspapers (and he had studied in the university) who had told him so.

I felt sorry for him. I had had this exact conversation many times before. He was brim full of hope and change.

Listen up young Americans: What is coming to the United States is what has been happening in Europe for decades. The ships of state have smashed into an iceberg called socialism and they are sinking.

This is not a Republican versus Democrat thing. Republicans had ten years to clean up the mess. They made it worse. I don't blame you for wanting to throw the bums out. I did too.

But putting in a new and improved and ever more aggressive socialist like Obama is not the answer. (Don't argue about his socialism. Go to his website and show me some free market proposals.) They have been trying this in Europe for three generations. It has not worked.

That trillion-dollar "bi-partisan" bailout passed by our Congress did not go to the people who cannot make their house payments. It is being handed out to the big bankers and to big business.

That is how socialism works. Politicians, bankers, and big businessmen do an age-old dance in triple time. There is no trickle down economics in socialism. Almost all of the money stays at the top.

America will soon be, like Europe has been, waltzing on the Titanic. Thanks for the dance.

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. His latest award-winning novel is The Order of the Beloved.

[Anti-Bubba182]

The young people who voted for Obama deserve what they get. It is too bad they will take others with them.

[DB]

Suck on that kids.

[FrankR]

Excellent . . . send it to every young and stupid obama voter you know...

[trillabodilla]

God help us.

[vietvet67]

“It is too bad they will take others with them.”

The election was nothing but a massive American Idol vote without hesitation of placing our national security in the hands of someone like Obama. Dangerous indeed..

[Arrowhead1952]

Thanks for the idea. I know several BO voters who are already having “buyers remorse”. This is another “I told you so” article heading their way.

[Bigh4u2]

It won’t do any good.

As with the kids in Europe, they will just ignore it and drool over how Obambi is going to ‘fix’ everything.

[Guenevere]

Personally, I barely watch (mere minutes at a time) ANY of the 24/7 news shows anymore.....and it use to be 24/7 for me!

Call it denial, but I have better things to do than hear how messed up our nation is due to Democrat & Republican policies..

.... Democrat & Republican 'out of control' spending....

...smears and innuendo & gossip of Governor Palin...

..backbiting, yelling, snide remarks, etc.

I'm through with them...

..and they're going to find out ALL those younsters who voted for Obama are not tuning in to their precious shows....WE WERE.

So there's a price to be paid all around.

I will stay out of Obama's way (& sound of his voice) as long as he stays out of mine...

Unfortunately, if history is any indication....AND IT IS....I will not have the leisure or assurance that will happen.

[jamaksin]

In the real old days it was called "Bread and Circuses".

We are experiencing History repeating itself - again. Pogo was right!

[Dr. Ursus]

You can add unmarried women as his other main constituency
looking for “Uncle Sugar”to take care of them!

[a real Sheila]

you are correct.
I was about to send it to the Obama voters I still claim as friends, then decided, “What is the use?”
They will read the first paragraph and get angry and delete.
“They can’t handle the truth!”
They don’t want to know the truth!
Plus, you cannot tell an 18-15 yr. old a DAMNED thing! They arrogantly THINK they know it all until they graduate and get out into the real world and start paying taxes, IF they can find a job.

I was the same way. Fortunately Reagan was in office during those years of my life and I proudly voted for him both times.

[Bigh4u2]

“Plus, you cannot tell an 18-15 yr. old a DAMNED thing! They arrogantly THINK they know it all”

Yep.

Sums up my kids right there..

And they’re in their 20’s.

[Vigilanteman]

Send it to them anyway. Save it and send it again every three months or so. I'm betting that they will read one extra paragraph each time.

Remember the fools who elected Jimmy "Hope and Change" Carter? A lot of them got educated in four short years.

[libertylover]

And they don’t even see the irony of smoking Marlboro cigarettes.

[nina0113]

Excellent . . . send it to every young and stupid obama voter you know...

Too late NOW. Maybe in four years, when the college kids who supported him are still working at Starbucks because they can't find real jobs.

[Malesherbes]

Anderson appropriately confines himself to the youth of “Western Europe.” For ten years I’ve been regularly going to Poland, and I find a different kind of youth there.

They are ambitious, motivated, well-educated, and have a sense of reality. They know what Communism was like and they don’t want it again. Being Poles, they know that life isn’t easy but they’re prepared to take it on, and they love their country.

I generalize, of course. There are plenty of exceptions, and the vulgarity and hopelessness (”Dust in the wind”) of the international youth culture has seeped in, but religion still has a strong hold and it provides a shield.

[nina0113]

For ten years I’ve been regularly going to Poland, and I find a different kind of youth there.

Are you going there for work or vacation? We were discussing spending some vacation dollars in Poland (assuming Obama leaves us any).

[pepperdog]

I don't either, but then I don't smoke. What is it with Marlboro? I see them being smoked in movies, in the rare instances when I have time to watch a movie on tv.