Posted on 01/02/2009 10:42:20 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Most of us find plenty to dislike and complain of in the world we inhabit (which is just as well for us columnists, who find it hard to fashion 1,200 words about unmitigated good news).
But it is possible that the biggest and most difficult changes since the 1940s are now afoot. Since September 11, 2001, the West has had a feeling of living on borrowed time. In the course of 2008, it became clear that we could no longer live on so much borrowed money.
It does not follow that the resources of our civilisation are exhausted. Indeed, the chief reason that voters decided that Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States is that they decided to tick the box marked "hope", rather than the one marked "fear". But it does seem certain that the political, economic and cultural assumptions of the West will now be contested.
As this happens, the way we look at the last 60 years will change. When I was a boy in the 1960s, we grew up with an idea that the world before 1914 had been one of good order, progress and British cultural confidence. The word "Victorian" was not an unqualified positive – it stood, among other things, for sternness, prudery and imperialism – but it was inextricably linked with success and security.
I suggest that, for our grandchildren, the period from 1945 to 2008, and, more particularly, that of recovering prosperity from 1979 to 2008, will seem similarly blessed.
It is hard to imagine how important a freedom is if one is brought up to expect it.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
That’s right. His campaign signs may have said “hope”, but he was selling class envy all the way.
It sure is a *Different World*
The days of your Aunt with the Big Red Hairdo smoking Tareyton Cigs coming over with Uncle and cousins, for Sunday Dinners, talking for hours with your folks at the Dining Room table, while the Kids were getting up switching the 13 channel TV while playing checkers or records are long gone....
Seems to me that our society has pushed very hard in a Liberal direction:
We must be tolerant of everyone -- and if they are intolerant of us, that is the price we must pay.
We must make sure no one suffers -- and if this causes us to suffer, then so be it.
We must not oppress anyone -- and we achieve this goal only by oppressing ourselves, it is worth it.
Better that 100 guilty men go free, than that 1 innocent man be punished.
Personally, I would rather live in a world where my society and my government looked out for my interests, or allowed me to look out for myself.We've spent too long trying to make the world better for the bad guys.
Good article. Sums up my feelings fairly well (except for the Obama hope bit).
“The days of your Aunt with the Big Red Hairdo smoking Tareyton Cigs coming over with Uncle and cousins, for Sunday Dinners, talking for hours with your folks at the Dining Room table, while the Kids were getting up switching the 13 channel TV while playing checkers or records are long gone..”
Excellent paragraph. You have got to be a writer.
Was it yesterday that someone posted a story here about some paramedics deciding, based on the condition of their house, that a patient wasn’t worth saving? I thought then that what’s really amazing is how gradual the downfall of the West has been and continues to be. If a Hitler had stood up and blamed all our problems on some ethnic group, every pulpit in America would have spoken against him. Instead we are dragged down so slowly, with freedoms and philosophies gradually chipped away, that we barely notice.
And now – metaphorically and literally – we may be losing it. ...”
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The generations that have lived through the last years of this period will soon die out. Then who will tell them of the truth of it/
It falls to the writers of History mostly. How accurate will they be to the truth? Will they skew it? No doubt.
One thing he doesn’t talk about is the media negelecting to state that their country is being given to the muslims.
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Thanks 2ndDivisionVet. "Long Term Perspectives" topic. |
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:) No just spend time once in awhile thinking about my Childhood days and remembering that living simple truly equaled being happy....
Having your family near-by
Knowing your neighbors..(More than a hello as you walk in your house)
Being able to wash your car on the grass without being labled a dirtbag or being fined by the homoeowners association
Seeing kids playing in front yards having a good ol water balloon fight or teasing each other and laughing about it..
(My brother’s name was *Big Ears* and mine was *Bucky 500*)
we never needed therapy later on in life...
Going to the Moose Hall friday nights with my family for fish dinners and watching my mom dance with my dad to *Louie Louie* just good ol’ fashon family fun is gone..
We might live longer today, but we don’t live happier...
Suppose the real Christ appears to replace the false one, who is a puppet of the antichrist.
......sternness, prudery and imperialism – but it was inextricably linked with success and security. ......
These are the very societal traits Hussein opposes. He and his ilk from the feral urban ghettos to the glitz of Rodeo Drive, the clamor is for destruction of the Victorian rule.
conservatives never saw fit to fight. Now they will pay. Conservatives will wittness the total destruction of all that is good.
But it is possible that the biggest and most difficult changes since the 1940s are now afoot. Since September 11, 2001, the West has had a feeling of living on borrowed time.
This clown just doesn’t want to “get it.”
Borrowed money was never the problem; it was dishonestly borrowed money.
People didn’t check the “hope” box; they checked the “pleasing lie” box, and that is what we’ll get for his whole term. If he thinks ‘79 to the present was blessed, he has no idea what a blessing is. It was a period of expansion of the corruption and blissful ignorance of the 60s. Ain’t it great to be a mushroom?
Who appointed this guy Spokesman of the West?
This is almost right. Victorian sterness and prudery (for the working and middle classes only, lest anyone forget- the British upper class in the privacy of their country estates and Belgravian townhouses were exempted) was the result of creating a bureaucratic class to run the farflung outposts of the British empire. It had to do with ensuring reliable adherence to "the rules" among those who were trusted with the administration of the petty affairs of empire. Grand affairs military and civil remained in the hands of the British upper class where a different "code" reigned.
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