Posted on 09/20/2013 9:56:47 PM PDT by neverdem
The decay of a free society doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re getting there.
‘This is the United States of America,” declared President Obama to the burghers of Liberty, Mo., on Friday. “We’re not some banana republic.”
He was talking about the Annual Raising of the Debt Ceiling, which glorious American tradition seems to come round earlier every year. “This is not a deadbeat nation,” President Obama continued. “We don’t run out on our tab.” True. But we don’t pay it off either. We just keep running it up, ever higher. And every time the bartender says, “Mebbe you’ve had enough, pal,” we protest, “Jush another couple trillion for the road. Set ’em up, Joe.” And he gives you that look that kinda says he wishes you’d run out on your tab back when it was $23.68.
--snip--
“That’s all very ominous,” wrote my colleague Jonah Goldberg the other day, perhaps a little too airily for my taste. I’d rank it somewhere north of “ominous.”
“Banana republic” is an American coinage — by O. Henry, a century ago, for a series of stories set in the fictional tropical polity of Anchuria. But a banana republic doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a sensibility, and it’s difficult to mark the precise point at which a free society decays into something less respectable. Pace Obama, ever swelling debt, contracts for cronies, a self-enriching bureaucracy, a shrinking middle class preyed on by corrupt tax collectors, and thuggish threats against anyone who disagrees with you put you pretty far down the banana-strewn path.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Ping
Mark Sten ping.
Freepmail me, if yo want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.
Thanks for the ping neverdem.
But a banana republic doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a sensibility, and it’s difficult to mark the precise point at which a free society decays into something less respectable.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It’s a Frog in the Pot thing.
The commies in the Soviet Union quit the game a little to soon. They won the Cold War.
He sure makes us look like one.
The thing about Banana Republics...is that they are so fake.
The top guy, el presidentee, is always a fake. Senators are fake. Journalists are fake. Stories in the press are generally fake. Successful businesses are fake. Profits are fake. Losses are fake. Corruption is fake to a relative point. Life....is a day to day event...mostly fake in nature.
I spent three years in Panama before Noriega was taken down. I actually rode the city buses, walked around downtown, and surveyed the rich and poor of the country. Unless you’ve been to such a place, noted the corrupted politics, and lived like a local guy....you really don’t grasp the full meaning of a banana republic.
It’s debatable to me if we live today in such a place. Politics, journalism, business, taxation, and law enforcement are mostly fake. There are things working against them, and I’m of the mind that we are in a battle of sorts....being held back from being a banana republic....by millions who refuse to participate in such an arrangement.
“banana republic.”
I had “NO BANANA REPUBLIC” on the sign I carried to the Racine (WI) winter tea party, must have been 3 yrs ago. Cold day, but we filled up a field. I guess it is finally starting to filter up enough the El-Presidente has to counter it.
Mostly Christian's. Those who love God love liberty.
For later reading.
Obama should talk to Fidel Castro about how the Republican's (who represent half the country) are "messin with him". Castro could sympathize and give him advice on how to run a banana republic.
I would like to be on the list please. Thank you.
They lost the cold war. The commies in the USA won.
Obama is a Tyrant and Dictator with a CHEESEY SMILE, so the Low Information Voter thinks he’s HARMLESS even though their lives are WORSE OFF now and so is the country that they inhabit. But hey....he’s COOL MAN!!
Lets put it this way.
The United States of America was not a Banana Republic, until it elected a Banana Republic Negro wannabee Dictator.
Now-—it is what it is.
When you see it summed up this way, it’s blood curdling. And I’m not sure we can vote our way out of it, because the one -party system is almost fully installed now. The Dems have been working in this direction for years and I think they’ve pretty much achieved it.
Thank you once again, Mr. Steyn, for telling us all what a crap hole of corruption America has become, and that “...no one seems to mind very much.”
You couldn’t be more wrong about that last bit.
“They lost the cold war. The commies in the USA won.”
That’s an important insight; one that others would do well to ponder.
That alone tells you how much we have degenerated as a country and society.
It just makes my blood boil!!!!
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