Posted on 05/18/2012 4:42:32 PM PDT by jazusamo
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Now that census data show for the first time in American history the number of white babies born exceeded by the number of babies born to non-white minorities the question is: What does this mean for the future of American society? Politically, it means that minorities who traditionally vote overwhelmingly for Democrats can ensure that the country veers ever further to the left over the years, making America more like the welfare states of Europe, whose unsustainable spending led ultimately to finical crises and widespread riots. But this is not strictly a matter of whites versus non-whites. Jews vote consistently, and almost as overwhelmingly, for Democrats as blacks do. Moreover, Asian Americans are by no means as likely as other non-whites to vote for the class warfare, tax and spend agenda of the Democrats. Yet when all is said and done, the future political direction of the country seems painfully clear for these demographic trends, unless something happens to change the current correlation between race and political party affiliation. Moreover, even that may not be enough. Even if Republicans can siphon off enough votes from groups that normally vote for Democrats to keep the two-party system alive, the preservation of the Republican Party is a trivial issue compared to the preservation of American society. If Republican politicians save themselves by becoming Democrats under a different label and appeal to minorities as minorities, rather than as Americans the same policies and attitudes will have the same destructive effect on the American economy and society. Refusing to cut back on entitlement spending, for example, means that the current generation can continue to enjoy government-subsidized amenities, at the expense of future generations who can be left to struggle to get necessities, after the money runs out and government's promises can no longer be kept. The growth of ever bigger and even more intrusive government means that the freedom, for which generations of Americans have fought and died on battlefields, around the world can be slowly but steadily lost within our own country. Painful as such outcomes can be the dangers do not end there. A continuation of the current political tendency to take away the money required for national defense, and spend it instead on handouts that will win votes, means that our enemies around the world will have golden opportunities at our expense. Again, the dangers may not be immediate. But they can be catastrophic when they catch up with us and catch us unprepared. We recovered from Pearl Harbor at enormous cost, including the needless deaths of American soldiers, fighting for their lives with obsolete military equipment against enemies with state of the art weapons. But even such sacrifices which brought us time to catch up during the Second World War, may not even be enough in a nuclear age. What can be done now, to head off the many dangers in our current political policies and attitudes? There is not much we can do about demographic trends. But the changing composition of the American population is not, in itself, the fundamental danger. After all, vast millions of immigrants crossed the Atlantic for generations on end, and began the process of becoming Americans. Millions of black people likewise began that process after being set free. Demography is not destiny. But the history of Balkanized and polarized societies in the 20th century is a history of horrors that we dare not ignore. We are not at that terrible point yet. But that is the direction in which we are headed, under the spell of magic words like "multiculturalism" and "diversity," which have become substitutes for thoughts, even among those who pride themselves on being "thinking people." Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is permeated with ideologies of group grievances and resentments, painting each group into the corner of its own separate subculture, instead of drawing them into the mainstream of the American culture that made this the greatest nation on earth. Unless the fashionable Balkanization is stopped, demography can become destiny and a tragedy for all. |
Brilliant man with common sense.
When Doctor Sowell writes, I read. Thanks for the ping. A man of wisdom is a precious thing, at least for the time being.
“Refusing to cut back on entitlement spending, for example, means that the current generation can continue to enjoy government-subsidized amenities, at the expense of future generations who can be left to struggle to get necessities, after the money runs out and government’s promises can no longer be kept.”
Well said, Dr.Sowell. However, Boehner and McConnell and their fellow noodle-spined buddies don’t seem to be willing to do anything about that. Instead, its “let the good times roll and let the congress critters in office when it all comes crashing down worry about that.”
Commies on the one hand, shameless wimps on the other.
May the Lord help us.
When you use that system you will ultimately need 50%+1 vote to win elections. That necessarily forces the losers into coalitions that may well yield up the 50%+1 vote for their benefit.
The consequence for America is that our elections tend to be close calls ~ with the only landslides at the Congressional level occuring near the most recent redistricting.
It really doesn't matter what the ethnic make up of the population is, by hook or crook, neighborhood by neighborhood, income level by income level, educational attainment, or marital status ~ the American people inside any particular form of single-member district will end up creating TWO poles of political coalition.
We call those poles Democrats and Republicans today and we've had different names for them in the past.
Dr. Sowell errs in thinking this is a zero sum game with a majority that will always simply vote for more goodies.
Actually, what happens is SOMEONE in that majority gets the idea they aren't getting all they deserve, and their faction will simply gravitate to the other pole ~ and they may win. Or, they may lose.
Look at gun laws. For a while the Leftwingtards had common agreement in both parties to control guns lest somebody (usually themselves) get shot! So, the NRA and other gun users and supporters gravitated to the Republican pole. Voila, they won elections and now gun control ideas are seen as out of fashion and possibly symptomatic of severe mental illness. Their proponents seem totally dazzled by the idea they were totally hornswaggled out of their dominance.
Let's say we are dealing with just "who gets the goodies". Currently the Democrats are top dog on the snatch and grab circuit, but what if the advantage was to the implementation of a totally new energy device that you could stuff with dirt and let run for 20 years without tending ~ it would power everything.
The one drawback would be the minute production of beta-particles which might get loose (in an accident) and kill everybody and burn down your house.
Obviously the Democrats would oppose such a marvelous new device. I am sure that if blacks and hispanics knew that the only way they could have these machines installed in their homes would be to vote for Republicans, they would do so in overwhelming numbers.
The Democrats would end up standing around with that crazed look they now have over the gun control question!
Please visit this thread and read my Post #40 which includes an excerpt from a Centennial Thanksgiving message delivered by another great Black thinker, minister, historian and defender of America's founding ideas.
At the point when that message was delivered, the beginnings of the so-called "progressive" liberal effort to "transform" America from its foundations in liberty had begun, and Rev. Arnett, the writer, outlines what he calls "The Dangers to our Nation."
Those "dangers" we have seen played out in recent decades and in full bloom at the present time.
“Dr. Sowell errs in thinking this is a zero sum game with a majority that will always simply vote for more goodies.”
He may be wrong. But it appears to me he is correct. For 75 years the country has become less free, with more people sucking off the government teat, fewer people paying the cost of government, coupled with mass immigration of people who, as Sowell points out, are attracted to “free” government services. It’s not a promising trajectory.
That misbegotten GOP-e tax system gave the politicians all the money they needed to take everything away from everybody.
It's time to rescind the 16th amendment.
More Americans are putting their children in private schools and even homeschooling. Will that help matters?
“It’s time to rescind the 16th amendment.”
I agree.
1913 was not a good year.
I would be all for repealing the 17th also.
Ping; this deserves a CWII ping.
Sowell sees where things are heading quite clearly. Either we start teaching people to be Americans again, which doesn’t depend on skin color or other ethnicity, or we very much run the risk of much future ugliness.
When we can no longer afford such payments, and every welfare mom suddenly has to support her own children from what she herself can earn -- what happens to minority birthrate then?
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