America to the Rescue

It has become fashionable once again to proclaim America’s decline. Books herald a “post-American world” and the “end of the American era.” The question is no longer whether America is Rome, but how best to manage our inevitable fall. Few of the international-relations pundits who prophesy the concomitant decline of America and the advancement of China, India, Russia, and regional bodies like the European Union, appear worried about the prospect. Indeed, many seem downright pleased by “the rise of the rest.”

Thoughts of the “end of history” tripe that circulated right after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Actually, that analysis was correct. Democratic capitalism has shown itself to be the overwhelming 'winner' of economic systems. Those nations which embrace it will beat out those that don't.

That does not mean, of course, that the US will continue to be a democratic capitalist economy. From which it follows that there is no real reason that we need to 'win' in the end. Right now, we're on the path to oblivion, running as fast as we can. But the Chinese are learning capitalism, the Indians are remembering capitalism, and the most cost-effective place to build Ford cars is in Brazil.

In the meantime, we do have the 'hard' power to intervene if we choose, and that provides the 'soft' power to allow us to intercede effectively if invited. The key to this article is that we are still perceived (despite BHO) as likely to resist if someone starts an invasion while we're brokering discussions on a 'peaceful solution.'

Except in Israel, of course.

When 47% of the population pays no taxes, and even gets money “back”, there is no way to fix it. The political types won't risk enraging them and jeopardizing their seat

spoke with a single mom today making about $47k now. I asked if she would be ok with paying a flat 15% of her gross and no more. She said that she only pays $1.75/hr during the year in taxes and gets $4500 back at tax time. She is not only not paying any taxes, but she is getting money out. A net loss for the fedgov.

As long as this is the case, we will continue the push deeper into socialism

We are not on any path to oblivion, there is simply an epidemic of treasonous self hate for partisan reasons inundating a pack of moral cowards and lightweights. From both the right and the left.

Both have decided that they are only in favor of the west if they rule it completely. Meanwhile, the reality is nothing on earth can challenge us, and the entire crapstorm is completely made up, and nonsense start to finish.

About two billion people *wish* the US was powerless and in decline. It is nothing of the sort and their wishes cannot make it so.

We are not on any path to oblivion,

I guess we will just disagree. The path to socialism - and we are certainly on that path - is a path to oblivion. You may believe - and I certainly hope - that we will change paths before we reach oblivion, but the lurch toward socialism of the last year is pretty obvious.

About two billion people *wish* the US was powerless and in decline.

This is certainly true . . . but it is also a compound claim. I never said we were "powerless" and don't believe that we are. It will take a long time before we lose all power. But we can certainly be "in decline", which is only a path toward a powerless condition, not the end state.

Are we in decline? Trillion dollar deficits are hardly a postive sign. A military where the average age of combat aircraft is well over 20 years is hardly a positive sign. Socialized medicine is a disastrous sign - as sure an indicator as any that we are heading toward disaster - and while it hasn't passed yet, it seems to be closer than at any time in our past, including HillaryCare. Cap-and-Trade is economic suicide and hardly a positive sign.

Neither one of us "wishes" that we were in decline or powerless, either one. But I'm afraid there is enough evidence of decline to warrant real concern.

If a leftist ever passing one of his pet policies is your definition of "in decline", then the US has been "in decline" since Thomas Jefferson. However, in the meantime it conquered the world, freed mankind, built the richest society in human history, and the freest and fairest, literally gave man wings, and saw off the deadliest tyrannies in human history. If you are not aware of and grateful for American exceptionalism and greatness, then we don't "just disagree".

Was America destroyed by Woodrow Wilson or the progressive era? No. Was it destroyed by the great depression or the new deal? No. Was it destroyed by world wars or the big government needed to fight them? No. Was it destroyed by domestic treason, men giving atom bombs to Joe Stalin deliberately? No. Was it destroyed by defeatism, by the destruction of patriot presidents because they made pacifists look bad? No. Was it destroyed by rampant inflation, oil shocks, presidential paralysis and inaction in the face of terrorism? No. And it isn't going to be destroyed by a superficial lightweight from Chicago trying to play ward politics at the national level with money he doesn't have.

You simply have no realistic assessment of the scale of the forces in play, or what we overcame to get here. None of what we are up against now even ranks. It takes abject cowardice to be daunted by this pack of nitwits and their trivial concerns. What is actually going on, instead, is that the right has decided to compete with the left in the 21st century doom mongers sweepstakes. It doing so it has abandoned its own best traditions and its trademark sense of proportion and confidence in our traditions. And why? Roughly, because it thinks screaming louder that the sky is falling is good rhetoric.

It is dumb rhetoric, and the mountebanks of the world will always scream it louder.

Doom mongering is dumb rhetoric. If you choose to apply that to yourself, it is you who does so. I spoke of a style of rhetoric.

The mountebanks that will always scream louder in any doom mongering competition are the left. Simple reading comprehension there.

Cowardice is being fearful of what does not call for fear, or letting fear rule ones actions. Doom mongers rely on it being widespread but also on it never being called by its true name to their face, because otherwise men would be ashamed to take their arguments seriously. For example, if a man (say an ex Vice- and near- president) screams that the world must stop everything it is doing instantly and obey his every demand, or it will get a few degrees warmer in 100 years, to listen to such claims requires a degree of timidity that would shame a mouse.

That is one reason doom mongering is dumb rhetoric. Those it can move mark themselves as morally unserious persons by that very fact. The more basic reason it is dumb rhetoric is it is never specific enough, the sentiment involved is arosed by any allegation whatever, etc. In short it opens the door to loud screaming by mountebanks, as already mentioned.

Your serious objection is to my characterization of the problems we face today as trivial compared to those we overcame to get here. You don't like this, but it is inconveniently true. Obama is a weak Chicago fixer, not Joe Stalin. The threat of a health care bill passing is hardly immediate nuclear annihilation by Soviet missiles. Democrats being unfair to Bush is hardly the destruction of Nixon and the deliberate surrender of Saigon. An unwise 5% surtax in a recession is hardly 94% tax rates in the middle of the great depression, in the name of balancing the budget.

But the prediction is simply more important to you than the actual history. I understand why. Mises, Hayek and company tried to argue that any deviation from their laissee fair principles must eventually end in full blown communism and central planning. But this was hyperbole even in the midst of the cold war, with men actually committed to that outcome. It was perhaps a useful warning of a possibility in that context. In a desire to reuse an old argument for want of ability to come up with a more pertinent or current one, you want to pretend this logic still operates and whenever a Chicago ward-manager passes a piece of graft it heralds a new gulag. But this is hyperbole at the most charitable.

Your problem is the substance of your case is not there, not the thinness of your hide or my imaginary billingsgate.

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