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The Death of the American Idea
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| The17sss |
... pretty much sums it up for me:
The Death of the American Idea
An electorate living high off the entitlement hog.
By Mark Steyn
Give me liberty or give me death! Live free or die!
What's that? Oh, don't mind me. I'm just trying out slogans for the 2012 campaign and seeing which one would get the biggest laughs.
My Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a center-right country. Americans didn't vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a Dancing With The Stars election: Obama's a star and everyone wants to dance with him. It doesn't mean they're suddenly gung-ho for left-wingery.
Up to a point. Unlike those excitable countries where the peasants overrun the presidential palace, settled democratic societies rarely vote to go left. Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone. In its assumptions about the size of the state and the role of government, almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter. Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today. The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph: It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up. Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House. The government just grows and grows, remorselessly. Every two years, the voters walk out of their town halls and school gyms and tell the exit pollsters that three-quarters of them are moderates or conservatives (ie, the center and the right) and barely 20 per cent are liberals. And then, regardless of how the vote went, big government just resumes its inexorable growth.
The greatest dangers to liberty, wrote Justice Brandeis, lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Now who does that remind you of?
Ha! Trick question! Never mind Obama, it's John McCain. He encroached on our liberties with the constitutional abomination of McCain-Feingold. Well-meaning but without understanding, he proposed that the federal government buy up all these junk mortgages so that people would be able to stay in "their" homes. And this is the center-right candidate? It's hard for Republicans to hammer Obama as a socialist when their own party's nationalizing the banks and its presidential nominee is denouncing the private sector for putting profits before patriotism. That's why Joe the Plumber struck a chord: he briefly turned a one-and-a-half party election back into a two-party choice again.
If you went back to the end of the 19th century and suggested to, say, William McKinley that one day Americans would find themselves choosing between a candidate promising to guarantee your mortgage and a candidate promising to give tax cuts to millions of people who pay no taxes he would scoff at you for concocting some patently absurd H G Wells dystopian fantasy. Yet it happened. Slowly, remorselessly, government metastasized to the point where it now seems entirely normal for Peggy Joseph of Sarasota, Florida to vote for Obama because "I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage."
While few electorates consciously choose to leap left, a couple more steps every election and eventually societies reach a tipping point. In much of the west, it's government health care. It changes the relationship between state and citizen into something closer to pusher and junkie. Henceforth, elections are fought over which party is proposing the shiniest government bauble: If you think President-elect Obama's promise of federally subsidized day care was a relatively peripheral part of his platform, in Canada in the election before last it was the dominant issue. Yet America may be approaching its tipping point even more directly. In political terms, the message of the gazillion-dollar bipartisan bailout was a simple one: Individual responsibility and self-reliance are for chumps. If Goldman Sachs and AIG and Bear Stearns are getting government checks to stay in their homes (and boardrooms, and luxury corporate retreats), why shouldn't Peggy Joseph?
I don't need Barack Obama's help to spread the wealth around. I spread my wealth around every time I hire somebody, expand my business, or just go to the general store and buy a quart of milk and loaf of bread. As far as I know, only one bloated plutocrat declines to spread his wealth around, and that's Scrooge McDuck, whose principal activity in Disney cartoons was getting into his little bulldozer and plowing back and forth over a mountain of warehoused gold and silver coins. Don't know where he is these days. On the board at Halliburton, no doubt. But most of the beleaguered band of American capitalists do not warehouse their wealth in McDuck fashion. It's not a choice between hoarding and spreading, but a choice between who spreads it best: an individual free to make his own decisions about investment and spending, or Barney Frank. I don't find that a difficult question to answer. More to the point, put Barney & Co in charge of the spreading, and there'll be a lot less to spread.
I disagree with my fellow conservatives who think the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Frank liberal behemoth will so obviously screw up that they'll be routed in two or four years' time. The President-elect's so-called tax cut will absolve 48 per cent of Americans from paying any federal income tax at all, while those that are left will pay more. Just under half the population will be, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, on the dole. By 2012, it will be more than half, and this will be an electorate where the majority of the electorate will be able to vote itself more lollipops from the minority of their compatriots still dumb enough to prioritize self-reliance, dynamism, and innovation over the sedating cocoon of the nanny state. That is the death of the American idea, which, after all, began as an economic argument: "No taxation without representation" is a great rallying cry. No representation without taxation has less mass appeal. For how do you tell an electorate living high off the entitlement hog that it's unsustainable and you've got to give some of it back?
