Unfortunately, "interesting times" are here

I worry for this country. I worry for my kids. And I worry for a world in which a submissive American foreign policy creates a power vacuum the assorted bad players throughout the world will be only too happy to fill.

“May you live in interesting times” is the way the ancient Chinese curse goes. Well things are getting pretty interesting lately.

The stock market’s tanking, banks are failing, pension plans are becoming insolvent, people have stopped spending, our Big Three car makers are crashing and retail stores are beginning to feel the pinch and the weak sisters are beginning to close. Our Congress just agreed to spend $800 billion as part of a stimulus, which does little actual immediate stimulation and, in fact, primarily rewards Democrat special interests. Property values are plummeting and our President just announced plans for massive tax increases on businesses, investors, utilities and ordinary citizens. Several states have been forced to near-insolvency by their free-wheeling spending habits coming face-to-face with the hard reality of declining revenues and, oh yeah, a class war is brewing as the government makes plans to take from the “haves” and give to the “have-nots.”

Have I left out anything? Oh, yeah, the unemployment problem is probably just getting started as cutbacks and belt-tightening are not enough to save many struggling companies which may have overreached during boom times. Higher unemployment means more people receiving government benefits, and, hence, fewer people available to buy the non-necessities which seem to power this economy. We’re digging ourselves a multi-trillion dollar hole from which our children may never be able to escape.And thanks to our preoccupation, Iran is building the bomb, North Korea is testing an ICBM and strategic supply routes are being cut off as countries go for the bigger, better deal.

Interesting times, indeed.

And to top it all off, we’re worked ourselves into such a apoplectic, polarized fury that we can’t even talk about it. Democrats have made clear their “we won, so get over it” stance and Republicans can only provide opposition, without articulating any alternate plans of their own. Democrats and Republicans alike are content to wallow in their own echo chambers, fiddling in righteous certainty, while the United States burns.

It should be clear to one and all that we are in trying financial times. It should likewise be clear that we can’t continue such profligate spending. And it should go without saying that we can’t recover from a financial meltdown by hamstringing the very people and corporations we depend on to revive the economy.

But we can’t even agree on that. Businesses and corporations are the enemy in this new world, evil overlords who exist merely to keep their heels upon the downtrodden workers. It’s time they got their just desserts, right? Hmmm, where have I heard that before? From the Communist Manifesto, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez…heck, even Eva Peron!

People on the left were justly worried that during the Bush years, freedoms were being eroded. They were right in expressing concern that the Patriot Act and various executive orders were giving the government too much oversight over the populace. I salute them for it.

I can’t understand, however, how those same people can blithely allow the government to assume even more control of their lives. Government health care (see how well that’s working out with the VA), government subsistence (expanded welfare) and governmental allocation of our resources (restricted drilling, mining, energy production, except through marginal “green” technologies) should be raising red flags in any freedom-loving Americans. As far as I can see, the only thing the “stimulus” serves to grow is government – even those “shovel-ready” projects are government projects.

One ideology’s suffocating nanny state is another’s comforting feather bed, I guess.

And the media, which should be facilitating the dialogue, seems more interested in phoning in the various talking points than looking at the problems. We can’t even be intellectually honest enough to talk about it – we’re too worried about power and scoring points against the opposition to worry about the actual course of the country.

Continuing on its current course, my kids stand to inherit a second-rate nation in which mediocrity is encouraged through onerous taxes on achievers and indolence is rewarded through state-sponsored benefits. They’ll inherit a country where those in government get a slap on the wrist for violating the law while the rest of us are jailed. And they’ll inherit a former Republic where the best and most rewarding job they can hope for is a cushy position in the government…and maybe eventually a spot in the Politburo!

Such a dream, comrades! More accurately, a nightmare for these “interesting times.”