What Keeps You Up At Night?

 

On a recent episode of the Mad Dogs & Englishmen podcast, starting around 25’45”, National Reviews Kevin Williamson and Charles C.W. Cooke asked each other about their political fears. Both agreed that the world is a much less scary place than it was a few decades ago. The chance of a civilization-ending nuclear exchange are greatly diminished; medicine continues to improve; violent crime is down significantly in the United States, etc.

Which is hardly to say everything’s perfect. Williamson pointed out that while the old Dr. Strangelove scenarios are far less likely, the chance of an odd nuclear weapon here or there is concerning, especially for someone who works at National Review’s address (or, for that matter, in Tel Aviv). Moreover, our increasing globalization gives contagious diseases an advantage and it’s possible that could get nasty again.

Cooke’s biggest long-term fear, however, is “the relegation of the finest piece of statesmanship the world has ever seen to an engine of untrammeled, insipid social democracy which, around the edges, would yield soft tyranny.” As such, he’s less worried about our reactions to short-term, “hot” threats like terrorism and disease than he is about our long-term reactions to them.

That’s my general feeling as well. Like Cooke, I worry more about the likelihood that a handful of Nairobi-style attacks on soft targets would ensure the loss of any practical meaning to our Second Amendment rights (such as they are for those of us who live in Massachusetts). For that matter, I’d wager that most of my Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights would also soon be bargained away in exchange for security.

It’s also worth noting that the United States has been spared major natural disasters for a long time: no serious earthquakes in populated areas in a long time; one moderate volcanic eruption 34 years ago; a few bad hurricanes every few decades, as well as a smattering of particularly bad tornados, an occasional flood, and a bad crop or two. Given what nature is capable of, we — and, by extension, the rest of the world — have been very lucky.

I sleep well, but I also keep our emergency kit, pantry, and ammo can well-stocked.

What worries you?

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 19 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    Yours is a very reasonable argument and I can buy it with one exception that does keep me awake.  Yes, modern medicine has made extraordinary advances, but it has also caused great troubles.  Take these statistics on iatrogenic disease, for instance.  Or this, that just came out, on the high rate of infections in our hospitals.   A physician friend once told me that he and his doctor buddies did their own (very rough) statistic on the effectiveness of modern medicine, and found that if you subtract the failures from the successes, you get a rate of somewhere around 10%.  Unfair?  Yes, but you get the point: it’s bad, and it isn’t only patients who are worried.

    Our stats relative to other developed countries are pathetic, too. For instance, way too many c-sections, which cause numerous, sometimes lifetime problems in both baby and mother, etc., etc., etc. and are part of our high infant mortality rate.

    I believe that much, though hardly all,  of this is in fact political: over-testing and over-treatment because of the threat of lawsuits.

    In addition we suffer from chronic–and especially auto-immune–diseases that used to be rare.  Asthma, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile diabetes, to say nothing of a whole range of gut problems and cancers, used to be quite rare.  We are doing something wrong, and except for the lawsuits, I don’t think we can blame the Left for this one.

    • #1
  2. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    My big fear is that we keep putting a fresh coat of paint on the outside of the edifice while the foundation and framing continue to rot. We have 6-7 million of our citizens under supervision of our corretional bureaucracy, and most of them actually need it. Our children are being indoctrinated with socialist ideology. We’ve no stomach as a society for civics or virtue. When the crash comes it will be catestrophic.

    • #2
  3. jetstream Inactive
    jetstream
    @jetstream

    Tom, that volcano eruptions was not moderate .. half the mountain blew away. There was residual dust in the air over North America for weeks. It had a significant impact on flight visibility.

    • #3
  4. user_517406 Inactive
    user_517406
    @MerinaSmith

    The collapse of marriage and family and leftist indoctrination of children are my biggest concerns. And yes. They keep me up at night.

    • #4
  5. user_836033 Member
    user_836033
    @WBob

    The Democrat party trying to turn America into Mexico.  And that it’s being done without even the pretense that mass immigration and amnesty is somehow good for America.  For other liberal goals you always hear the arguments about why they’re good for the country and so on.  Conservatives disagree but there’s at least the pretense that everyone has the same goals.  That’s not even being attempted here. After the election the president’s executive order is just a case of “I’m doing this for the benefit of my party and my party alone and I don’t care who knows it”. No argument is made for why it’s good for America as a whole because none exists.  I’m not sure there’s any parallel to this in American history.

    34 million green cards over the next 5 years:

    http://news.yahoo.com/us-govt-seeks-supplies-immigration-documents-084707903.html

    • #5
  6. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    jetstream: Tom, that volcano eruptions was not moderate .. half the mountain blew away. There was residual dust in the air over North America for weeks. It had a significant impact on flight visibility.

    Absolutely, but what’s so scary is that an eruption the size of St. Helens is moderate.

    Pinatubo (1991) was an order of magnitude greater, and there were four others world-wide during the 20th Century of roughly its power. The 19th Century had one that was 10x bigger than any of those.

    • #6
  7. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Participation trophies.

    It used to be that one was victorious and then received a trophy symbolic of that victory.  Now, the symbol has become the thing.  We’ve detached the symbol from reality.

