America has become an Old World country By Janet Daley9:00PM GMT 10 Nov 2012 So Europe got the American president it wanted â the one who would present no threat to its own delusions. The United States is now officially one of us: an Old World country complete with class hatred, ethnic Balkanisation, bourgeois guilt and a paternalist ruling elite. And it is locked into the same death spiral of high public spending and self-defeating wealth redistribution as we are. Welcome to the future, and the beginning of what may turn out to be the terminal decline of the West. There is a more historically significant, and possibly more permanent, development too. The United States has now acquired an electorally powerful liberal bourgeoisie who are convinced, as their European counterparts have been for several generations, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that public spending is inherently virtuous, that poverty can be cured by penalising wealth creation, and that government intervention can engineer social âfairnessâ.But it should run deeply against all the traditional American values of ferocious self-reliance and personal aspiration. The idea of âthe richâ as an unreachable and undeserving class apart is an Old World concept rooted in the landed, hereditary wealth of an established aristocracy. Back in its less sophisticated, less European, days, the United States had actually discovered the formula for extraordinary social vitality, and the miraculous ability to turn people who started with nothing into proud, self-determining citizens. It said to everyone who arrived: âThe state only exists to give you the chance to make your own way â to that end it will give you freedom under the rule of law, the right to live your life, to own property and to pursue happiness.â That was the deal. Perhaps it was inevitable that the country would outgrow that fervent, youthful self-belief and become just another declining society, retreating from the world stage as brash new global powers loomed into view. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor.../America-has-become-an-Old-World-country.html America joins the old world.
hmm I was thinking how this same concept applies to your cranium capacity and it's obvious implications.
The issue is that the country started down the slippery slope of convincing a once minority people that it was entitled to cradle-to-grave entitlements. Suddenly, that minority (or group of minorities) is now the majority. And the math just doesn't work anymore.
Maybe it won't work out but, as I said before, if a course correction is needed it will be a decision that EVERYONE has a say in, not merely a monied elite.
That's just nonsense. What you rail against is the inevitable result of the reaction to those who contribute nothing having an equal say in govt. Once parasite voters gain the majority , govt breaks down and ceases to function for all but the wealthy. Eventually a 2 tiered system develops 1) rules for the poor , middle class , upper middle class, comfortably wealthy. 2) The very rich playing by a different set of rules via lawyers , political connections , graft
One can never know the truth about the numbers thrown around but I've read that we borrow $3.20 for every $10.00 the government spends. That doesn't seem sustainable even for a short time. How long before our currency becomes Zimbabwean? They have a 100-trillion dollar bill that cannot buy a bus ticket in Harare.
Everyone will be rich. It' what Obama wants. <img src='http://morganpolotan.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/zimbabwe-inflation.png'>
What period in history is Ms Daley referring to? Certainly not either colonial days or the first hundred years of the Republic.