At that point, America might as well apply for honorary membership in the European Union. It will be a nation at odds with the spirit of its founding, and embarking on decline from which there are few escape routes. In 2012, the least we deserve is a choice between the collectivist assumptions of the Democrats, and a candidate who stands for individual liberty... for economic dynamism not the sclerotic "managed capitalism" of Germany; for the First Amendment, not Canadian-style government regulation of approved opinion; for self-reliance and the Second Amendment, not the security state in which Britons are second only to North Koreans in the number of times they're photographed by government cameras in the course of going about their daily business. In Forbes this week, Claudia Rosett issued a stirring defense of individual liberty. That it should require a stirring defense at all is a melancholy reflection on this election season. Live free — or die from a thousand beguiling caresses of nanny-state sirens.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?...zc4Y2FjNzI4MjA= |
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| mndeg |
| has privatized health care worked anywhere in the world? |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
well meaning but without understanding. |
I think this guy describes himself pretty well. There are no bigger dunces in politics than the supposedly "freedom-loving" conservatives, who have stood by their republican leaders despite more than a quarter century of the republicans ting on small government and ting on individual liberty at very nearly every opportunity.
When I hear someone describing themselves as a "conservative" tell me they support freedom, I immediately know that they are one of two things: a fool, or a liar. Mark Steyn here is probably the former; you could call him "well meaning but without understanding."
If there was any question before Dubya -- and I don't think there was -- that the vast majority of "conservatives" entirely disagreed with the idea "live free or die," there certainly isn't any longer. In case Mr. Steyn forgot, after all, we just spent the last seven years eroding civil liberties while expanding government at an unprecedented pace. Why? Oh yes, because the cowards among us were afraid that the terrorist boogeyman might kill a few Americans. In 2004 -- after the first three years of this systematic attack on freedom -- I didn't hear many clarion calls from Mr. Steyn's conservative buddies to bring back "live free or die." Quite the contrary: they overwhelmingly called for an encore. And they got exactly what they asked for: more big government, more erosion of freedom. Enter John McCain, in 2008, promising to continue the same erosion of freedom, and proposing programs that would undoubtedly continue the rapid expansion of government. "Conservatives" enthusiastically supported him. Freedom-loving? I think not.
And that brings us back to the topic of "well meaning but without understanding" . . . .
Mr. Steyn has a lot of good ideas; but if he thinks conservatism remotely represents those ideas, he's been living in a dream world for a long, long time. And if he -- and people who think like him -- don't wake up from that dream, they will continue to be the pawns of the enemies of freedom; and they will continue to be the kind of people who support "live free or die" with their mouths, but who vote "i don't care about freedom; protect me big government" with their ballots; and who preach "individual responsibility" with their mouths, but support big spending government officials who couldn't balance the budget if their life depended on it with their ballots.
For that matter, well meaning though he may be, it appears he does not understand the issues that he bases his opinions on. The "wealth-spreading" straw man is a good example: I don't agree with all aspects Obama's tax plan (raising capital gains taxes is a particularly bad idea); even so, tweaking tax rates a few percentage points is hardly cataclysmic. What would have been cataclysmic, on the other hand, is what Mr. Steyn appears to think we ought to have done about the economic crisis, which is, apparently, nothing. That would have more or less been rolling out the red carpet for Great Depression v 2.0, and Mr. Steyn might want to take a look at a history textbook and see what the likely political consequences of that would have been, then consider whether they comport with this philosophy.
The Democrats are hardly an ideal substitute, and there is indeed good reason to expect that they will continue the expansion of government, but for anyone who genuinely supports freedom the Republicans -- populists masquerading as conservatives -- are simply not an option; at least, not for those with understanding. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
I think this guy describes himself pretty well. There are no bigger dunces in politics than the supposedly "freedom-loving" conservatives, who have stood by their republican leaders despite more than a quarter century of the republicans ting on small government and ting on individual liberty at very nearly every opportunity.
When I hear someone describing themselves as a "conservative" tell me they support freedom, I immediately know that they are one of two things: a fool, or a liar. Mark Steyn here is probably the former; you could call him "well meaning but without understanding."
