Posted on 02/24/2009 6:07:26 PM PST by quesney
An increasing number of recent letters and e-mails from readers strike a note, not only of unhappiness with the way things are going in our society, but a note of despair.
Those of us who are pessimists are only a step away from despair ourselves, so we may not be the ones to offer the best antidote to the view that America has seen its best days and is degenerating toward what may well be its worst. Yet what hope remains is no less precious nor any less worthy of being preserved.
First of all, the day-to-day life of most Americans in these times is nowhere near as dire as that of the band of cold, ragged and hungry men who gathered around George Washington in the winter at Valley Forge, to which they had been driven by defeat after defeat.
Only the most reckless gambler would have bet on them to win. Only an optimist would have expected them to survive.
Against the background of those and other desperate times that this country has been through, we cannot whine today because the stocks in our pension plans have gone down or the inflated value that our houses had just a few years ago has now evaporated.
In another sense, however, looming ahead of us-- and our children and their children-- are dangers that can utterly destroy American society. Worse yet, there are moral corrosions within ourselves that weaken our ability to face the challenges ahead.
One of the many symptoms of this decay from within is that we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs.
Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone's paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins?
Yet the only serious obstacle to that happening is that the Israelis may disregard the lofty blather coming out of the White House and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities before the Iranian fanatics can destroy Israel.
If by some miracle we manage to avoid the fatal dangers of a nuclear Iran, there will no doubt be others, including a nuclear North Korea.
Although, in some sense, the United States of America is still the militarily strongest nation on earth, that means absolutely nothing if our enemies are willing to die and we are not.
It took only two nuclear bombs to get Japan to surrender-- and the Japanese of that era were far tougher than most Americans today. Just one bomb-- dropped on New York, Chicago or Los Angeles-- might be enough to get us to surrender.
Marry me, Dr. Sowell. I adore you. :)
For a man who lived through what he did and overcame that to become one of our greatest living scholars it is downright scary when he says he is close to despair. If Thomas Sowell is scared, we should all be terrified.
May God bless Dr. Sowell.
Sowell pingaroonie
Thomas, don’t despair. You’ve done more than you’ll ever know in this life. Keep the faith.
Should be read in conjunction with the following. Take heart all ye conservatives in dispair!
http://www.aapsonline.org/brochures/isaiah.htm
Don’t fret, Dr. Sowell. Hilary and her Traveling Pantsuit are on the job, bringing BO’s message of peace and cooperation to terrorists everywhere. I’m sure they will beat their swords into plowshares any day now...
Sowell/Williams (vise versa). Now that’s a ticket I could really get behind
I thought of posting & commenting on a portion(s) of his article.
No sense in dissecting it. It is great on the whole.
Will somebody please tell this pathological socialist, speaking in the well of the House, that the American economy can NOT recover while the Federal government is STEALING MONEY FROM THOSE WHO CREATE THE JOBS?!?!?!?
LOL, You’re married.
Whatever doesn't kill us, just makes us more conservative.
Thanks for the ping, the list has been pinged to another posting of this column.
Diana, I think Mrs. Sowell might not approve of polygamy. And moving from California to Madison, Wisconsin just might do the good doctor in.
I have to pinch myself to realize that my country is going to hell in a handbasket by it’s own doing. If it had been a nuclear holocaust that ended it, I would have believed and understood.
Look at it this way...If he can communicate the concerns he has in a way that keeps us (who are paying attention) frosty and sharp...
I believe our job is to validate his concerns and demonstrate that we always had the ability to improve our situations, ourselves, which is what I believe he wants for this country...
“You’re married.”
That particular contract is up for re-negotiation on April 26th of this year.
We celebrate our Anniversary each year via détente, LOL! :)
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