I was getting ready to lay out my doom and gloom analysis of the state of our union, when my husband, aghast that I sounded so negative, said I was starting to sound like Pat Buchanan.
He was referring to Mr. Buchanan’s column on Town Hall from Tuesday, Subprime Nation, or really any column, for that matter. Mr. Buchanan is not known for his wide-eyed optimism.
I just took a look at the column in question, and it is indeed grim. Worse than I thought, even.
But, I will continue on with the rant that my husband had the privilege of previewing last night.
For more than a decade, we, in this country, have been spoiled with material excess. The standard of living of even the poor among us is at it’s highest ever.
Yes, the gap between rich in poor is growing, and blah, blah, blah.
I am talking about how well each of is if faring compared to how others in our situation would have fared 15- or 20-years ago.
With the availability of cheap goods and affordable technologies, we are a nation wrought with excess materialism.
We spend beyond our means, buying houses and cars that are far above what we can reasonably afford.
Gone are the days when we struggle and save to fund a better future.
Instead, we borrow and spend to have that better life now, at the expense of our future.
Now that our spending has maxed out, and we are heading for a recession, people are starting to panic.
We are not ready for hard times. We don’t like hard times. Hard times are what people had to deal with during the depression – before the government started solving our problems.
Which beings me to my real concern.
We are a people who believe that government is there to solve our financial problems.
Gas prices are too high? Call your congressman.
Your company cut your benefits or laid you off? Call your senator.
For every economic complaint made these days, the response is, the government needs to do something.
There is one thing that the liberals of this country and I can agree on, small-government conservatism is no longer the majority.
People want their price controls and programs.
The problem is that people have forgotten what happens when the government tries to fix the marketplace.
My prediction is that the American people will continue to call for the government to fix our problems. We will end up with a Democrat in the White House. Liberal Democrats will control the Congress. And we will get the government solutions that everyone is clamoring for.
But things won’t get better. They will get worse.
Yet, will get through it, as we have before. We will re-learn how to handle hard times.
And, finally, we will remember why we don’t like government programs, and there will be a re-birth of small-government conservatism in America.
One can only hope.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I do not think that the Democrats will win the White House and I think there is a fair chance that Republicans will take at least one chamber of Congress if not both.
But I think you are correct that we have become an entitled nation who believes that a 5% unemployment rate is all of a sudden then end of the world. And I’m not sure that putting Republicans or conservatives in power will help that.
Having said that, we are a consumer-driven economy. I’m not sure what would happen if we became as frugal as our (my) grandparents. And we have become a nation that does not like discomfort.
But it is not the spectre of big-government I fear the most, though clearly that’s a concern. I fear that because of the above, we do not have the will to win against the Islamists. Or if we do, the next amoral enemy that comes along.
I fear that many think that war is just too disturbing and that we should all just get along.
I fear that our sense of entitlement and comfort has made us to weak to fight.
Clearly there are those within our nation who are tough and who can forego comfort to stand on the front line and keep us safe. And I have no doubt that we will always have enough people and technology to win.
What I fear is that the majority, though, can only stomach war so long as there are no setbacks and no real discomfort. I fear the lack of political will to fight the long war in which we are engaged.
Look at Europe. We can hardly get them to impose sanctions of Iran let alone supply enough troops to NATO to help fight in Afghanistan. And, back in the day, they had to ask us to intervene in Kosovo because they were too weak to fend off a threat on their own continent.
I worry that we are heading in their direction. And I worry even more that this may be a natural consequence of material and political success.
A victim of our own greatness.
And not just that, but I’m concerned that any country that becomes as materially and politically successful as us will suffer the same fate eventually. That when confronted with a ruthless, no-holds-barred enemy, the sophisticates will fold: lean, mean and hungry for power meets fat, dumb, and happy.
That’s what worries me.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I think even sober Republicans in Congress don’t believe that the GOP will increase it’s seats in Congress. I heard the GOP leader in the Senate a week or so ago say that they will still be in the “high 40s” in number in the Senate after this coming election. That’s not optimism. The unemployment numbers have always been overstated. I don’t think that they even take into account those that have given up looking for work.
