NRO’s Andrew McCarthy gets it
You cannot cede the campus and the culture to the progressive, post-American Left for two generations and expect a different outcome. So even if Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter — and he has actually been much more effective, and therefore much worse — it is unreasonable to expect a Reagan-style landslide, and would be even if we had Reagan. The people coming of age in our country today have been reared very differently from those who were just beginning to take the wheel in the early 1980s. They have marinated in an unapologetically progressive system that prizes group discipline and narrative over free will and critical thought. […]
[T]he truth is increasingly irrelevant. Contemporary American politics is about emotion and perception. And this is a game Republicans will never win — and not, as they would have you believe, because the deck is stacked against them.
Certainly, the media, the academy, and most of our society’s major institutions are heavily influenced by progressives, if not outright controlled by them. It is therefore a given that elite opinion will portray Republicans as villains. Yet, that longstanding challenge for Republicans has never before been an insuperable one. In America, at least until now, the avant-garde has never been able to tame the public. It has always been possible to run against elite opinion and win — if you make a compelling counter-case. […]
As constituted, our government offered two visions of “providing for the general welfare.” First is the Madisonian principle that Congress’s capacity to tax and spend is strictly limited to its enumerated powers — which do not include running social-welfare programs. The second is a Hamiltonian gloss, giving Congress additional latitude, provided that its schemes benefit all Americans equally — which would preclude welfare programs that take from A for the benefit of B.
Once you abandon these moorings, once you accept a wealth-redistribution system in which government becomes the arbiter of “social justice,” the ball game is over. If government is given license to even the scales between the have-nots and the haves, the political incentive to even them will be constant and overpowering: Enough will never be enough.
Two generations is eqivalent to 50 years (g=25 years) or 40 (g=20 years) depending on whose measure you’re using.
From 1980 to the present is 32 years. Andrew needs a remedial arithmetic course.
leigh
someone who has begun to “take the wheels” in the 80’s was born in late 40’s early 50’s. Proggies didn’t completely dominate education/media until after the 60’s.
It’s not precise mathematically, but the cultural timeline is pretty apt.
What gives me some hope that even in progressive socialist Scandinavia, they are now heading in the less socialist direction and are arguably less socialist than the United States (at least on some things).
Then again, we might go the Greece-Spain route of economic collapse.
The people coming of age in our country today have been reared very differently from those who were just beginning to take the wheel in the early 1980s.
Darleen, this seems to speak to persons who are say, newly minted college grads like my son and your daughter.
My son is a classical liberal/libertarian. Many of his friends are full on Buchananites. Maybe it’s because we live in cowboy country (Oklahoma/Texas/Arkansas) but kids here are a lot like the kids I grew up with without the stupid idealism. I know my evidence is anecdotal, but there it is.
http://storify.com/TheRickWilson/contra-inevitability There is hope.
Then again, let’s look at the Gallup polls from 1980. It has some similarity to conditions today. But what would have been the result of that election is Anderson was not running? Wouldn’t more of those voters have broken for Carter? http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/09/flashback-gallup-had-carter-up-4-points-over-ronald-reagan-in-september-1980/ Who is the green party candidate again? http://grist.org/election-2012/green-partys-presidential-candidate-says-its-time-to-take-our-country-back/
Here’s a pretty cool article Overdose of Hope that’s scathing.
Cheers!
Mitt Romney reads McCarthy’s article:
http://bit.ly/P24joe
Here’s a pretty cool article Overdose of Hope
ROTFLMAO
You’re welcome.
Very nice, leigh. And Derb is as retiring a wallflower as ever: White People Are Pussies
Yes! I had forgotten to mention that Derb is over there, as well.
Suck it, Lowry.
Baby steps, George: https://twitter.com/mikeroweworks/status/244494476989575169
Regarding this.
I liked Mike Rowe’s letter in it attacks that completely BS notion that the only way to help kids to for them to pursue esoteric degrees on government loans and then find out they are unemployable with these new found “skills” cannot get rid of them short of dying.
There is a reason heroin and meth pushers tend to give the first hits to someone for free.
Derbyshire is funny in that article. And George, your point is well made.
Pablo
I [heart] Mike Rowe. Have watched Dirty Jobs whenever I can over the years.
and he is absolutely spot on with the “skills gap” thing.
Home Depot/Lowe’s not withstanding, I’m absolutely floored how many people not only do NOT have a level in their home, they have no clue what one looks like or how to use it.
I should clarify they can’t get rid of the loans short of dying, the “skills” were not worth anything to begin with so whether they are lost or not doesn’t really matter.
Permanent and total disability which takes two years to document will also get the loans forgiven.
So, the govt. owns the entire Student Loan industry. The govt.-run schools encourage people to get all manner of useless degrees in Asterisk-Studies, or in #julia’s case, Graphic Design (he said bitterly, as a woefully underemployed graphic designer), running up huge debt in the process. Which is near-impossible to get out of paying back.
The govt. is creating it’s very own, if not slaves, at least long-term indentured servants — which is nice trick if you can manage it.
A modern-day Tennessee Ernie Ford should write a song about it or something.
Well, Barack is closing down the coal mines so something has to take up the soul-owning slack.
Hell was always a big government type place.
As I incorrectly stated elsewhere…
In fact, I could argue that the Govt. is running a sort of drug-pusher business model with education: “First 12 years are free, kid, but if you want the really good stuff after that, it’s gonna cost you!”
Thankfully, most people have a natural immunity to the product, but some poor souls (see the lovely-and-mannish Ms. Fluke, recent graduate of 25th Grade) develop quite the taste for the goods, often to their personal ruin.
“Why do you think they call it dope?”
I voted for Mike Rowe in 2008. I will likely write in his name again in November. I hope this back-and-forth over the recent open letter to Romney will open people’s eyes and sweep Mr. Rowe into the White House this winter.
We could do a lot worse.