Pew research polls show that on the eve of another national election, only 29 percent of Americans are happy with the direction the country is going.
What direction is that? The cowardly Republicans and the lazy, narcissistic Obama have no answer. That’s part of the problem. There is no decisive direction in which anyone is even attempting to take us.
The United States clearly lacks a leader. Obama is a petulant, compulsive golf-playing entitled brat. Republicans like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are the typical “Please-like-me” / “deer caught in the headlights” sort of Republicans that party has almost always produced.
Where are the 71 percent when you need them? When it comes time to cut spending — or even cut the rate of increase in government spending, which is all that has ever been debated thus far? How about real cuts in spending? How about closing down entire federal departments, getting government the hell out of the way and letting economic freedom (as well as personal liberty) again become the dominant trend?
We have no Thomas Jefferson, no George Washington and no Thomas Paine to lead us. Realistically, we can’t expect such leaders most of the time. But must all of our pseudo-leaders be so far off the mark?
And how much of this is the American people’s fault? Leadership would consist of defining a goal and explaining why it’s necessary.
At present, the United States continues to raise its “debt limit” into the stratosphere. Trillions and trillions of dollars in not-yet-created wealth (we’re counting on most of our grandchildren to produce it) are being used not on some limited, life-or-death task (e.g., the Civil War or World War II) but simply to keep constituents happy so politicians can stay in power. Republican or Democrat, they’re all about spending and what used to be called excessive “pork.” Yesterday’s pork is today’s entitlement, and those entitlements are growing (particularly since Obama) at a mind-numbing, exponential rate.
Read some economics. Our currency isn’t backed by any kind of objective reality, such as a gold standard. It’s all fiat currency, backed by the “full faith and credit” of American government institutions. That means politicians. That means people like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Boehner, and all the others. Are you really willing to put your survival and economic well-being into the hands of people like this, you 71 percent who claim to be disgusted with them?
Americans need a leader, and probably most of the 71 percent disgusted with our present state even yearn for one. What would a real leader say?
One thing a leader is supposed to do is call people on their contradictions. In the present situation it would go like this. “You can’t have it both ways, America. You complain that Congress is spending like there’s no tomorrow. You want Santa Claus. You say ‘yes’ to every government program proposed. Yet when it comes time to even talk about cutting the rate of increase in these programs, you won’t support the minority of politicians who attempt to do so. Sure, the interest groups who want their particular million or billion dollar subsidies have disproportionate say in any particular case. But why won’t the majority — the 71 percent who claim to be disgusted with business as usual — back up the politicians who try to make the cuts?”
It’s fine to say politicians have to grow a spine when it comes to spending, debt and government coercion out of control. But who’s to give them that spine, if not (at least in part) the voters? What business do 71 percent of us have feeling disgusted with the “direction” people like Obama — and Republicans too, for that matter — are “leading” us if we won’t support any effort to go in the opposite direction?
Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable. Nobody wants to face this fact. Each party exists to be a scapegoat for the other; yet nobody will stand up and articulate the hard truth — particularly to people in their 20s and 30s — that these programs will not be around in the future, and legislation must be passed starting now to privatize these sectors of the economy. It’s a complex issue, and a lot of debate and thinking will be required. But how can anyone living outside of a mentally projected bubble question this as the goal?
These are the kind of things that real leaders would be talking about.
America really puzzles me. On the one hand, you have nearly three-quarters of the population who don’t like what government is doing. But you probably have the same amount who shriek, complain and express outrage at the tiniest hint of cutting anything (other than defense), or facing the basic economic (not to mention moral) flaws and contradictions in our whole entitlement-Medicare-Social Security bankrupt state.
It’s almost as if on the emotional level, people get it. “This isn’t right. None of this can be right, none of it can last,” perhaps a majority of otherwise frightened people are able to sense, but won’t articulate. That’s what leaders are for. To articulate what you’re struggling to think or figure out, even when the truth hurts. Obama, to those who fell for him, turned out to be as far from a leader as we could get. He even makes George W. Bush look tolerable, something I personally never conceived possible. Obama, who was supposed to stand for “change,” only succeeded in instilling and implementing more of the same that had gone before him.
In a strange way, even Obama’s emotions (as presented to the public) make a certain kind of sense. Obama comes across as petulant, defensive and annoyed. He’s also patronizing. You get the distinct impression you’re bothering him, particularly if you suggest that he is in any way accountable for anything that ever happens. Well, no wonder. He probably feels like he’s simply giving the people what they want. He knows they want it, because they easily reelected him for it and even now his policies of big spending are no different (in fundamental direction) from what his opposition party proposes. He probably wonders, “What’s wrong with you people? Will you never be satisfied?”
These are some of the reasons why I blame the current fiscal and economic/social decline of America not mainly on the politicians so much as the people themselves. Anyone in that 71 percent who express disgust with the direction of our country at present have no business continuing to support — or even tolerating — the spending and regulating our economy into gradual though certain and eventual oblivion, on our present course.
It doesn’t matter one bit if Republicans re-take the Senate or not this week, not if we don’t change fundamental direction. That won’t happen without leadership calling for complete course reversals on economic and government matters. And that won’t happen without a majority willing to support that leadership in taking us where we’ll eventually have to go anyway.
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