Posted on 07/10/2011 7:35:05 AM PDT by Errant
We are sitting in our favorite café in Paris…listening to the Beach Boys and reflecting on the decline of the US Empire. Back in the ’60s, the Beach Boys celebrated a country that was young, growing, optimistic…and a winner. Now, what we see is the whole kit-and-kaboodle of life in the US giving way to desperation, delusion and an irresistible impulse to commit imperial suicide. The economy turns sour. The military becomes malignant. Households are corrupt, bankrupt and dependent. Even the churches sing their hallelujahs to Caesar now.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyreckoning.com ...
How about that…a “director of African American media?” On the White House payroll. Just what the country needs.
It seems that the deck shuffling is beginning. I'm waiting for a reordering of the military. I don't like or trust Darth Zero one bit. I'm talking well beyond and above the usual.
Your user name pretty well sums up my idea of "him" in a Biblical warning kind of way.
Not actually true. European countries have a higher percentage on the dole and with much more generous benefit.
Over the last 50 years politicians of both parties have turned the US into a tyrannical leftist welfare state where sloth, ineptness and dependancy are rewarded while hard work, competence and independance are punished.
Obama didn’t create our slide into mediocraty - he has just acelerated it and brought the leftist tyranny to new levels undreamed of just a few short years ago.
Yes, Obama is the worst president we have ever had - so far. But he would never been elected if republicans over many administrations had not willingly gone along with, or led, our decline into greater and greater dependancy on a racist, socialist, tyrannical Big Government.
How’s that working out for them? ;)
From another article I found this morning:
"I’ll offer another metaphor for this decade – a decade that will pave the way for peaceful secession of American states, regions, counties, and communities from the central state’s debt, its political class, its empire, and its arbitrary rules and false ethics. For cheetahs, and for recovering clovers, I can see a faithful unwavering light – an unprecedented era of libertarian reconstruction in North America, conducted person to person, quietly, often underground, and in the language of metaphor."
Source: The Coming U.S. Federal Collapse
Not what we've done, assuming you are speaking in a financial sense. Had our domestic spending been maintained within even semi-reasonable bounds we could have handled the wars of the last decade quite easily.
And your comment makes even less sense if you mean "bleed" in the literal sense. We've had roughly 6000 soldiers die in Iraq and Afghanistan in a decade.
Sad for the families of those killed, but hardly a blip on the screen for a country that lost over 350,000 killed on the roads in the same period.
Which is not to say that either war was necessarily a good idea to get into or that either was handled effectively.
Not well.
Well said
The problem is that the country is not divided geographically, it's divided ideologically.
Even in the most conservative states of the South, "the other side" always gets 30% of the vote and usually 40%+.
A 30% to 40% plus violently opposed minority is not a recipe for peaceful secession, even assuming those controlling the rest of the country would allow it.
True. The way to end endless war is to put a tax on it and to staff the military with draftees. Professional military do not have the incentive to end wars like draftees do. Imagine 10 years of continuous fighting pitting the world's greatest force against a bunch without a world class military anything. Compare that with length of WW II using draftees who were told they wouldn't come home until it was all over. Foes were both world class military powers. And taxes would require us to pay for it.
I think we're starting to see the first signs of a permanent geographical division based not only economic, but also ideological reasons. A great example is the exodus of California's citizens to other, more conservative states such as Texas.
And conscript a portion of the two million in American prisons.
The scammers are destroying Social Security for the elderly, for the young still paying in, and for those Americans who are truly disabled. Some inner city areas are waaaaaaaay above one in nineteen - closer to half...
There was a time we could afford it, but now we can't. But more than that, there's the feeling that if you play by the rules you're a chump, because so many are ginning the system. And that's where society's break down. It's like working for a boss who steals from the company - employees quit caring... some start stealing too. Things spiral down - it's happening to our country now.
I'm glad that you saw the distinction. You would be surprised how many people think that I'm referring to myself. I'm as flawed as anybody else.
Great points. I for one, believe Social Security payments to the elderly (except for defense in time of war) who’ve paid into the program should be the last to loose their checks in the case of a government default. Critical government and bondholders next based on criteria.
It's a great way to turn draftees into professionals real fast. I see your point.
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