The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
James Poulos ·
Jun 24, 2011 at 5:05pm
It's the end of the world as we know it, but we'll be fine:
Right at this moment, the foundations of international order erected by the Allies after the Second World War are crumbling away. In all likelihood, they will be gone forever — in fact, if not in name, within the next ten years.
The consequences for the U.S. are beyond profound. If we do not act now to accept and prepare for the sea change facing humanity in the decade to come, America will struggle desperately and errantly simply to react. If we do act now, Americans will continue to enjoy an existence sharply better by almost every measure than almost everyone else in the world.
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Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
James, in your wonderful article you write, "... The intensity of popular resistance to today’s entitlements and wars will seem like a hiccup relative to that which the American people will visit upon a leadership class that fails to choose wisely, sparingly — and, above all, legitimately. ..."
So it seems the American people are yet again ahead of the politicians in recognizing the urgency of the situation and the sobriety of thought required to address it. But when the current leading Republican candidate supports ethanol subsidies, midwifed government healthcare in his own state, and subscribes to the idea of man-made global warming, doesn't it seem that the weapons available to the American people for punishing the leadership class are becoming more constrained? I hope I'm wrong, and I'm not prepared to order a hemlock on the rocks just yet, but I do worry.
Jul '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Dave Carter:
But when the current leading Republican candidate supports ethanol subsidies, midwifed government healthcare in his own state, and subscribes to the idea of man-made global warming, doesn't it seem that the weapons available to the American people for punishing the leadership class are becoming more constrained?
Unfortunately, very few potential voters apply due diligence to candidates and the process, with its sound bites, deceptive advertising and ridiculous debates, does less than nothing to inform them.
Consider, for instance, how many people here on Ricochet - a politically-astute population if ever there was one - continue to have the vapors over Chris Christie, whose charming bellicosity papers over a very troubling record.
The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered.
When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans.
Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
Edited on Jun 24, 2011 at 6:21pmJun '11
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Kenneth
The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered.
When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans.
Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." · Jun 24 at 6:08pm
Edited on Jun 24 at 06:21 pm
It's so true.......but when I see at Sam's Club people with three weed whackers and purple candy in cellophane bags piled high on their super cart, I want to stop them and say, no, there was a produce section with vegetables that are good for you.
Then, I think, it's their damn right to buy what they want to buy with their wages and my right to hope that it all turmoils out in the end.
Right from the beginning, we've elected charlatans and misguided legislators. America, in that sense, has always been kind of sloppy.
Far be it from me to change our heritage. I applaud their right to eat (and vote) poorly though I secretly don't like it.
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Kenneth
Dave Carter:
But when the current leading Republican candidate supports ethanol subsidies, midwifed government healthcare in his own state, and subscribes to the idea of man-made global warming, doesn't it seem that the weapons available to the American people for punishing the leadership class are becoming more constrained?
... The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered.
When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans.
Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." · Jun 24 at 6:08pm
Edited on Jun 24 at 06:21 pm
That this should be the case in an age where so much information is literally at our fingertips,...it staggers the imagination that so many could know so little. The situation is dire, no doubt about it. But is it hopeless?
Jul '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Dave Carter
Kenneth
Dave Carter:
But when the current leading Republican candidate supports ethanol subsidies, midwifed government healthcare in his own state, and subscribes to the idea of man-made global warming, doesn't it seem that the weapons available to the American people for punishing the leadership class are becoming more constrained?
... The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered.
When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans.
Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." · Jun 24 at 6:08pm
Edited on Jun 24 at 06:21 pm
That this should be the case in an age where so much information is literally at our fingertips,...it staggers the imagination that so many could know so little. The situation is dire, no doubt about it. But is it hopeless? · Jun 24 at 6:42pm
Here's your answer, Dave. Google Kim Kardashian and you get 217,000,000 results; Lady GaGa gets 514,000,000.
Michele Bachmann? 18,100,000.
As George Gallup warned, we're entertaining ourselves to death.
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
"Here's your answer, Dave. Google Kim Kardashian and you get 217,000,000 results; Lady GaGa gets 514,000,000.
Michele Bachmann? 18,100,000.
As George Gallup warned, we're entertaining ourselves to death."
So, James, are you taking bets on how all this turns out?
Oct '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Nothing will happen until there is a big dent in the Warm Fuzzies factor. Funny when something like that happens people get involved. The current Union activity is just a start. Wait until the public at large comes to grip with the true state of events.
May be too little too late...
