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The End of America
Pamela Geller traces death of the republic to 2 short words
The United States of America was created as an independent nation whose founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Freedom. Ayn Rand said that “freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion.” America was the first moral government based on individual rights, the nation of the Enlightenment.
In this age of Obama, that ideal has been tossed aside for … “free stuff.”
I have, for some time, struggled with the new reality: America void of her reason, existing without the reason for her existence, her morality. It did not seem possible. And yet what now seems impossible is that America ever was. As we revert back to the age of the primitive, the fact that America happened at all is nothing short of a miracle.
The United States of America was the rational man’s shining hour.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, N.J., recently wrote an analysis of the 2012 presidential election that is the best thing I have read on Romney’s election loss and the broader question of the loss of America.
“It is a different world,” wrote Pruzansky, “and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.” What kind of different America? Pruzansky’s explanation is devastating: “Romney lost,” he writes, “because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate.
wildriver
January 2nd, 2013
…”The United States of America was created as an independent nation whose founding ideal was the principle of individual rights.”…
More accurately said,
The United States was created as a nation of INDEPENDENT FREEMEN, based on the principle of individual rights.
Noodengr
January 2nd, 2013
I had so hoped that 2012 would be an election where those of us who believe in the founding principals would still be in a majority, but alas it was not so. This article reinforces that we have gone over that tipping point where ” free stuff” believers rule. GOD save the USA.
CrustyB
January 2nd, 2013
She’s exactly right. We exchanged “freedom” for “free stuff.” Nobody values freedom anymore, even though it was the core principle of this country.
No one says:
“We can’t enforce Obamacare. It would violate the freedom of business owners.”
“A gun ban would be immoral. That would intrude on the freedom of innocent buyers and sellers.”
“Tax the rich? They don’t owe more money just because the government can’t control their spending habits. Taking more of their money is a violation of their freedom.”
America is no longer the beacon of freedom in the world. Now we’re just another totalitarian, statist shithole.
F.D.R. in Hell
January 2nd, 2013
I hate to be a crepe-hanger, but your boy in the White House may not sign the “Fiscal Cliff Agreement” after all…
WARNING: America is up the River Styx without a paddle.
Eleanor in Hell
January 2nd, 2013
Franklin, you forgot to mention that Wall Street may be experiencing a premature Fiscal Cliff ejaculation.
Dr. Tar
January 2nd, 2013
Every day that I look, I recognize this nation less and less. I’m getting to where I can’t stand to look anymore.
Claudia
January 2nd, 2013
I have a friend who is in the financial world of employment. He handles retirement accounts for companies. Normally he is as conservative as most of us here, but for the life of me, I can’t understand his view on “the rich”.
His view is that taxing the rich more (higher rates) is ok because they shouldn’t be able to make so much more ‘on the backs of their workers’. I have argued with him till I can’t come up with any more – he is just impossibly stubborn. He thinks that rich CEOs are corrupt and don’t deserve their wealth.
My God, what happened to his normally functioning brain? If I see him again (we haven’t seen each other much lately) I’ll use CrustyB’s line:
“Tax the rich? They don’t owe more money just because the government can’t control their spending habits. Taking more of their money is a violation of their freedom.”
Doubt it would do any good…
Dr. Tar
January 2nd, 2013
@Claudia its zero sum game thinking. The concept that wealth is finite and the only way for the other guy to get ahead is to take it from me. Your gain is my loss. So when a successful person gains wealth others beleive that it comes at their expense.
Adam Smith and David Ricardo proved the falseness of this approach to economics a century ago. In reality we live in a positive sum game world. The concept that wealth can be grown by free markets and free choice. Your gain is also my gain – when you do well I also benefit. When you provide goods and services I am willing to buy you gain wealth. But I also benefit by buying your goods and services rather than make the item or do the task myself (or buy it from a competitor).
Think of how rich Bill Gates is – but did his wealth come at the expense of others? No, instead he provided the software tools that helped to make our computers that much more useful and added to the efficiency of work and communication for all of us. He did it by hiring people (at going labor rates) buying buildings and equiping them to do the work needed to offer a superior product to the public. Everyone has freedom – to work for MicroSoft or not, to buy MicroSoft product or not, etc.
Government is a zero sum game though. Think Obamacare. Do you feel like paying higher taxes and having your freedoms of choicing services / providers restricted and rationed increases your quality of life? Cause I think it is a form of enslavement and a taking of my freedom.
I don’t know if that helps, but that’s how I would explain the stupidity of hating the successful.
spymyeyes
January 2nd, 2013
This whole story and every comment so far is all complete and total bullshit!
How quickly everyone forgets that our election process is so fucking rigged that warlords in uganda take lessons from our gubbermint on how it is done.
Every single state had dead people, illegal aliens, and plain old made-up people, “vote”, EVERYONE KNOWS IT, yet still this crap is pushed about “free-stuff” mantra!
YES there are a shitload of slackers on the dole, but if you think “THEY” chose the prezzy then I got some ocean front property to sell you in the middle of a desert. “THEY” are too LAZY to vote for the most part, and the rest just don’t give a shit.
Look behind the thrown to see who REALLY uns things because it has been this way for a VERY long time now and most people will never understand it.
Menderman
January 2nd, 2013
iOTW should start a pool on when the next credit downgrade will happen. Since DC likes screwing up holidays, I say St. Valentines Day.
J Frank Parnell
January 2nd, 2013
That means the end of me as well. Not going to register or turn in a firearm no matter what heinousness happens.
It’s a death sentence. Dianne Feinstein is a Nazi and gun owners, the “rich,” and conservatives are the new Jews.
The Left is cancer.
J Galt
January 2nd, 2013
Spymyeyes nails it, folks.
The D and R political parties are two wings of the same bird. Candidates on both side are selected before they are elected. Election fraud is rampant.
The clear thinking eyes-wide-open people come to the same conclusion: fuck it.
Tim
January 2nd, 2013
“Of course the game is rigged. But that’s no reason not to play.”
(Dead White Guy)
Menderman
January 2nd, 2013
In the House 151 Republicans voted againts the latest bill, and only 16 Republicans voted for it. The idea of trashing every R because Boehner is a dick is ridicoulous. If your congressman is one of the 16, fire him/her, not the whole party.
Menderman
January 2nd, 2013
Edit: 85 R’s voted for it…13 dems voted against it.
J Galt
January 2nd, 2013
@Menderman
They all stink. Why are “Your” Republicans not taking real action on:
election fraud thoroughly documented is several states.
the meaning of natural born citizen
the meaning of inalienable rights
progressive income tax (from Marxism)
federal control over states rights
term limits
50 million aborted babies
border security
TSA and Homeland “security”
Federal Reserve control of the money
Menderman, people under 50 years old do not have enough frame of reference to measure the situation. If over 50 years old and still don’t get it, that’s a different problem.