Timothy Birdnow

In a recent post by Dana Mathewson about the decline of America, an interesting discussion broke out in the message section. It is reproduced here.

Bill H. says:

"...by giving governments too much power over our lives."
I think that oversimplifies and, in fact, is only a small part of the problem. Today's generations suffer from moral, mental, and physical laziness. They believe in the proposition of the "participation trophy." They favor socialism because they think it means that no one has to work for a living. They think that they should not have to learn how to make change because the cash register will do that for them. That think that information comes from Twitter. A pox on them. Dana Mathewson replies:

Bill, I think it's all part of the same problem. When we got lazy, we said "Let the government do it." We didn't use to think that way. Not all of us, anyhow.

In my youth, which was back when Nash cars were becoming AMC products and before the Edsel was born, the capsule definition of a conservative was "one who believed the government existed to do for the people those things the people could not do for themselves: provide armed forces, police services, fire departments, and things like that." A liberal was one who believed that the government should provide things they could do more easilythan the people could do for themselves: which included the above plus schools, "health care," eventually leading to all the wondrous things they are doing now which include control over city zoning, what kind of light bulbs we can and cannot buy, and... well, you name it and I know you can. Back in my day control over much of that was not considered except by a few people, but they dreamed their dreams and now here we are.
In my youth the Interstate Highway system was being built little over a mile away from my home. And we also had high-speed rail: the New York Central Railroad had steam-driven freight highballing over 80 mph a dozen times a day both east and west, and it wasn't unusual for the Nickel Plate RR to have one blasting one way or the other at the same time. The sound was wonderful. But as Hanson says, what do we build now?

This from Tim:

Hanson's right. Look at anything we do and it is inferior to the past. Music? What notable music has America produced in the last twenty, thirty, fifty years? Art? The only thing we do nowadays is science, but even that is now often fraudulent and politically motivated aka global warming.

It was why Trump's proposal to buy Greenland was such a breath of fresh air; at least HE is still thinking about expanding, growing, doing something. Of course it would never happen because Congress would never fund it, and the People would never approve of spending money on something tangible when they could be given it in some sort of subsidy. Our nation has become sclerotic, an ossified society.

I trace this back directly to the decline of Christianity in America; we no longer have something that transcends our personal desires, and are unwilling to discommode ourselves for a greater cause.

Speaking of Trump, he is rather like the Emperor Diocletian, the last gasp of the old order trying to stop the decline. I fear he is destined to fail.

Look at Imperial China; it was as ossified as America, and the world passed it by. It was ripe for Communism, as the Chinese People had lost their moorings. Drug use - particularly opium - was rampant (sort of like our Opioid epidemic), there was a huge wealth gap between rich and poor, the imperial government regulated everything it did not ban, and everyone had lost their faith in the old belief systems, Confucianism, Janism, Buddhism. Now China is a powerful country, but does anybody want to live there? And how long will this spurt of creative energy last? I believe China is like a dandelion, here today and gone tomorrow. We are much the same.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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