By Patrick J. Buchanan
Are Europe and America headed to where Athens is today?
To answer the question, consider what brought Greece to where she is — running a deficit of 14 percent of gross domestic product with a debt approaching 100 percent, with Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Great Britain not that far behind.
How did this happen?
Protected by the United States through a half-century of Cold War, Europe cut back on defense and ratcheted up spending for La Dolce Vita.
All of Europe adopted universal health care. All voted in a shorter workweek, a higher minimum wage, greater job security, earlier retirements and munificent pensions.
As the cradle-to-grave welfare states rose, an ever-increasing share of the labor force left the private sector for the security of the public sector.
Tax-consumers, the beneficiaries of the welfare states and the bureaucrats that ran them, grew in number, as taxpayers declined as a share of the labor force. Though Greece was far from the most productive nation in Europe, Athens led the parade.
After the baby boom ended, the pill arrival in the 1960s. Then came abortion on demand in the 1970s.
The fertility rate of Greece and every European nation fell below the 2.1 births per woman needed to replace an existing population. Greece’s birth rate has been below zero population growth for three decades.
Result: In Year 2000, Greece had just under 11 million people and a median age of 38. In 2050, Greece is projected to have just under 11 million people, but the median age will be 50.
Were Greece a company, the solution would be bankruptcy.
But Greece is a country. And a bailout of $141 billion is being put together by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Why? Because, should Greece decide not to take a chain saw to her welfare state, but walk away from her debts and default, she would blow a hole in the balance sheets of the biggest banks in Europe.
Then the banks would have to be bailed out.
Seeing Greece’s bondholders being burned, terrified holders of Portuguese and Spanish debt would start dumping their bonds, forcing Madrid and Lisbon to pay a higher interest rate both to sell new bonds and roll over the old ones coming due. Rather than savage their welfare state programs, and risk riots in the streets and a massacre at the polls, Madrid and Lisbon, too, might look agreeably at default.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, though exasperated with the Greeks, is urging Germans to back the $141 billion bailout: “Nothing less than the future of Europe … is at stake.”
Merkel believes there is no alternative. But there is an alternative — a restructuring of Greece’s debt or a default where the holders of Greek bonds suffer the fate of the holders of bonds from Lehman Brothers and General Motors.
Inevitably, this is what is going to happen.
For how long will Greeks work longer, retire later and live on smaller pensions, so holders of Greek bonds can get their interest payments right on time?
The EU and IMF may, with the bailout of Greece, kick this can up the road. But the crisis will return. For the nations of Europe have made commitments beyond their capacity to keep, given their growing debts and aging populations.
And America is not all that far behind.
While the federal deficit is not 14 percent of GDP, it was 10 percent in 2009 and may reach 11 percent in 2010. Trillion-dollar deficits are projected through the decade, bringing the public debt — held by citizens, companies, foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds — close to 100 percent of GDP.
And the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and federal pensions rival those of Western Europe.
States like California and New York, larger than Greece, look a lot like Greece. Were it not for the scores of billions dished out to them by Obama’s stimulus, some of these states would have come close to the brink New York City went over in 1975.
Many of these states are today laying off teachers, letting felons out of prison, and looking hard at the salaries and pensions of civil servants. While the temptation is great for Washington to bail them out again, the United States government itself has now begun to attract the concerned notice of holders of U.S. debt.
That we are witnessing Oswald Spengler’s “Decline of the West” seems undeniable.
La Dolce Vita is coming to an end. The ever-expanding European and American welfare states of the 20th century will contract in the 21st. Some have already begun to shrink. A time of austerity is at hand.
Indeed, what is about to be tested is democracy itself.
Can democracies that attracted universal applause in the golden years of rising expectations impose upon their citizens the enduring and painful sacrifices necessary in a time of retrenchment?
We are about to find out.
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With Pat’s grasp of history, and logic as regards economics, it would make good sense if some administration would take him on as an adviser.
But no, that’s not what it is all about. It is not the past or the future, it is the now. Can we survive now? The future will belong to another administration. Let them worry about it. Let me get mine now.
We have laws built into our Constitution. Let’s start enforcing them. How much is the illegal alien debacle damaging our economy? What about phony wars fought for criminal foreigners? We’ve gotta get a grip.
