Is the System of Democracy Toast?
Commentary published one of the most comprehensive articles I've ever read regarding the decline of France (it has been reprinted in the WSJ). It details everything from uncontrolled immigration to the near insane Welfare State, together with a detailed critique of their political "system" thrown in for good measure.
I can't pick apart what is obviously a comprehensive view of France. However, in the broadest sense, it is not just France that is in decline. Articles about "declines" are simply we Americans looking down our noses at others so we can spend another month or two pretending we are better than "they" are. "We didn't have no Napoleon," means zilch in the grand scheme of things.
The awful fact is that it is not only France that is in decline, it is the idea of Democracy itself that is slipping into the abyss and I don't think there is any way to stop the fall because we don't want to recognize what we are doing to ourselves. Everything wrong with France is also "wrong" in every Democracy on the globe. We are all prisoners of arrogant bureaucracies, politicians whom we all allow to pander to our fears, tax sucking state welfare systems (that we are all entitled to), and standing by while the cumbersome (and expensive) education hierarchies suck up more and more of less and less. That they turn out people who will hate their own country is just shrugged off.
We are the problem. The new prez of France, Sarkozy, will not move any further than the client population will allow, which means all movement will be illusionary. The (it's always) Left students are striking as I write this; striking over the results of an honest election that they don't like. You can bet the French will not allow any decrease in entitlements---the free this and free that---guaranteed incomes, and the sacred thirty five hour work week. All are all set in stone.
No President of the U.S. can do anything other than throw more and more money into entitlements. Our entitlement class will never just stand by and allow the elimination of any of their own entitlements. In fact the baby boomers are about to destroy the entire economy so their useless aging bodies can survive a month or two longer than they normally would because the tax payers will furnish them with free drugs that actually cost $10,000 per dose.
Democracy may be over, and that is what is scary. It may well be that Democracy is a system that cannot sustain itself past several hundred years. The "people" take over and sack their own countries, debase their own histories, and allow foreign populations to take over. Take a look. The entire "free" world may well be on a slide into barbarism, be it an eighth century Muslim theocracy, a supposedly benign Brave New World socialist dictatorship, or just plain anarchy. Mexifornia means the end of our culture.
Nobody ever said that this "noble experiment" had to last forever.
5 comments:
I agree with your point. Pardon me if this is ankle-biting, but I disagree with "We are the problem". There are plenty of Americans in the United States. It's another group, let's call them "Europeans", who have demanded the growing welfare state. (My Japanese wife is a "European". We don't discuss politics.) Billy Beck may be right; it may well be too late for us to vote ourselves out of this problem.
The Founding Fathers knew over two centuries ago that a pure democracy or a democract with unlimited government powers would self destruct in short time. We used to all learn that in grade school. Now the MSM calls for more power in government whenever they discover any problem at all. Why do you think all these limits on what the majority could do to the individual (the smallest minority) and all the checks and ballances were about. Taming the beast - political power - even if it the power of the freely elected majority.
Unfortunately mass democracy is broken by design, because it allows people to vote themselves their neighbour's money. As Alexander Tytler pointed out a couple of hundred years ago, 'democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'
I believe just about every mass democracy on the planet is clearly heading towards collapse due to loose fiscal policy, and they're rapidly heading towards dictatorship. The EU, for example, is barely distinguishable from a dictatorship already, and the Boomers will eagerly accept such a dictatorship so long as it promises them 'free stuff' for the rest of their lives.
Now, that's not to say that some couldn't be turned around, but once the majority come to see voting as a means of stealing other peoples' money, no candidate who opposes such actions can be elected. One potential solution, for example, would be to prohibit voting by government employees and those on welfare, but they would inevitably vote down anyone proposing such a change.
"free drugs that cost $10,000 per dose"......I need in on that deal as the insurance that I now have in addition to Medicare, (I'm signed in to the assistance program),has up until today paid $2000.00 toward my meds,and now I'm on my own for about $750.00 a month worth of meds,for the rest of the year(7 months).......How did I miss out?
Erbitux is $17000 per month (Martha Stewart's jail pill) and Zevalin runs $25,000 per month.
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