Posted on 05/28/2007 7:26:28 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
The suicide-murders and roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan sicken Americans. Soon-to-be nuclear Iran seems loonier than nuclear North Korea. American debt keeps piling up in China and Japan. And we think of angry Venezuela, the Middle East and Russia every time we fill up -- if we can afford to fill up.
Then listen to Al Gore on global warming. Or hear Jimmy Carter on the current president. The common denominator is American "decline."
Books by liberals assure us that our "empire" is kaput. Brace for the inevitable fate of Rome. Conservatives are just as glum. For them, we are also Romans -- but the more decadent variety, eaten away from the inside.
In response, many bored Americans turn instead to the la-la land of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Yet American Cassandras are old stuff. Grim Charles Lindberg in the late 1930s lectured a Depression-era America that Hitler's new order in Germany could only be appeased, never opposed.
After World War II, it wasn't long before the Soviet Union ended our short-lived status as sole nuclear superpower. And when Eastern Europe and China were lost to communism, it was proof, for many, that democratic capitalism was passé. "We will bury you," Nikita Khrushchev promised us.
After the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991, America proclaimed itself at the "end of history" -- meaning that the spread of our style of democratic capitalism was now inevitable. Now a mere 16 years later, some are just as sure we approach our own end.
But our rivals are weaker and America is far stronger than many think.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
And republican voters roll their eyes and drool with their tongues hanging out.. electing obvious RINOS, sneaky RINOS, and stealth RINOs.. and the WHite RINO House lobbys for even more proto democrat insurgents coming across the border like a Donkey Rodeo.. in a stampede..
America is unstoppable.
Hanson makes the case well.
Actually, I don't think that's the case he's making.
America is very stoppable, if we stop doing the things that make us what we are.
Don't stop questioning. Don't assume we've got it knocked. Don't assume that all of the conventional wisdom is really so wise. Spit in the face of the next person who tells you that global warming is dooming the planet and we're to blame, who says George Bush planned 9/11 or who says that we must tolerate millions of invaders in our country because we "need cheap labor."
There's a better way and if government and the elites will just get out of the way someone here will find it.
It's the power of a free people that is unstoppable. So long as we remain free we can accomplish anything.
Just don't believe those who say we're doomed.
Our genius is surfing chaos.
Dude, surf's up!
That's a stretch. During WWII and the Cold War, sure. By comparison, our current and would-be adversaries are midgets.
That may well be true, but I’m not sure how relevant it is. I think most of our self-criticism just ends up serving the goals of the liberal left. What matters most is not our ability to analyze and critize ourselves, but our ability to do what needs to be done — to change what needs to be changed, and to preserve what must be preserved. By that standard, American politics has been largely a failure. I don’t see much hope at this time.
I read another article
BAGHDAD - The United States and Iran broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security.
I strongly recommend the book “Anti-Americanism” by Jean-Francois Revel. It dissects and exposes European anti-Americanism from a European point of view. Revel says this obsessive anti-Americanism is based on - as a reviewer observes - “a willful disregard of the most obvious facts.”
I agree, European anti-Americanism is largely idiotic. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things badly wrong with this country, not all of them the liberals’ fault. I also think America’s best days are behind her, thanks mainly but only to the liberals, and that patriotic Americans have little to look forward to. Great nations can die, and I think that’s probably what’s happening to us.
Oops, I meant “not only to the liberals.”
Yeah, just find an alternative energy source, and who cares if they have nukes!
Different playing field, though. We were able to fight WWII and Cold War on our strength of industrial growth. This is an entirely different struggle, having directly to do with our national character--which is not as strong as in the past.
You’re exactly right about the casual attitude that develops into—or comes from—”Being rich is my birthright as an American; I don’t need to know anything or produce anything.” But the problems start before college.
How often do you see conservatives put their money into free materials for the classrooms? Walk the halls of a public school in America, and you’ll see nature posters by Greenpeace, etc. Even when they don’t have an overt political message, they prime the students for certain things that are promoted in the teacher materials.
Rather than just publishing more papers, I’d like to see conservative organizations getting out to the schools with a package of non-partisan info on the Constitution. Or economics. Or balanced science. Or...
I thought that was against the rules here. < /sarc>
Or grammar! >blush< (I'd actually meant to reword that sentence.)
You are correct. I think the States are quicly becoming a divided society between those with public education and those with private (including homeschool) education. The latter group is distinctly better educated than the former.
quicly = quickly
I saw it just as I clicked Post.
This is one of the reasons I am so much against blocking out opposing views. If we hold our convictions with strength, then why would we be afraid of an opposing view; if we lack conviction, why do we hold those views?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.