Posted on 07/27/2006 4:28:38 AM PDT by Tolik
I don't agree w/ all this doom and gloom. Plenty of people are willing to serve this country. Look at all the soldiers fighting in Iraq, Afghanistsan, and in other places. I go to church on Sunday and it's packed. At my brother's church in Houston it's standing room only.
The fall of the Roman empire was due to many factors which Hanson doesn't mention: too much reliance on slave labor; all the power being vested in the emperors; primitive means of communication. There were no checks and balances in the Roman empire.
Finally, specialization of employment is what allows our civilization to be what it is today. If everyone grew their own food and made their own clothes we'd still living a primitive farming society.
California is a good example. A combination of gay "rights", illegal immigrant indifference and "rights", and a mindless tendency to always spend more than the institution takes in. These are our best and brightest?
What are we all doing in the meantime, other than empowering them, if only by inaction?
That is also its greatest weakness. You seem to have missed the message, that there is nothing other than discipline and self-restraint, both as individuals and as a society, to maintain that ability of specialization to continue functioning.
Imagine a total lack of law enforcement due to its being overwhelmed by mobs demanding their "rights". You think that the present conditions that prevents that are an ironclad phenomenon of nature?
Can you envision anything other than totalitarianism being able to deal with the consequences?
The number of people willing to serve this country is small in percentage, but sufficient in number. I worry about those who are waging war against this country because of their hatred of Christians and Republicans. I just know too many.
We are relying on slave labor, our inport levels confirm this.
We give the government too much pay and power for the highest levels of incompetence avilable in today's society. Look at how they have handled education, law and Social Security. QED.
Although our communication processes have improved beyond the wildest dreams of anyone, the human behavior and understanding that uses that information is still the same as it was some thousand years ago. Even though education is at its highest levels ever, people still look to government for answers.
All the specialization will fall for naught if we have a famine.....which is very possible under an energy or water shortage. Hanson's point is that we're fragile. His point is valid. If we take a hit in a skeletal area, things can be broken easily.
Agreed. Please see my earlier post on this thread.
Yes... there are many good people here who live by a creed of self reliance and general service to their family, and their community. But there is an increasingly vocal portion of the people who invent a new "right" every day, without so much as a thought toward the responsibility for it. They believe that wealth is created by taking it from the rich, that asking murderers nicely will change their mind, and that the best way to defend ourselves is through surrender.
They want equal outcomes for everyone regardless of the differences in effort, the believe all power should be concentrated in "the right people" and that only the government can be trusted to solve the problems of today.
To these people, from the spoiled and pampered silicon valley staffers, to the cynical northeastern union hacks, and all the others who depend on government largess to make their way in the world, Hanson is describing the world view precisely.
We have been spared the worst kind of societal trauma only because we are a relatively young nation with a comparatively high percentage of the self reliant. It's people like us who continually save the people like he describes from their own stupidity.
But those people haven't gone away. In fact they are more vocal now than they ever were. Thanks to the decay of education in this country they are less embarrassed and ashamed of their views than they have ever been. They are more willing to stand up and proudly proclaim that "the only way to victory is through immediate surrender" and other such silliness.
And it's because of them that we will, I believe, have to endure some major suffering before we have the political will as a people to do what needs to be done for our own safety. Because of them, we will pretend as a people that the problem has gone away when it's just a snake that has stopped moving before it strikes again.
I hope he's wrong, but I don't think he is.
Oh yes. As for government, when the stuff hits the fan, I would not want to be one or anywhere near a bureaucrat or politician. They will be among the first to go.
AMEN. I've been working on a vanity on this subject, but I'm afraid to post it yet because I DON'T want to see it perceived as an opus.
However, I have to ask, where have all the optimists gone? That used to be the greatest selling point of conservatism, as opposed to the doom and gloom of the left. Europe has always had snarky "realists" - America was different. But lately, FR has been overrun with doom & gloom, with goldbuggers and real estate bubble-watchers; with conspiracy theorists and survivalists. There's a large contingent here that flocks to every thread about new technology (especially energy) and proceeds to throw water on the whole idea and explain why it'll "never work". That's SOOOOO European.
Reagan's biggest appeal was his optimism. If we keep this up, we are one pretend-optimist democrat away from losing.
See what I mean? - they're even making ME pessimistic!
"America is an optimistic country because that's where all the optimists went." - Mark Steyn.
There are no checks on the size of runaway govt.
I see an Atlas Shrugged scenario unfolding as the baby boomers vote to raise taxes on the productive few to maintain the unsupportable Medicare system.
BUMP
I have bookmarked them.
Cheers!
Francis Schaeffer predicted this in the early 80's. Abortion practiced by one generation leads to a moral atmosphere which gets that generation euthanized en masse as they get old and feeble.
My wife's take: And then they'll have the nerve to look surprised.
Cheers!
I'll give it my best shot. Good luck at Wal-Mart. I won't be there.
Exactly!
Thanks for the ping.
Unfortunately we also have bred generations of the clueless. Social overhead which can instantly turn to midless mobs literally everywhere, but primarily in and around our large cities.
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I was born during WWII and belong to a generation which has memories of how it used to be, I am reaching retirement age in a world that only vaguely resembles the one of my birth. I came from a time when mules pulling plows were quite common and now live in an age when tractors have global positioning systems. As you and Victor Hansen have so well stated, the average person is far, far less equipped to deal with the breakdown of the system than their grandparents were. I don't like to think about the possibilities.
List?
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