I agree that most people spend more than they take in, which is bad, but why should they do otherwise when they see their federal govt. spend and borrow over and over again? I’m for pay-as-you-go fiscal responsibility. If it’s a good enough govt. program, it’s good enough to have a funding source that’s paid for IMO.
War is never popular in the long-run, which is only one of the reasons why it should only be a last resort. The War in Iraq was not a war of last resort, which is why it’s popularity has faded so “quickly”. We’ve fought wars against three, very large, military powers (and started out way, way behind) in WWI and it took less time than this. Winning the war against Al-Qaeda and their allies is totally doable, but only after we withdraw most of our troops from our folly in Iraq and re-focus our efforts where are enemies actually are.
We spoke to the Soviet Union for decades and decades when they had the power to destroy us many times over…we can negotiate with Iran and their allies. *We* haven’t supplied enough troops for Afganistan, and, in that case, why should the Europeans? We are the most powerful country on the planet…maybe that’s ever existed on the planet. Our military budget has dwarfed that our our potenial adversaries (and allies for that matter) by many, many times over for several decades now. The only people on the planet that can beat us right now is us.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Right on some stuff, incredibly wrong on others. And Frank, please give me some of what you’re smoking, bro. It’s silly enough that you think the GOP will get the WH, but win back a chamber? Your guys are less popular than dogshit right now, and the country’s finally awakening from its long slumber to realize how bad y’all have screwed it up. It’s going to be another bloodbath, and I don’t mean for the Dems.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Mister Guy
The unemployment numbers have always been overstated. I don’t think that they even take into account those that have given up looking for work.
Unemployment numbers are just a metric. It doesn’t matter if they accurately reflect the actual numbers so long as they are collected the same way each time. The fact remains that if 5% was considered a good economy during the Clinton years, then they should be good now as well.
If it’s a good enough govt. program, it’s good enough to have a funding source that’s paid for IMO.
I can’t agree with you more. And when it’s not it should be cut. And earmarks should have the full light of day.
I suspect, though, we might disagree on which programs are “good” government programs, but maybe not.
We’ve fought wars against three, very large, military powers (and started out way, way behind) in WWI and it took less time than this.
If you think WWI ended in 1918 then you are sorely mistaken. The lapse between WWI and WWII was just an intermission. That the Allies did not take the time to rebuild and reintegrate Germany and Russia into greater Europe was a prime factor in the motivation behind WWII
Besides, the US participation in WWI was minimal. We were only in the war from April of 1917 to November of 1918. And we were never a full-fledged member of the Allied Powers but instead a self-described “associate power”.
We spoke to the Soviet Union for decades and decades when they had the power to destroy us many times over…we can negotiate with Iran and their allies.
I think you need to brush up on your histor of the Cold War. If we were so regularly speaking to each other, what was the point of the “Hot Line”? Certainly our relationship went through hot and cold phases, but it was not talking that ended the cold war.
*We* haven’t supplied enough troops for Afganistan, and, in that case, why should the Europeans?
The supplies half the number of troops currently in Afghanistan: 15,000 troops or about 5 brigades. The next largest contingent are the British with about 7,700 troops. The remainders are made up of Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Spain but soldiers from Germany, France, Italy and Spain are not allowed to actually shoot anybody.
Secretary Gates has announced we will send a Marine MIU (about 3,400 troops) to Afghanistan.
The only people on the planet that can beat us right now is us.
Precisly my point. And it just seems to me we are determined to do just that.
JD Ryan
Your guys are less popular than dogshit right now, and the country’s finally awakening from its long slumber to realize how bad y’all have screwed it up.
They’re not “my guys” but have you checked the approval ratings for Congress lately? 24% approve 70% disapprove? This is worse than the President’s numbers and worse than Democrats won both chambers in 2006. It’s even worse than when the Republicans took over in 1994.
