Posted on 06/05/2014 7:13:49 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- Some 45 years ago, one of the era's great wits and finest writers, the Englishman, Malcolm Muggeridge, wrote about the Great Liberal Death Wish. He saw the Death Wish at work everywhere. In the liberals' appeasement of the Soviets, he saw it. In liberals' extravagant extension of the welfare state, he saw it. For a certitude, he was right. The liberals of the day died off and were replaced by Margaret Thatcher in Britain and by Ronald Reagan in America. Not much was heard of them for years until Tony Blair and Bill Clinton came along, and both men's liberalism was greatly truncated.
The Liberal Death Wish was Muggeridge's true insight. By the 1980s, the Death Wish had only killed off the liberals. The rest of us escaped. The West managed to overcome the liberals' instrumentalities of death. In the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan's military buildup, contrary to those who said it was reckless and dangerous, managed to practically bankrupt the Soviet Union. The liberals had many a good laugh at his Star Wars project, but the Soviet generals were not laughing. They saw Star Wars as another futile expenditure on their road to ruin. As far as domestic policy goes, Western prosperity -- in America goaded by tax cuts -- allowed us to continue the extravagance of the welfare state, though just barely. The excessive costs of the project continued. Nicholas Eberstadt, in a thoughtful essay for the Weekly Standard, calculates that from the Great Society on, we have spent $1 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Yet, the poverty level is about where it was in 1966.
With the Obama administration, the spending on anti-poverty programs -- and on much else -- has multiplied. The government regulation, for instance, Dodd-Frank, has been onerous. The result is the weakest recovery on record in modern times. In foreign policy, the president continues to lead from behind, or just around the corner, or not even at all, as he lectured us from West Point last week. With this disastrous administration, we have again returned to the Great Liberal Death Wish, and it threatens all of us.
In domestic policy, Obama entered office facing unsustainable budget deficits and his answer was Obamacare, the largest, most extravagant, most mishandled expense in American history. In foreign policy, he has botched two wars. With Russia he has a simulacrum of the Cold War going on. And he just freed five terrorist chieftains in exchange for what turned out to be an Army deserter. This is the Liberal Death Wish with no Lady Thatcher or Ronald Reagan standing in the wings.
Yet I would counsel optimism once again. This present Liberal Death Wish, as with the last Liberal Death Wish, will probably only finish off the left. Just this past week, with Obama's EPA regulations afflicting energy producing states and pivoting them towards the Republicans in the fall elections, I think we can foresee Republican domination of both houses. That, along with Republican domination of most states, will make it difficult for Obama to extend his mischief. Then it is up to Republicans to find a suitable replacement for Ronald Reagan and win the White House in 2016.
Still, in light of what happened to the left liberals the last time that they were tempted by a Death Wish, one has to wonder why they would try again. Arguably, they were out of office from 1981 until 2009. Sure Bill Clinton is claiming he was with them all the way in the 1990s, but obviously it is another of his multitudinous lies. Is he not the fellow who asseverated in his 1996 State of the Union address that "The era of big government is over"? And did not the Hon. Newt Gingrich see to it that it was? I say that, this time, the era of big government will be over for years to come. Possibly, the left will go the way of the dinosaurs. Our president, when he passes to glory, will be put in a museum.
Tyrrell and Muggeridge...both geniuses.
Except this time the demographics are not our friend.
Yup....people think it’s still 1980. They are going to out vote us with tens of millions of immigrants.
Was he not the one that wrote about the impeachment of Clinton? Sure was: “The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton.” I have a hard copy, never read it, only bought it for its collector’s value. Selling on a few sites—will not mention the main one starting with an “A” due to the bozo who owns it—for less than five dollars. I guess I will never recover my purchase price. Should have known better than to put money on a bunch of immoral bastards. Can I say that?
In the 1980’s the majority of high school graduates could actually read.... English.
I’m not as optimistic and Mr. Tyrell. I hope he’s right.
“Except this time the demographics are not our friend.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about this. Noticing that your hair is thinning while playing Xbox in Mom and Dad’s basement is going to really suck.
My theory is that Carter bought 30 years of mostly conservative or centrist leadership. Obama should be worth more than that.
Nailed it.
Illegal immigration has fundamentally and irreversibly changed this country to the point of no return.
I’ll keep pressing the battle til my last breath, but I’m not sure there are enough of us left anymore.
If the libs have a death wish, we conservatives should be penalized for our failure to accelerate their self destruction.
And as my tagline implies, many libs are suicidal, but their leaders are crafty enough to convert them from mere self-destructors into full-blown suicidal bombers.
Democrats should force him to resign. ALL of the boob’s failures are their failures. Democrats are running scared after the Obamacare debacle. Now Bergdahl.
The body politic is infected w/ the Boobombic Plague.
Democrats should wake up. Their days are numbered...if any of these imbeciles do win, it’s b/c of (1) voter fraud, and, (2) using govt resources to bludgeon opponents.
Forget impeachment......he should not be given one iota of constitutional refuge for his damnable activities.
Americans should not have to expend an ounce of energy or even one tax dollar impeaching this POS.
Force him out, I say. Americans need to contact Republicans to pressure Democrats to get this done.
Barack Obama: fundamentally transforming....the Democrat party....to permanent minority status..
I first read “Death Wish” in Esquire about 45 years ago. It was one really great polemic. In that article Muggeridge anticipates Clinton. He wrote of Descarte’s “cogito ergo sum” morphing into “copulo ergo sum.” Anyway, a profound article. It can still be found in The Portable Conservative Reader edited by Russell Kirk and in compilations of Muggeridge’s writings.
I think the American people are going to need to drag Obama from the Presidency with his teeth marks still on it...
The permanent members are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China.
The five powers generally agree on some no-name from a third-world country to be the UN head.
I doubt if Obama would want the job, anyhow. He's lazy....and although the job is almost symbolic, the role of Secretary-General involves a lot of busy work...mind-numbing traveling, sitting through endless meetings and speeches, diplomacy, mediating, studying, boring receptions....all the things Obama is not known for relishing.
Leni
Wrong, m’dear. That is NOT in the rules..it became an accepted convention/accomodation during the cold war
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