Posted on 07/08/2010 5:28:49 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
We are hearing all sorts of reasons why the United States is doomed to decline.
After all, America is piling up deficits at a record rate of about $1.5 trillion a year while other countries are slashing their spending. The national debt cascades over $13 trillion and is on track to reach $20 trillion within a decade.
The current recession is heading into its third year. Unemployment still hovers at nearly 10 percent.
Much of the country thinks the war in Afghanistan is as good as lost. There are more than 80,000 American troops deployed there, along with nearly 50,000 allied soldiers — facing fewer than 10,000 Taliban insurgents.
The largest oil spill in American history has been gushing up from the Gulf for nearly 80 days, with vague promises that it could be plugged in another month or so.
Between 11 million and 20 million illegal aliens currently reside in the United States. And we cannot seem to stop another half million from crossing illegally into America each year.
Politically, the fickle electorate was furious at Wall Street for the 2008 meltdown. But it is now angrier at a government that threatens to take over more private enterprise. In 2006, voters renounced congressional Republicans; in November 2010, even angrier voters will probably be more unforgiving of the once-dominant Democrats.
George W. Bush left office with dismal poll numbers. Yet Barack Obama, who campaigned on the theme that he would serve as a reset button for the prior administration, and who enjoyed an approval rate of nearly 70 percent at inauguration, has seen his own ratings dive below 50 percent in just 18 months.
No wonder this dismal news — coupled with constant predictions of a rising, all-powerful China and the emergence of new, upcoming regional powers like Turkey, Brazil, and India — prompts nonstop gloom about inevitable American decay.
Even Obama, at times, seems to envision a multipolar world in which the United States no longer is “exceptional” in the manner of the last 70 years.
In the midst of our current malaise, we feel overwhelmed by largely short-term problems and our current inability to address them — without appreciating our long-term strengths and present bounty, or learning from past recoveries.
We are soon to revert to the Clinton income-tax rates last used in 2000, when we ran budget surpluses. If likewise we were to cut the budget, or just hold federal spending to the rate of inflation, America would soon run surpluses as it did a decade ago. For all our problems, the United States is still the largest economy in the world, its 300 million residents producing more goods and services than the more than 1 billion in either China or India.
The U.S. military defeated both Saddam Hussein and the Islamic insurgency that followed him in Iraq, while fostering consensual government. With the same determination, there is no reason why it cannot do the same in Afghanistan. Certainly neither enemy is comparable to Nazi Germany or imperial Japan, which a much poorer America helped to defeat simultaneously within four years of engagement.
Nearly 70 years ago, a far less scientifically sophisticated country developed the atomic bomb in three years. It could likewise plug a leaking oil well in three months.
If the United States chose to close its southern border — by finishing the fence, fining all employers of illegal aliens, and increasing patrols — illegal entry from the south would cease almost at once. The pool of resident illegal aliens would shrink through assimilation, intermarriage, and voluntary repatriation while Congress kept haggling over the particulars of comprehensive reform.
Our supposedly intractable problems are hardly insurmountable. Ascendant China and India have much less freedom and far greater environmental problems, political turmoil, and class disparity. Europe is not as productive as America and is shrinking in population, not growing as we are.
In the bleak 1930s, we were told that German discipline and order were the answer; during the depressing stagflation of the 1970s, Japan, Inc. was supposed to be the way of the future. Then a resurgence of American confidence and renewed faith in our exceptional system dispelled all such nonsense.
The United States still remains the most racially diverse, stable, free, productive, and militarily strong country in the world. Its current crises are largely the political and cultural creations of the most affluent and leisured generation in civilization’s history — not due to longstanding civil unrest, structural weakness, or a sudden shortage of natural resources.
America may well soon decline and become no different from any other nation. But such a depressing future would largely be our generation’s own free choice; it is not a historical inevitability.
The constitution is dead.
They don’t follow it.
People around here don’t even want to follow it.
For instance, take a look at all the drug warriors around here. At least with alcohol, they passed a constitutional amendment. Now, they just pass unconstitutional laws because it’s the “moral” thing to do.
For your Chicago nannies, banning guns is the “moral” thing to do “for the children”.
For the drug warriors around here banning certain substances is the “moral” thing to do “for the children”.
Neither group cares about following the constitution.
They just want what they want and they like it when its done to the “bad people”.
I’m sure you’ll be saying “our constitution stands” and “I’m a free man” when obama puts you on a train to go work off the debt in a a Chinese mine.
As one who has studied and continues to study the law, the words of the constitution obtain force of law via judicial interpretation. The constitution as implemented is not what one would think by reading the constitution. Just to pick one point, the commerce clause. This has been elevated into pretty much carte blanche for the federal government to act, in many many areas (including immigration!, regulation of the right to keep and bear arms, "drug prohibition" without a constitutional amendment, and so on). Does the constitution still stand? Sure. Is it being applied as the founders envisioned, or as it SHOULD be applied, in order to obtain the best that society has to offer? I mean, the constitution stands with Obama in power, just as much as it did with Washington (George) in power.
-- Look at how Kagan has to act like she's Scalia in order to get confirmed. --
That's evidence that the government is a charade. She acts, she gets confirmed. Wonderful. Not.
-- But in the end, they still answer to us and to our Constitution. --
They are enabled by being elected by simple majorities, and too many of the voters are on the receiving end of "give and take." As for "answering to the constitution," the bastards are effectively rewriting it, keeping the words (of course), but rejecting the substance because it stands between them and control.
-- Most of all, to the Good Lord. --
Amen to that. I teach my kids what I call responsible personal independence. Honesty, hard work, and humility won't make you king on earth, and you'll face some tough choices that incline you to do wrong in order to obtain temporal wealth.