Just sayin’
January 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
“The fact remains that if 5% was considered a good economy during the Clinton years, then they should be good now as well.”
I agree, except for the little factoid that the unemployment rate was ~4% when Clinton left office…the lowest since the early 1970s…ooopps.
Our course WWI (and the unjust peace after it’s conclusion) lead directly to WWII. But, we were not fighting the same fundamental forces in each war IMO. WWII was against fascism and WWI came about because of secret alliances (I’m simplifying obviously). I don’t think Russia started WWII BTW…you can’t blame communism for everything.
If you think that our involvement in both WWI and WWII started when we actually declared war, you’re sadly mistaken…we had taken sides long before that.
It was “talking” that prevented the Cold War from going “hot”. I agree that we basically spent the Soviet Union into oblivion, but that sadly wasn’t the only way we could have won & it’s helped to put us deeply into debt as well. We’ll be paying off the mostly GOP-accumulated national debt for quite some time to come unfortunately.
I didn’t see anything in your response about Afganistan that said you thought we had supplied enough troops there yet. The Marines want to get out of Iraq and leave the whole thing to the Army cuz they realize where the real enemy of the USA lies and that Iraq is just a big waste of time at this point. To say that countires that have a much, much smaller military should be doing a whole lot more in Afganistan is slightly disingenuous. It’s our war…we were attacked on 9/11…not them. Every one of Canada’s army units have rotated thru Afganistan so far, and their military is miniscule compared to ours.
The Congressional approval numbers that I’ve seen over the years haven’t ever cracked 30% very often. You wonder why the re-election rate for Congress would have been in the high 90th percentile then? My understanding is also that the Democratic Congress is more popular now than the GOP Congress was before. Red herring…
January 20th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Mister Guy sez
I agree, except for the little factoid that the unemployment rate was ~4% when Clinton left
office…the lowest since the early 1970s…ooopps.
This is true. All I am saying is that unemployment rates between 4 and 6% have historically been
considered a good economy.
And on August 2, 1996, Paula Zahn reported on the CBS Evening News: “The government says the U.S.
unemployment rate rose slightly in July to 5.4 percent. The news was well received on Wall Street.
The stock market was up as fears of inflation went down.”
We haven’t had an unemployment rate as high as 5.4% since February of 2005.
The point of this; to bring it back to the discussion at hand; is simply that American’s tolerance
for weathering hard times appears to be diminishing.
Our course WWI (and the unjust peace after it’s conclusion) lead directly to WWII. But, we were
not fighting the same fundamental forces in each war IMO. WWII was against fascism and WWI came
about because of secret alliances (I’m simplifying obviously).
OK. What is you point? Mine is that without a doubt, the taking of Iraq, the actual Combat
Operations, was the most stunning victory in history. And it is comparable to the 4 years it took
to get to Berlin and Tokyo.
The aftermath which has taken 5 years so far is analogous to the post war occupation of Germany
and Japan. Few realize that we did not turn over the German government to the Germans until 1955: Ten years after we won the war. We have yet to reach the ten year mark in Iraq. Further the Nazi resistence continued for around 7 years. According to one analysis “They sniped, they planted bombs, and one of their favorite tricks was to stretch a rope across a road at the right height so that people riding in an open jeep would catch it in the neck. This could result in a broken neck or outright decapitation. The occupying forces executed guerillas when they caught them, the British used beheadings, and even resorted to taking and executing hostages.”
And, I might point out, we remain in Germany to this very day.
It was “talking” that prevented the Cold War from going “hot”. I agree that we basically spent the Soviet Union into oblivion, but that sadly wasn’t the only way we could have won & it’s helped to put us deeply into debt as well. We’ll be paying off the mostly GOP-accumulated national debt for quite some time to come unfortunately.
Well we did more than that and while there were no direct confrontations between the US and the USSR during the cold war, there were many proxy wars fought. One was Vietnam, and another was “Carlie Wilson’s War”. The latter could arguably be tributable to the USSRs demise as well.