Today in a senate hearing, one of the senators said we have a $2 trillion dollar bank. Among the 5 largest banks in the U.S., they control over 60% of our GDP. And yet, Republicans moan and groan about social security that pays a person who has worked all their lives, a few hundred bucks a month.
Republicans cry and snivel because poor and middle class people might need to see a doctor but because of the consolidation of wealth at the top and the extortion rates for health care, they can’t afford it and so the government steps in.
Republicans moan and groan about unemployment insurance – and providing people with some pocket change to keep them going in a labor market that has been decimated by the corporate export of jobs and production and the massive import of foreign workers.
And then… they go to church on Sunday and sit in the front pew and think that they are good Christians.
You make me sick.
eyeswideopen,
Sounds to me as though you want everyone else to foot the bill for you. Government is to keep law and order. It is out of bounds when it takes money from my paycheck in order to give it to a winer like yourself.
I think that Pat’s is off. One wonders if his own contributions to this blog are not just necessary political fluff…
First, I would suggest that the decline being described is more in the line of Wilhelm Marr rather than Spengler.
Secondly, there are separate situations in Western Europe and the PIIGS, and again, separate circumstances for the U.S.
PIIGS jumped into the whole credit default swaps and literal junking of their economy because the U.S. and Western Europe pushed them there. Anyone who knows about Operation Gladio, the Strategy of Tension or the details of American involvement in the PIIGS knows that the U.S. has treated those countries much like it treats Latin America. It destabilizes in anyway possible to prevent popular government- backs coups, bribes, assassinates, backs radical groups, coups, etc.
The current president of Greece Papandreou in fact was reared and educated in the U.S. and like his father before him was widely held to be a U.S. stooge who mouthed nationalism and leftism as he kept Greece in line with the U.S. during a shaky period when anti-American left and anti-American right forces were popular. The current Papandreou determined instead to be present a “pragmatic” and to work for the U.S. who assisted him to take office in Greece (cynically claiming that his father was a champion of Greek liberty in the face of U.S. pressure and that he would also stand up, by leading Greece into Europe’s orbit.)
Instead he lead Greece deliberately into the hands of the infamous Zionist bankers of the IMF. And so did the other PIIGS leaders.
What we are watching is American and European Zionists gobble up the PIIGS. They tried to do the same thing to Eastern Europe until nations like the Ukraine realized the game being played and chased away the greasy lackeys, Soros and his Open Societies Institute, the IMF, the WB, British Council and the other agents of Zionism and went crawling back to Russia.
Western Europeans bankers are standing beside Rothschild, hoping that they can get some crumbs of the PIIGS as their own economies fail.
The truth is that Western Europe was given a reprieve at the end of WWI by the Old Guard in the U.S., that is, the old WASP elite. They took part as junior partners to the continued rape of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Being denuded of resources themselves this was all-important. But that was partly a function of America bribing Western Europe because of the Soviet Union and the strong leftward pull of Western European workers.
But now in Western Europe the factories are all gone, their entire existence privatized into the hands of Zionist monopolies for a pittance. The 30 pieces of silver that Margaret Thatcher and her German and French counterparts secured are now all spent. And lo and behold, the Natives of much of Latin America and Asia and even some parts of Africa have decided that they don’t want to be debt slaves anymore. And you would never know who those people have to thank for their fledgling freedom. George Bush.
That is because even while Bush took up the Zionist war in Iraq and Afghanistan, he did so because his people had an interest in securing the oil and poppy fields (a Bush family tradition.) Bush also had an interest in finding a way to appease the Zionists. What Bush did not do however was to go along with the Zionist plan for Latin America. Instead of supporting the normal IMF, IADB, WB groups, he funded his own groups of venture imperialists with the the IRI using NED money. The Zionist had a hand but not complete control. And while they squabbled Bush held the normal instruments of power away, refusing to lend them to support the Zionist banking industry. This meant that Zionists in Latin America had to fight for themselves. But Latin Americans, moreso than Americans know the evil their domestic Zionists do. The wealthy Zionists of Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires and Caracas also have to contend with Arab, Sicilian, Spanish and German expatriot communities, less affluent than the Jews but knowledgeable of who they contend with. And the Indians in Latin America have a special sense for Zionist perfidy. In Africa and Asia this also plays out, for various other reasons.