Too many people here need to "hold the malaise" and recall the far greater struggles our forefathers endured, that we may very well have to endure as well.
"...with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Totally agree, the constitution is dead. There are 4,543 words in the document, it is 6 pages long, you can read it in 15 minutes.
Think about it. Think about the tax code, new laws being passed every day, the document is meaningless, we have tons of loss and taxes that violate it even today, Obama is literally shredding it, but other past presidents, even republicans have too. We like to think it is the law of the land, but it doesn’t matter “law wise” jack sqaut. Wait until Kagan is on the court and they review the Arizona immigration law, you’ll see the constitution means nothing.
Every state at this point would be better off withdrawing from the union. Disban the entire army I don’t care, some country want’s a piece of us, I say come get some.
I agree. Politicians are taught, in schools, that a function of elections is to give populations a sense of being in control, let they become restive. Despots have elections. Elections are not a measure of freedom.
Party politics is one outward indicator of a sham system. The US, via State Department, exports two party politics to other countries. It's a generic system that permits two ostensibly agreeable groups (bipartisan) to have a "pretend conflict," so the voters can pick which of two directions they prefer. Short term and superficial differences result, but the general progress of government control over the people (perpetuation of a "control" class over a "controlled" class) is highly likely.
Returning to "business as usual" by going back to the RINO globalist form of wealth redistribution would only be a minor improvement over what we had. As a matter of fact, those types are responsible for the electorate choosing marxism in 2008.
Electing conservative Republicans (for the first time in forever) to lead the country would result in a massive shift toward prosperity and sanity. Real cuts in the size of government, real cuts in spending, real cuts in taxes, and real conservative, pro-American policies actually implemented, will put the USA back in its place as the beacon of freedom and prosperity.
The 10 stages of Societal Decline takes an average of 200 years to complete. Most experts agree that we are between the 8th and 9th stages. (Apathy-8, Dependency-9)
The final stage is Tyranny-10. Once any nation becomes thoroughly entwined in the Apathy and Dependency stages, there is very little that can be done to stop it.
VDH is being creatively disingenuous here, the budget deficit in the USA is well over 3 Trillion a year if sane accounting standards were applied, the current debt of the country is over $128Trillion, to surpass 135Trillion before the next Presidential election.
And VDH knows this, he’s written about it in the past.
He also mysteriously falls back in to the default position that the US oligarchy and the average servant class in the United States aggregate into some type “we” at this point in time. There is no longer a United States in aggregate, there will never be a closed border because the oligarchy increased their concentration of wealth the longer the border stays open.
Why does VDH believe that the total economic output of this country implies our strength? Under 5% of the counties in this country produce over 50% of the exports. Again, there is no longer a aggregate “United States standing together”, the country has been permanently divided between producers and leeches.
VDH needs to lay off the flagwaving pablum and get serious about defending what for many years have been considered his personal conservative principles, this original article is a fine example of the sad sack showing of conservative thought in the top tier media outlets in this country.
VDH, pick it up!
We will know one way or another in a few short months. If the GOP reclaims either House of Congress, 0bama becomes a lame duck and potentially an impeached one. I think there is a 'bloodless' third choice. We'll see.
p.s. did you see 0bama has even lost Streisand??!!!
Obama didn't create the debt. Obama is not the only one responsible. This has taken decades.
Even if Obama is impeached it doesn't matter. As KRS-1 said, Obama is just the new black face on the NWO.
Ears is a puppet.
Huh? The U.S. National Debt is $13.1T
Your characterization of VDH as a "sad sack showing of conservative thought" is likewise suspect. By the way, you provided one of my favorite FR thread laughs (housewife modmin/admin).
Wrong.
If the Constitution is dead, why do its slimy, cowardly opponents have to bend over backwards acting like they agree with it?
If the Constitution were dead, the supposed victors could come out, in the open and declare it dead. The defining moment of victory.
They can’t do it, because they haven’t won. And they won’t win, God willing.
"Look at how Kagan has to act like she’s Scalia in order to get confirmed".
Lipstick on a corpse.
If the Constitution were dead, the supposed victors could come out, in the open and declare it dead. The defining moment of victory.
Possibly they are just paying lipservice to it to string along the overly optimistic and fools.
They haven't been successful in confiscating the guns yet, either. But with the changing demographics, they might be importing a solution to that which doesn't require confiscation.
The accounting system used to derive the 13.1T national debt is a sick and twisted joke that will soon leave million of American pensioners as destitute as the millions of Soviet pensioners in the former USSR.
The unfunded liabilities in the social safety net system, as well as large chunks of the defense budget over the next 19 years is over 100 Trillion.
The unreported national debt as of November 2009 is now equal to or surpassing the reported increase in national debt on a yearly basis.
Here’s some fun with numbers:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
I’ll post a link to the speech by San Francisco Fed Reserve Board member , it outlines the true deficit and debt of the nation as of 2009 when speech was given to a private audience.
You don’t need to get defensive when I call the opponents of our Constitution slimy and cowardly.
The leftists bend over backwards in service to the Constitution because they are required to serve it.
Picture this: Obama calls a press conference, states U.S. Constitution dead cause he killed it. The response? Mayhem, and Obama loses everything. He can’t declare victory because he doesn’t have victory.
The cultural marxists have tried to hamstring us, but they’ve accomplished little more than ankle-biting.
The end of our nation will not come like a slow fizzle followed by nothingness. You can’t kill a bull with a million water balloons thrown one after another. He’ll be wet and maybe even sick, but to kill him you need to stop his heart.
The numbers of us who refuse to yield to overt oppression are more than the cowardly marxists know.
Imagine the result of cutting all capital gains tax.
As for the Obama damage being undone, of course it’s possible.
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