And deficit spending, one must remember, can only be done by Congress. And Congress was in control of one or both houses of Congress from 1955 to 1996
You can’t blame the man in the Excutive chair for defecit spending.
I didn’t see anything in your response about Afganistan that said you thought we had supplied enough troops there yet.
I do think we need more troops in Afghanistan. And more importantly, I think we need to duplicate the success of Patreus’ Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Iraq to Afghanistan.
The Marines want to get out of Iraq and leave the whole thing to the Army cuz they realize where the real enemy of the USA lies and that Iraq is just a big waste of time at this point.
I do not think liberating an oppressed people is a waste of time. I do not think it is moral or right for us to have removed Saddam and defeated al Qaida in Iraq and then just leave everyone alone because it is no longer of interest to us. We didn’t do that in Germany and we didn’t do that in Japan.
Further it is in our self-interest to stabalize Iraq and it has to do with the larger strategy that was behind the invasion to begin with: stand up a country in the Middle East that is both economically and politically free and hope this is a catalyst for the rest of the region.
To say that countires that have a much, much smaller military should be doing a whole lot more in Afganistan is slightly disingenuous. It’s our war…we were attacked on 9/11…not them. Every one of Canada’s army units have rotated thru Afganistan so far, and their military is miniscule compared to ours.
Oh it’s our war, is it? We’ll what happened to the “One for all and all for one” motto of NATO? We would have put everything we had into defending their countries….and have.
And what is the rationale behind for Germany, France, Italy and Spain not being involved in combat operations?
All Secretary Gates was asking for was about 7,000 troops. And now that we are supplying an MEU, he’s only asking for 3,500. Are you saying that the whole rest of NATO can find a single combate brigade to send to Afghanistan?
That’s the first point. The second is that al Qaida attacked us only because they felt that bringing down the US would drag everyone else down. They are not just against us but all the “Crusader nations”; everyone in the West.
People involved in attacks in Europe have been trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s just as much their fight as ours.
The Congressional approval numbers that I’ve seen over the years haven’t ever cracked 30% very often.
Yeah, well here is a graph that shows Congressional approval ratings from 1990 through 2006. 1994 and 2006 are marked with a red vertical line. You’ll notice that Congress’ ratings were in the mid-20’s at both times, just as they are now.
You will also notice that Congressional approval rating between 1994 and 2005 dipped briefly below 30% only once; the rest of the time is was 40% or above and infact reaching above 50% a number of times.
I’m sorry to say, but if this type of statistical analysis holds for 2008, Democrats are in trouble.
In fact, they have produced less progress in the last year than the Iraqi Parliament and they haven’t delivered on the reform promises they made to the independents.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Frank, the thing that often gets overlooked when pointing out the dismal Congress numbers is that Dems are unhappy with the Congress’ inability to take on Bush (and more than a few of them want to), and you need to add to the fact that the Republicans are the most obstructionist in recent history. They sense they’re going to be put out to pasture very shortly and aren’t going to let anything pass in the meantime.
TO some how insinuate from the numbers that the public is gong to somehow put the Repubs back in when they’re mostly responsible for this clusterfuck the nation has become is ludicrous.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:05 am
This isn’t the 1990s…far from it. The world is, unfortunately, totally different, and not in a good way IMO. A slight increase in the unemployment rate back then does not mean the same now.
“the taking of Iraq, the actual Combat Operations, was the most stunning victory in history. And it is comparable to the 4 years it took to get to Berlin and Tokyo. The aftermath which has taken 5 years so far is analogous to the post war occupation of Germany and Japan.”
Let’s be real here…ever hear of Alexander the Great? He started most of his battles against the Persians overwhelmingly outnumbered…pretty much every battle started out with the Persians trying to encircle him & he beat them, I think, everytime! The point is that we’re still fighting in Iraq, years after “Mission Accomplished”. We’re fighting in the middle of a civil war…one which we can never solve militarily. The extremely isolated insurgency in Germany after WWII was nothing compared to what has been going on in Iraq for years now. You’ve been listening to Ann Coulter too much, I suspect, on that point. Where was the insurgency in Japan after WWII? The idea that we’re still occupying Germany, Japan, or even South Korea is ludicrous. We have bases in those countries under treaties with those and other countries. No one is fighting there. I think we should have been out of Germany years ago…the Cold War is over.