If there was any question before Dubya -- and I don't think there was -- that the vast majority of "conservatives" entirely disagreed with the idea "live free or die," there certainly isn't any longer. In case Mr. Steyn forgot, after all, we just spent the last seven years eroding civil liberties while expanding government at an unprecedented pace. Why? Oh yes, because the cowards among us were afraid that the terrorist boogeyman might kill a few Americans. In 2004 -- after the first three years of this systematic attack on freedom -- I didn't hear many clarion calls from Mr. Steyn's conservative buddies to bring back "live free or die." Quite the contrary: they overwhelmingly called for an encore. And they got exactly what they asked for: more big government, more erosion of freedom. Enter John McCain, in 2008, promising to continue the same erosion of freedom, and proposing programs that would undoubtedly continue the rapid expansion of government. "Conservatives" enthusiastically supported him. Freedom-loving? I think not.
And that brings us back to the topic of "well meaning but without understanding" . . . .
Mr. Steyn has a lot of good ideas; but if he thinks conservatism remotely represents those ideas, he's been living in a dream world for a long, long time. And if he -- and people who think like him -- don't wake up from that dream, they will continue to be the pawns of the enemies of freedom; and they will continue to be the kind of people who support "live free or die" with their mouths, but who vote "i don't care about freedom; protect me big government" with their ballots; and who preach "individual responsibility" with their mouths, but support big spending government officials who couldn't balance the budget if their life depended on it with their ballots.
For that matter, well meaning though he may be, it appears he does not understand the issues that he bases his opinions on. The "wealth-spreading" straw man is a good example: I don't agree with all aspects Obama's tax plan (raising capital gains taxes is a particularly bad idea); even so, tweaking tax rates a few percentage points is hardly cataclysmic. What would have been cataclysmic, on the other hand, is what Mr. Steyn appears to think we ought to have done about the economic crisis, which is, apparently, nothing. That would have more or less been rolling out the red carpet for Great Depression v 2.0, and Mr. Steyn might want to take a look at a history textbook and see what the likely political consequences of that would have been, then consider whether they comport with this philosophy.
The Democrats are hardly an ideal substitute, and there is indeed good reason to expect that they will continue the expansion of government, but for anyone who genuinely supports freedom the Republicans -- populists masquerading as conservatives -- are simply not an option; at least, not for those with understanding. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
I think this guy describes himself pretty well. There are no bigger dunces in politics than the supposedly "freedom-loving" conservatives, who have stood by their republican leaders despite more than a quarter century of the republicans ting on small government and ting on individual liberty at very nearly every opportunity.
When I hear someone describing themselves as a "conservative" tell me they support freedom, I immediately know that they are one of two things: a fool, or a liar. Mark Steyn here is probably the former; you could call him "well meaning but without understanding."
If there was any question before Dubya -- and I don't think there was -- that the vast majority of "conservatives" entirely disagreed with the idea "live free or die," there certainly isn't any longer. In case Mr. Steyn forgot, after all, we just spent the last seven years eroding civil liberties while expanding government at an unprecedented pace. Why? Oh yes, because the cowards among us were afraid that the terrorist boogeyman might kill a few Americans. In 2004 -- after the first three years of this systematic attack on freedom -- I didn't hear many clarion calls from Mr. Steyn's conservative buddies to bring back "live free or die." Quite the contrary: they overwhelmingly called for an encore. And they got exactly what they asked for: more big government, more erosion of freedom. Enter John McCain, in 2008, promising to continue the same erosion of freedom, and proposing programs that would undoubtedly continue the rapid expansion of government. "Conservatives" enthusiastically supported him. Freedom-loving? I think not.
And that brings us back to the topic of "well meaning but without understanding" . . . .
Mr. Steyn has a lot of good ideas; but if he thinks conservatism remotely represents those ideas, he's been living in a dream world for a long, long time. And if he -- and people who think like him -- don't wake up from that dream, they will continue to be the pawns of the enemies of freedom; and they will continue to be the kind of people who support "live free or die" with their mouths, but who vote "i don't care about freedom; protect me big government" with their ballots; and who preach "individual responsibility" with their mouths, but support big spending government officials who couldn't balance the budget if their life depended on it with their ballots.
For that matter, well meaning though he may be, it appears he does not understand the issues that he bases his opinions on. The "wealth-spreading" straw man is a good example: I don't agree with all aspects Obama's tax plan (raising capital gains taxes is a particularly bad idea); even so, tweaking tax rates a few percentage points is hardly cataclysmic. What would have been cataclysmic, on the other hand, is what Mr. Steyn appears to think we ought to have done about the economic crisis, which is, apparently, nothing. That would have more or less been rolling out the red carpet for Great Depression v 2.0, and Mr. Steyn might want to take a look at a history textbook and see what the likely political consequences of that would have been, then consider whether they comport with this philosophy.