So the Europeans will not be able to depend upon crumbs from the Zionist master’s table. And the Zionist are in no mood to offer them. After all, Europeans are no longer as scary and unpredictable. The Zionist are looking past Europeans to their other enemies. Europeans decline now because as a tool they are less useful and as a threat they are less troublesome- and thus the decline.
Well put Auberon. The power of the cabal is almost complete.
Another wake-up call directed toward irresponsible governments and their citizens.
The stark realities enumerated in this article have been on the way for a long, long time. Governments that have created socialist based programs are loathe to admit that they didn’t pay proper attention to historical evidence and think things through before they acted. Taking benefits away from citizens who have become used to what is too freely doled out by the nanny state is a good way to have riots in the street.
Sadly, the extreme willingness to gravitate toward a life of ease is a character flaw within far too many members of the human race. We define this as a lack of character that is evidenced by being lazy, selfish and irresponsible.
Isn’t it possible that the entire theory of socialism/communism was never actually based on altruistic factors or what is best for the citizens of a nation. When all is said and done isn’t it merely a political ploy to take advantage of these flaws in the human character in order to attract and maintain support for a political candidate or party?
Governments based on the ‘nanny state’ programs of socialism eventually self destruct. This also applies to a government that was founded as a Republic but acts like a Democracy.
All that is required is for enough voters to support the political ploy of socialist nirvana. Remember; the piper who plays the socialist tune must eventually be paid! Are you paying attention America?
Riiiiiiight, Aub-Moron, it’s all the fault of Zionists who control America. The rest of us are all blameless saintly victims.
When the Asian financial crisis hit, South Koreans all went into collective patriotic and self-sacrifice mode and worked together to save their country. They understood the necessity for cuts and scaling back in both public and private sector. They weathered the storm and came back–against the prognostications of most experts. But then, South Korea had been less socialized and had a hardier and tougher people. Tougher in accepting the nature of the crisis and in their resolve to collectively do something about it.
The Greeks, on the other hand, seem only tough in demanding more good-times-on-the-government-dole. There is no sense of personal or collective responsibility for the mess they are in. The message of the entire nation is only “Gimme what’s mine and screw you”. They may drape their craven demands with high-minded socialist rhetoric about workers’ rights and so forth and so on, but they aren’t fooling anyone. They are just lazy bums who want to live nice and easy at the expense of other nations that work harder and produce more wealth.
The Greeks may have been TEMPTED with easy financing by US and EU in past yrs, but they were Not forced into anything. They chose it as the short-term easy way to put off the future and live good.
Israel too has been received lots of funds from the West but it has a far more productive private sector because it still has people who want to work, compete, and make things whereas Greeks only want to coast and take it easy.
A childish people. Crass and petulant. A Greek tragedy? More like a Greek farce.
@Andrea, you know what is pitiful? When a profoundly ignorant loser like you embarrasses yourself. Do you write these meaningless non-sequiturs and idiotic mis-characterizations just for pity?
And “Aub-Moron?” “Riiiight?” Seriously Andrea, stop making a fool of yourself in public.
Spend some time embracing your limitations. If not, there can only be one way for you to relieve yourself of your obvious inadequacy, self hatred and insecurity. Choose life champ.
Aub-moron the submoron, go back to Holocaust Denial, dumbass.
Auberon,
I actually thought “Aub-moron” was pretty clever.
But anyway, you have an interesting point of view, though many ideas I disagree with (not necessarily in these posts, but in those for other stories). What I’m wondering is, and I am entirely in earnest here, is what you see the world looking like in say… 25 years. What will America be like, according to you, in 25 year?
And more importantly, who in this world (as generally speaking as you can) is good, and who is evil?
-T
Auberon…………Andrea lives in Tel Aviv, and we are her hobby?……Ha-Ha!
You know what I love? That Andrea went immediately to “holocaust denial”. I never went there but thanks for making it clear to everyone that you are one of those who immediately do. Priceless!
The fact that Andrea thinks those words will have such resonance in itself tells a whole story that I don’t want to get in the way of.
