Mark Steyn is such an entertaining writer that it's conflicting when he delivers bad news. He always makes a good point, though. And Twilight of the West is one such article.
Most of us can see the problems the country faces. And many of hope, perhaps naively, that a change in presidential administrations will at least provide some help. But Steyn thinks the problem is systemic. Excerpt:
That’s to say, the unsustainable “bubble” is not student debt or subprime mortgages or anything else. The bubble is us, and the assumptions of entitlement. Too many citizens of advanced Western democracies live a life they have not earned, and are not willing to earn. Indeed, much of our present fiscal woe derives from two phases of human existence that are entirely the invention of the modern world. Once upon a time, you were a kid till you were 13 or so; then you worked; then you died. That bit between childhood and death has been chewed away at both ends. We invented something called “adolescence” that now extends not merely through the teenage years but through a desultory half decade of Whatever Studies at Complacency U up till you’re 26 and no longer eligible for coverage on your parents’ health-insurance policy. At the other end of the spectrum, we introduced something called “retirement” that, in the space of two generations, has led to the presumption that able-bodied citizens are entitled to spend the last couple of decades, or one-third of their adult lives, as a long holiday weekend.
It's the sense of entitlement that too many people have. If their votes will keep the money flowing then that's they way they will vote. And the politicians who pander to them will be the ones who get elected. That theory has been around for a long time, and maybe it's going to play out.
But on the other side are the people who believe that the U.S. really isn't just a failed 200 year experiment in the long history of human endeavors but that the U.S. doesn't just symbolize but embraces individuals' freedom to pursue their livelihood with minimal government interference. It's no more possible to predict the long term future than to predict the weather in the long term. But this faction of the population is in resurgence at the moment. And with perseverance they'll prevail.
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