The Democrats are hardly an ideal substitute, and there is indeed good reason to expect that they will continue the expansion of government, but for anyone who genuinely supports freedom the Republicans -- populists masquerading as conservatives -- are simply not an option; at least, not for those with understanding. |
Very well said. +1 |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
Enter John McCain, in 2008, promising to continue the same erosion of freedom, and proposing programs that would undoubtedly continue the rapid expansion of government. "Conservatives" enthusiastically supported him. Freedom-loving? I think not.
The Democrats are hardly an ideal substitute, and there is indeed good reason to expect that they will continue the expansion of government, but for anyone who genuinely supports freedom the Republicans -- populists masquerading as conservatives -- are simply not an option; at least, not for those with understanding. |
Damn man, you put out some well thought, well written points of view. Nice work. I totally agree with you about Dubya, but you're not really correct about McCain supporters. True conservatives were as far away from being enthusiastic towards him as you can imagine. It wasn't until Palin came aboard did the conservatives start to rally. It was only those masquerading as conservatives and RINO's/moderates that pushed for him to be the nominee, thinking that electing someone attractive to the other side of the aisle was the way to win. It proved wrong as expected (by true conservatives), being that the independants and moderates broke for Obama. You can see it in the exit polls... a lot of people on the republican side (solid conservatives) stayed home because they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain.
It's easier to vote FOR something than AGAINST something, and more people believed in Obama's message and voted for him, while those (like myself) who were voting for McCain for the sole purpose of him being the lesser of 2 evils didn't have enough turnout to impact anything. He was far from inspiring. Conservatism in and of itelf DOES represent the ideas that Steyn talked about, but they were not and have not been implemented in a while, which is the problem for the GOP who is supposed to be the party that represents those people. |
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| Groundhog Boy |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
Damn man, you put out some well thought, well written points of view. Nice work. I totally agree with you about Dubya, but you're not really correct about McCain supporters. True conservatives were as far away from being enthusiastic towards him as you can imagine. It wasn't until Palin came aboard did the conservatives start to rally. It was only those masquerading as conservatives and RINO's/moderates that pushed for him to be the nominee, thinking that electing someone attractive to the other side of the aisle was the way to win. It proved wrong as expected (by true conservatives), being that the independants and moderates broke for Obama. You can see it in the exit polls... a lot of people on the republican side (solid conservatives) stayed home because they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for McCain.
It's easier to vote FOR something than AGAINST something, and more people believed in Obama's message and voted for him, while those (like myself) who were voting for McCain for the sole purpose of him being the lesser of 2 evils didn't have enough turnout to impact anything. He was far from inspiring. Conservatism in and of itelf DOES represent the ideas that Steyn talked about, but they were not and have not been implemented in a while, which is the problem for the GOP who is supposed to be the party that represents those people. |
The fact that you're matching Palin with true conservatism just proves Arbiter's point.
Secondly, it's not easier to vote for something that against something. A big part of this election, and why you lost with centrist independents has to do with voting against Bush, whose policies McCain promised to continue. |
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| Capitalizt |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh4
Very well said. +1 |
Arbiter did indeed nail it. "Conservatives" today are not conservatives. They are radicals. They lost because they did not offer a vision of limited government and more personal freedom and personal responsibility. They offered "democrat-lite" on economic policy, heavy authoritarianism on social policy, and radical "we gotta reshape the world with force" neoconservatism on foreign policy.
The classic idea of non-interventionist conservatism is dead within the republican party. Once they revive that wing, they might have a chance. Until then they deserve to keep losing. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
The fact that you're matching Palin with true conservatism just proves Arbiter's point. |
Here you go again, trying to instruct a conservative on conservative perspectives. It's like in Cosmopolitan Magazine how they have women telling other women how to satisfy a man... why don't they ask the men to get the truth? Anyway, I'm not matching Palin with "true" conservatism, I'm saying she represents that ideal a lot more than McCain does, and that's what it took for actual conservatives to get on board with McCain. |
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| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by Capitalizt
Arbiter did indeed nail it. "Conservatives" today are not conservatives. They are radicals. They lost because they did not offer a vision of limited government and more personal freedom and personal responsibility. They offered "democrat-lite" on economic policy, heavy authoritarianism on social policy, and radical "we gotta reshape the world with force" neoconservatism on foreign policy.