@tsearles- I think what you think is clever is, in this case doesn’t do you justice. Admittedly I have been dazzled by the wit of insult-name rhyming some years back, originally when I found I could do part of the “7 x table” by pulling down a correlating finger. Perhaps I wearied too quickly. If only Andrea put the thought he used to arrive at “Nyx Hemera”.
Those two topics were extraordinarily well chosen. I’m going to get back to you with that but I definitely have some ideas, as I am sure you do. Please feel free to go first.
@roho lmao! You jest my friend but the Zionist state (okay that would be half the world now including the U.S. but I mean Israel) and Zionist groups throughout the world actually employ a large, committed, well funded network of internet watchers and propagandist. If this is questioned I will provide ample support of this but it is no secret. Most of you I assume have come upon articles about this.
What is also out there is the efforts by Zionist groups to scour for information on the web and to use tactics to disrupt and disable information they don’t want out there as well as attacking those who post it. (This site is no stranger to these attacks.)
Sometimes they are heavy handed, sometimes more subtle and sophisticated. By sheer effort and commitment there is no real competition from the other 99.9% of the world let alone the 98.2% of Americans. I wonder if the tables will the tables turn.
I think Andrea is a Hasbarat. They are infesting most websites this days as Zionist are feeling more and more threatened as they become even more active.
I wonder if Pat reads these comments. I can see him now… shaking his head, staring at us through his spectacles and grumbling to himself… “Holocaust deniers, Zionists, people going to church making people sick, sub-moronic name callings, winers, etc, grumble grumble….. I’m talking about end of La Dolce Vita and you guys are livin la vida loca.”
And I thought these comments were moderated.
Seattle: Pat is a realist and is aware of all the contentions going on in the world. Zionists are real. Holocaust deniers are real. The talks are moderated, what you are wanting maybe is denial of freedom of speech or expression. Tell us: Whose comments do you want excluded?
No, I am not against freedom of speech. I just think childish bickering shouldn’t really be a part of a forum. Name calling is usually moderated, and a reoccurring theme in these articles have been people getting personal and if all else fails, pull the holocaust denier card out of left field. Other than that, I get great info from the comments that I don’t get from the articles and I read them all and appreciate them.
Cheers.
Auberon: Your language reminds me of my Intelligence days. This is a level of international finance not even imagined by most American citizens and those hearing or reading it for the first would think the authors should be wearing an Aluminum Foil cap and hiding out in closets or telephone booths avoiding the CIA.
I think the simplest explanation of the propaganda being sown out there is to let the American public know that Andrea Mitchell who we hear on the news daily bad-mouthing and calling for war with Iran is the wife of Alan Greenspan. Does that give anyone a clue? It’s a crazy world we live in and a very deceptive one. Wheels within wheels.
Mr. Buchanan is absolutely right. After WW11 and during the “cold war”, the American defense budget provided an opportunity/ umbrella for socialist to pursue their utopian policies/dreams.
In my opinion, America is at a crossroad and there is no turning back. We awoke too late! You cannot have universal health care and all these socialist programs and still have the best military in the world. In order for these policies to work, we would have to give the military role to the U.N.. Multi-national forces would then police the NWO, including the good old USA, if they still call it that by then.
Are we willing to do this? Its already happening. Our Constitution is the last remaining original western document. It has been disregarded in many aspects.
How did this happen? Well I think I know. Here is my list:
1. States lost civil war*
2. Central banking/ federal reserve
3. The New Deal
4. Civil Rights/ minority status
5. Immigration and Nationality act Amendments of 1965
The new immigrants qualify for minority status. Minority status is a socialist trick. All minorities qualify for government funded/ tax payer programs. The international has changed us from within. We are the international.
The way I see it, if your a citizen and have the right to vote, then your in the majority. If your not a citizen or don’t have the right to vote, your in the minority. But thats not how it works, because there are more poor whites than there are poor blacks; originally. There are more poor people of color than there are poor whites because of immigration. Can you imagine if whites were classified as Irish, Polish, German Americans etc…. We would all be minorities! Any way, so much for diversity.
The Soviet Union tried to have it both ways. Social programs and military supremacy. look what happen to them. As soon as oil prices sky- rocket, we’re going bankrupt! The trap has already been set. Only Sen. Ron Paul can save us!
*note: Slavery was immoral, especially in a “free society”. The international high jacked the African Americans righteous cause. Thats why they raise their fist. Not for black power, but for solidarity with international socialism!
