Posted on 10/11/2010 8:00:56 AM PDT by WebFocus
If you write a column, you get a lot of e-mail. Sometimes, especially in a political season, it's possible to discern from it certain emerging themes – the comeback of old convictions, for instance, or the rise of new concerns. Let me tell you something I'm hearing, in different ways and different words. The coming rebellion in the voting booth is not only about the economic impact of spending, debt and deficits on America's future. It's also to some degree about the feared impact of all those things on the character of the American people. There is a real fear that government, with all its layers, its growth, its size, its imperviousness, is changing, or has changed, who we are. And that if we lose who we are, as Americans, we lose everything.
This is part of what's driving the sense of political urgency this year, especially within precincts of the Tea Party.
The most vivid illustration of the fear comes, actually, from another country, Greece, and is brilliantly limned by Michael Lewis in September's Vanity Fair. In "Beware Greeks Bearing Bonds," he outlines Greece's economic catastrophe. It is a bankrupt nation, its debt, or rather the amount of debt that has so far been unearthed and revealed, coming to "more than a quarter-million dollars for every working Greek." Over decades the Greeks turned their government "into a piñata stuffed with fantastic sums" and gave "as many citizens as possible a whack at it." The average government job pays almost three times as much as the average private-sector job. The retirement age for "arduous" jobs, including hairdressers, radio announcers and musicians, is 55 for men and 50 for women. After that, a generous pension. The tax system has disintegrated. It is a welfare state with a cash economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
I read it. As usual, Peggy seems to have the view that things would be better if only the elites would be more subtle in their methods to control people. She seems to always be most concerned about how the control creates animosity in the populace. She'd be happier if the elites would control people and change the culture without making the people angry about it.
Consider yourself resented, Peggy.
No kidding. And she IS an elite!
Definition of an elite - let me tell you something I denied but you already knew, however my use of flowery prose serves to illustrate me being the elite I accuse others of being. Please see Zuckerman, Noonan, Halperin, Buffet, Immelt .......
They have NO CREDIBILITY. Obama was raised on the laps of radicals, desired to be a radical, hung out with radicals, acted like a ractical and we are SUPPOSE to be shocked like you morons that he is acting LIKE A FRIGGING RADICAL!!!
Good grief.
Definition of an elite - let me tell you something I denied but you already knew, however my use of flowery prose serves to illustrate me being the elite I accuse others of being. Please see Zuckerman, Noonan, Halperin, Buffet, Immelt .......
They have NO CREDIBILITY. Obama was raised on the laps of radicals, desired to be a radical, hung out with radicals, acted like a ractical and we are SUPPOSE to be shocked like you morons that he is acting LIKE A FRIGGING RADICAL!!!
Good grief.
It’s actually a really good piece. This one of those times when she’s right on target.
AYFKM?
Welcome to FR.
well said
Meanwhile they tell us how much we can flush a toilet, how to wipe our rear ends when we use the toilet, how big a house we deserve, how much we can drive our car, how to use our property, how much money you think we deserve(while making as much money yourselves as possible without paying taxes) and how much light we can have in our huts in order to not bump into the furniture made of recycled material.
Peggy, I just resent anything north of the Red River, east of the Sabine, west of the Pecos, and south of the Rio Grande. If everything from DC to Boston and Los Angeles to San Francisco fell into the ocean, I'd flip the page of the newspaper and say, "I wonder why that didn't happen to Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago?" then just go on with my day.
Sort of, but what kills it's authenticity is the fact that she should use herself as the prime example of the "elitist" she is talking about.
I read it, even though she lost me during the last election.
But one thing she said rang true — it isn’t right that some people pay fewer taxes than their next-door neighbors, simply because they can afford to hire an expensive accountant. It isn’t right that so many law-abiding Americans have been forced into the “underground economy” — who hasn’t been offered a “cash discount” from their mechanic, plumber, even their dentist?
And it isn’t right that the representatives of the government which imposes these rules never play by them (Hi, Tim Geithner!), making chumps, suckers, and schmucks of the citizenry. How long before what it means to be a “citizen” elicits snickers? How can a country survive that?
This is all part of Noonan’s “avoiding-the-pitchforks-and-noose” self preservation strategy.
Sure fooled me! /s
Years ago I saw Peggy Noonan speak at a local Catholic college. I would not waste my time seeing her again.
BTW, the professor who introduced her was an outspoken liberal.
LOL! No kidding, I almost spit my lunch when I saw this!
the Problem I have with this is that Peggy Noonan has always acted like an elite herself.
Pot meet kettle.
Pot meet kettle.
that’s the crux of the porblem. In other countries, elite means exceptionally disciplined, intelligent, patriotic, and dedicated. Here, it means that you are unusually successful and social climbing and skilled at fooling people. I mean, our ‘elites’ include members of the entertainment industry. It’s a totally warped dynamic that has ruined this nation. In Russia, Putin parties and celebrates his succcessful spies, while our leaders party and celebrate our entertainers. Putin is patriotic and dedicated to his country’s greatness while we have leaders who are anything but patriotic and celebrate grinding our country into the ground as quickly as possible.
because they think they know better but they don’t and they are venal and stupid
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