The classic idea of non-interventionist conservatism is dead within the republican party. Once they revive that wing, they might have a chance. Until then they deserve to keep losing. |
You are right when you say "conservatives" are not conservatives... putting it in quotations illustrates that there are "conservatives" and then there are actual conservatives. The ones that are radicals and took the route of excessive spending and government growth may still call themselves by that name, but they aren't, and they shouldn't be called conservatives any more than a whore in a Versace dress and Christian Louboutin shoes should be called anything other than a whore.
+1 to the Democrat-Lite comment... that was their downfall, and that is the garbage they tried to feed us. That is exactly why voter turnout for the republicans was low; some people just couldn't get with that bull. The GOP strategists tried to sell the people and the party that this was the way to go. Wrong. Regan had 2 landslides because he moved people to the right with his ideas... he didn't get their votes by pretending to be more like Democrats. McCain just doesn't get it. The republicans have a good farm team right now of young inspiring people like Jindal... we'll see what happens in 4 years. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by The17sss
almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter. Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today. |
this is the bit that really s me off- this insinuation that a government's ideological place on the left-right scale can be determined by spending. and that you can label a government 'left' if they spend a lot.
why do the partisan right hacks always sound just that little less educated than the partisan left ones?
australia and the US (for instance) have only recently chosen to oust two of the most right-wing governments in their recent memory. calling these parties 'left' is like labelling me a christian.
i stopped reading after that.
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
I think this guy describes himself pretty well. There are no bigger dunces in politics than the supposedly "freedom-loving" conservatives, who have stood by their republican leaders despite more than a quarter century of the republicans ting on small government and ting on individual liberty at very nearly every opportunity.
When I hear someone describing themselves as a "conservative" tell me they support freedom, I immediately know that they are one of two things: a fool, or a liar. Mark Steyn here is probably the former; you could call him "well meaning but without understanding."
If there was any question before Dubya -- and I don't think there was -- that the vast majority of "conservatives" entirely disagreed with the idea "live free or die," there certainly isn't any longer. In case Mr. Steyn forgot, after all, we just spent the last seven years eroding civil liberties while expanding government at an unprecedented pace. Why? Oh yes, because the cowards among us were afraid that the terrorist boogeyman might kill a few Americans. In 2004 -- after the first three years of this systematic attack on freedom -- I didn't hear many clarion calls from Mr. Steyn's conservative buddies to bring back "live free or die." Quite the contrary: they overwhelmingly called for an encore. And they got exactly what they asked for: more big government, more erosion of freedom. Enter John McCain, in 2008, promising to continue the same erosion of freedom, and proposing programs that would undoubtedly continue the rapid expansion of government. "Conservatives" enthusiastically supported him. Freedom-loving? I think not.
And that brings us back to the topic of "well meaning but without understanding" . . . .
Mr. Steyn has a lot of good ideas; but if he thinks conservatism remotely represents those ideas, he's been living in a dream world for a long, long time. And if he -- and people who think like him -- don't wake up from that dream, they will continue to be the pawns of the enemies of freedom; and they will continue to be the kind of people who support "live free or die" with their mouths, but who vote "i don't care about freedom; protect me big government" with their ballots; and who preach "individual responsibility" with their mouths, but support big spending government officials who couldn't balance the budget if their life depended on it with their ballots.
For that matter, well meaning though he may be, it appears he does not understand the issues that he bases his opinions on. The "wealth-spreading" straw man is a good example: I don't agree with all aspects Obama's tax plan (raising capital gains taxes is a particularly bad idea); even so, tweaking tax rates a few percentage points is hardly cataclysmic. What would have been cataclysmic, on the other hand, is what Mr. Steyn appears to think we ought to have done about the economic crisis, which is, apparently, nothing. That would have more or less been rolling out the red carpet for Great Depression v 2.0, and Mr. Steyn might want to take a look at a history textbook and see what the likely political consequences of that would have been, then consider whether they comport with this philosophy.
The Democrats are hardly an ideal substitute, and there is indeed good reason to expect that they will continue the expansion of government, but for anyone who genuinely supports freedom the Republicans -- populists masquerading as conservatives -- are simply not an option; at least, not for those with understanding. |
if arbiter were a chick, i'd her even if she was ugly. |
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| jerZ07002 |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
if arbiter were a chick, i'd her even if she was ugly. |
are you a homophobe? what's wrong with gay sex?
;) |
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