The War in Iraq was completely unneceassry and it’s cost way, way too much in human life and treasure. It should have never happened in the first place, and it’s way past time for our involvement in it to be over.
“You can’t blame the man in the Excutive chair for defecit spending.”
How naive am I expected to be on this? The GOP “supply-side” policies of the 1980s and this last decade are what has ballooned the national debt, period. Sure, we had a national debt before Reagan, but it wasn’t anywhere near on the same scale as what his policies caused. Which party had the guts to implement policies (with almost no Republican votes!) in the 1990s…the Democrats.
“I think we need to duplicate the success of Patreus’ Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Iraq to Afghanistan.”
The surge in Iraq was designed to cause a lull in the fighting so there could be a political reconciliation…there has been none so far. The surge has failed. A large enough American military force can defeat just about anyone, but it can’t solve issues that are purely political.
“I do not think liberating an oppressed people is a waste of time. I do not think it is moral or right for us to have removed Saddam and defeated al Qaida”
We did not go into Iraq to liberate anyone. We went into Iraq under completely false pretenses…WMDs and a “threat” to us and the entire world. It was a lie. There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded! You can’t single-handedly rewrite history.
“stand up a country in the Middle East that is both economically and politically free and hope this is a catalyst for the rest of the region.”
Whether this happens or not now has everything to the Iraqis and very little to do with us. A majority of the Iraqi people have wanted us gone from their country for a long time now. What the U.S. puppets that are in charge of Iraq say means nothing to me or to their own people…that’s one of the main problems there.
You refuse to acknowledge the huge sacrifices that other countries have made in Afganistan (especially when you factor in the relative sizes of their countries, economies, and militaries)…fine. Keep denying reality.
“And what is the rationale behind for Germany, France, Italy and Spain not being involved in combat operations?”
Ask them…they are their forces. I would think in Germany’s case that their own laws at home forbid them from invading other countries and shooting people. The last few times they’ve done that it didn’t work out too well for everyone.
We have a different system of govt. that the Iraqis do. The fact that the President and the GOP minority in Congress have done their level best to block the kind of change that Americans wanted in 2006 is unfortunate IMO, but it’s their right under the protections that our system of govt. gives minorities & they are going to be paying for it big time this fall. Watch and learn…
January 25th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Sorry for the double post…my computer was acting up and I was in jeporady of losing the above post before I rebooted.
We gave control/sovernty back to Iraq a while ago…maybe it should have taken 10 years, but it didn’t. I still don’t trust the puppet regime that is in place now.
My memory about Congressional approval numbers I guess wasn’t as great as I had hoped (mistakes were made).
Here’s two other graphs for ya:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/.....blarge.php
http://i39.photobucket.com/alb.....g_Comb.jpg
I think they both show that more Americans disapprove of the GOP members of Congress than the Democratic members of Congress. Of course, mistakes have been made on this issue by me before…so who knows…we’re gonna find out for sure this fall & I doubt that you’ll be happy with the results.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Charity, I agree with everything you say. I do have a question for you. Where are these conservatives that will lead us to a rebirth of small government conservatism? I sure do not see any in power in the GOP. The GOP had at least six years of complete power in the executive and legislative branch. In that time I have seen the federal government grow in size. The deficit increase from 5 trillion to 9 trillion dollars. And the “Religious Right”, try to legislate a Christian theocracy to govern this nation. The GOP power structure consists of idealists. I think the true meaning of conservatism has been lost. The closest person to a true conservative is Ron Paul and nobody in the GOP listens to him. But there might be hope. The younger generation seems to be attracted to Ron Paul.
Until the GOP returns to true conservatism with leaders such as Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon I am afraid I will have to support a Democrat!