    Words too.  Men and women meet, fall in love, and pledge themselves to each other for life.  We came up with a word for that – marriage.  Now we arguments about the word, its meaning, and who has the power to define the word.

    We live in a world of symbols rather than realities.  That keeps me up at night.

    • #7
  8. user_989419 Inactive
    user_989419
    @ProbableCause

    When the federal debt bomb goes off.  I don’t see anything in our political process preventing it from happening.

    • #8
  9. Petty Boozswha Inactive
    Petty Boozswha
    @PettyBoozswha

    I foresee a terrible backlash when fashions change and the multicultural fads start to have an irreversible impact. News today of several hundred Africans rushing a border fence to get into EU territory – so the EU criticizes Spanish guards for being too beasty in protecting the border. In America Breitbart and Drudge report on millions of ID cards on order for illegal aliens once the election is over. The America we know will become what most of non-coastal California has become – Tijuana del norte. What can’t go on forever will not go on forever, but dealing with the reaction of the common people of this country [as well as Great Britain and what is left of Europe] when our elites become too distant might not be pretty.

    • #9
  10. user_1938 Inactive
    user_1938
    @AaronMiller

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    What worries you?

    The banality of evil in modern society.

    Fully half of Americans aren’t willing to believe that their neighbors are innocently mistaken, but rather assert that conservatives are hateful and unworthy of legal or even moral consideration. They would rather silence us by force than argue. They would sooner employ law as a weapon or ignore it entirely than honor our freedoms by equal protection and grudging negotiation. They slander opponents and lie without reservation. They break every good thing of meaning and praise every corruption as daring progress.

    Many people think Americans are immune from the horrors of 20th-century Europe. They are wrong. Dehumanization has already become publicly acceptable and common. That malice is manifested first through faceless groups, like political parties, but increasingly reveals itself in face-to-face encounters. Tyranny in America won’t remain “soft” forever.

    • #10
  11. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    Aaron Miller:

    Tom Meyer, Ed.:

    What worries you?

    The banality of evil in modern society.

    Fully half of Americans aren’t willing to believe that their neighbors are innocently mistaken, but rather assert that conservatives are hateful and unworthy of legal or even moral consideration. They would rather silence us by force than argue. They would sooner employ law as a weapon or ignore it entirely than honor our freedoms by equal protection and grudging negotiation. They slander opponents and lie without reservation. They break every good thing of meaning and praise every corruption as daring progress.

    Many people think Americans are immune from the horrors of 20th-century Europe. They are wrong. Dehumanization has already become publicly acceptable and common. That malice is manifested first through faceless groups, like political parties, but increasingly reveals itself in face-to-face encounters. Tyranny in America won’t remain “soft” forever.

    I’m sorry Hannah Arendt ever used that term.  Evil is never banal.

    • #11
  12. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    Tom,  your assessment of the nuclear threat is not mine.  The Soviet Union could be trusted preserve itself and to keep the keys to the nukes safely in Moscow.  Pakistan and India quickly realized that -once they had nuclear weapons -continued escalation of their disputes was a bad idea.  I have no such expectations for Iran and North Korea.  Once they have deliverable bombs in meaningful quantity, I fear an arms race in Asia and the Middle East that will spread across Europe and possibly into Africa.  If Russia keeps up its bellicosity, a renewed General War in Europe is possible.

    If the two events coincide, a nuclear exchange seems more likely, not less.

    The good news is that the Republic will have torn itself apart long before then and we’ll all have been put up against a wall -so I see no reason to stay up late worrying about it.

    • #12
  13. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Probable Cause:When the federal debt bomb goes off. I don’t see anything in our political process preventing it from happening.

    Bad enough if it “just happens.”  Worse if it becomes a weapon of war in the hands of the Chinese.

    • #13
  14. Addiction Is A Choice Member
    Addiction Is A Choice
    @AddictionIsAChoice

    What keeps me up at night? Reading the Member Feed on Ricochet. Then seeing a catalog of nightmares in the comment section. Tonight, I’m going to try the new Z-Quil…

    • #14
  15. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I used to worry at night, but now I make a list of the things are okay. :)

    • #15
  16. user_1938 Inactive
    user_1938
    @AaronMiller

    Via James Pethokoukis, an example from HotAir of public and unashamed dehumanization by respected liberals:

    The political press had a hearty chuckle at the expense of the Palins when it first broke that the former first family of Alaska was involved in an alcohol-fueled brawl. The “thrilla in Wasilla,” some called it. One might, however, have expected the laughter to die down after local police released audio of Bristol Palin who described through hysterical tears how she had been assaulted, dragged through the grass, and robbed. It did not.

    Today, evil is not merely tolerated. It is promoted and rallied around.

    • #16
  17. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    MarciN:I used to worry at night, but now I make a list of the things are okay. :)

    That’s a good way to use up all that extra white space on the back of your Chinese fortune slip.

    • #17
  18. Misthiocracy Member
    Misthiocracy
    @Misthiocracy

    Tom Meyer, Ed.: What Keeps You Up At Night?

    Anxiety about my own errors and shortcomings at my job.

    That’s about it.

    • #18
  19. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Funny, I don’t even think about my job when I’m at my job.

    • #19
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.