Oct '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
RE, Kenneth,
The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered. When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans. Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
Refreshing that truth... Seems the public have placed their futures in the hands of what passes for something akin to used car salesmen. Should they be so bothered in number to seperate the wheat from the chaff and act there might be a productive outcome.
May '11
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Dave Carter: "Here's your answer, Dave. Google Kim Kardashian and you get 217,000,000 results; Lady GaGa gets 514,000,000.
Michele Bachmann? 18,100,000.
As George Gallup warned, we're entertaining ourselves to death."
So, James, are you taking bets on how all this turns out? · Jun 24 at 7:02pm
Hasn't popular culture always trumped politicians in terms of popularity? I would venture a guess that the Beatles and Rolling Stones were more popular than Lyndon Johnson. Elvis was probably more popular than Ike. Clark Gable more popular than Franklin Roosevelt and so on and so on. The problem is that today the media covers politics in an incredibly superficial way. In 2008 all the media focused on was Obamas cool smooth style and nothing about his policies or record.
Aug '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Aside from the content of the article itself, I was struck by the comment thread over there which consists of one on-topic comment and two comment spam messages from crackpots. Makes me appreciate that we pay $3.47 for the right to comment here at Ricochet.
Jul '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
thelonious
Hasn't popular culture always trumped politicians in terms of popularity?
Actually, no. In 1938, the public figures who got the most newspaper inches were, in descending order, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
The only public figure who got more coverage than FDR was a horse named Seabiscuit.
It wasn't until much later that journalists ceased to be ink-stained wretches and began to rejoice in the orgy of celebrity worship.
Edited on Jun 24, 2011 at 8:40pmRe: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
It's a lovely thing, isn't it.
I suppose it'd only be right to lay a few dollars FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY on the future of the republic, or at least its people. Mencken was withering and his Nietzschean critique of democracy is formidable, but as I suggest in the column American democracy is inherently unlike other democracies, past, present, and future, because of its unique origins. American democracy may persist indefinitely while other democracies crumble and democracy as a political project is discredited. The question of course is whether it will. We have the capacity to snap back from a great deal of decadence, stupidity, and willful servitude. But that process isn't without its pains.
Jul '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Despair is a sin, folks. The Left is pumping out sweet, soft lobs like this one from the New Republic. They have an intern fulminating for a constitutional crisis on the basis that the Congress doesn't have standing in the courts to enforce a budget ceiling. It takes a sublime ignorance of the Constitution to think Congress lacks meaningful recourse, ever, or that Congress critters will not rise up in bi-partisan defense of Congressional prerogatives. Or that as the Obama/Biden/Holder ship of state disappears beneath the waves that McCain state Dems won't reach across the aisle.
America has to put her house in order, it is a necessary first step to world recovery. That does not mean electing another GOP technocrat to thrust Medicare Part C or some other goofy, soft-headed failed-state idea on us.
May '11
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Kenneth
The sad fact is that our leaders are chosen largely by the ignorant, the deluded and snookered.
When every ignorant fool can vote, we're likely to elect a whole lot of charlatans.
Or, as H.L. Mencken observed, "Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." · Jun 24 at 6:08pm
Edited on Jun 24 at 06:21
Or the political class chooses the loser from the last cycle. Nixon lost to JFK, George Bush and Bob Dull lost to Reagan, McLame lost to Bush 43, etc. Or they pick a guy like Gerry Ford. Romney, aka Plasticman, lost to the weakest candidate in memory! So, of course, many fools in NH will vote for him. Then for BHO in November.
Edited on Jun 25, 2011 at 4:03amJan '11
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
We that was a sobering article and discussion thread. I think I'll get drunk.
I was too young to have lived through the Carter years as a worker/parent/provider. This current funk seems worse in that the lessons learned from that time were forgotten, even discarded - worst of all by Republicans.
I don't think we can get by this time by modestly managing or adjusting things. A genuine rollback of the worst excesses of governmental overreach (federal, state, local - international) are warranted.
Jun '10
Re: The Most Important Election-Year Issue Nobody's Talking About
Excellent article.
This quote:
"Broad-based entrepreneurship, authentic religious faith, and a long history of robust individuality interrelated with robust community — these resources, evident at the very origin of America’s historical experience, are not found together anywhere else in the world at anywhere near American levels."
...to me shows the need to evaluate our immigration policies and their impact on our nation. Doesn't this beautifully worded homage paid to American exceptionalism point to the wisdom of only admitting new immmigrants who will embrace our country for the right reasons? The wrong reasons won't fit in the 200 word post, but we know waht they are.