Going back to sleep, so I can live the American dream. Some times I think I’m so far right, I have to be wrong!
The Good Life?
We live in an energy universe: Those who control the energy control the world. Those who control the world are the ones who have a semblance of the good life. For the rest the good life is an illusion.
The Good Life and Defining Evil
Evil is merely the degradation of life.
Who Are The Evil Ones?
1) From a political perspective, the evil ones are those who make laws that do not apply to them or they create laws that are solely beneficial to themselves.
2) From an economic perspective, the evil ones are those who engage in usury.
3) From a religious perspective, the evil ones are those who preach one thing and do the opposite.
4) From a social perspective, the evil ones are those who do not respect another’s color, race, religion, politics, ethnicity or lower or higher economic status.
5) From a human perspective, the evil ones are those who think they are the chosen ones of a creator god and all others are sub-human.
The Good Life and the Church
Compare, for a moment, the Church to the Hospital: The Chief Clergyman is the head of the Church just as the Chief Medical Administrator is the head of the hospital.
The Chief Clergyman is the chief surgeon of the soul just as the Chief Medical Administrator is the chief surgeon of the physical body.
If the Chief Administrator of the hospital either allows non-qualified doctors to service patients or shunts non-qualified doctors to branch hospitals in order to hide the doctors’ lack of qualification then either the hospital is not a true hospital or the Chief Administrator is an imposter.
Conversely, if the Chief Clergyman of a church either allows pedophiles to service parishioners or shunts them off to other branches of the church in order to hide the truth about those pedophiles then either the Church is not a true church or the Chief Clergyman is an imposter.
To define evil is to deal effectively with evil, whether secular or religious.
Above is a partial definition of evil.
The question now is: Do human beings truly want to deal with evil in order to finally acquire a truly good life? If not, then by all means let’s quit pretending and continue our eating and our drinking and our merry-making for at the end of the day we shall all be dead; both physically and spiritually.
Citizens of the world, raise your fist and repeat after me:
I pledge allegiance,
to the bankers,
of the internationale,
and to its monetary system,
for which it stands,
all nations,
under usury,
with materials,
and social programs,
for all!
revised:
I pledge allegiance,
to the bankers,
of the internationale,
and to its monetary system,
for which it stands,
all nations,
under usury,
with taxation,
and social programs,
for all!
Once again it is only Pat who has the cajones to tell us like it is.
Commercial real estate is just now beginning to default. The stimulus money that kept the banks from foreclosing is at an end. Defaults have begun already this year in small numbers. Projections are for a complete collapse, just like the sub-prime catastrophe, except this one should be far worse since total outstanding commercial mortgages amount to about a trillion and a half dollars. It is estimated by some that more than 50% of those will default. Ghost malls and boarded up buildings everywhere eill be the result.
As if that weren’t bad enough, prime mortgages are beginning to default as well in residential mortgages. The big thing here is joblessness and falling home prices. Literally millions of homes are worth less than the amount owed on them, and that number keeps growing. Defaults in that market are beginning right now, as well and will accelerate this year through 2012.
Local, state and federal taxes are increasing…as well as food prices….in spite of less dollars available from consumers.
As if all this wasn’t bad enough to create a scenario where people take to the streets in protests, with the possibility of armed riots, this president lyingly misrepresented that the Arizona alien bill….which is worded almost identically to the federal one….will stop people on the street and arrest them if they are brown. He keeps repeating this same mantra, although he knows better, and it has caused riots from the Hispanic protestors with the promose of more to come.
A professor has a video out where he is calling for revolution against the “frail white.” With a president not only misrepresenting the Arizona law, but inciting Hispanics to action, his words are having the effect of a call to arms and for all intents and purposes gives Hispanics a carte blance, so to speak, for them to turn to rioting and violence.
Has any president in history been so inciteful and so extreme? I mean, this man could well be responsible for causing a racial war among whites and Hispanics.
Add all that to the economic situation and I doubt anyone could find a high risk gambler who would bet this country will exist in its present for for more than a couple more years.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7165215/18659668
Likely it will not surprise many that Human Events will not feature many articles addressing the dearth of qualifications possessed by fellow Zionist SCOTUS Nominee Kagan. (Kaganovitch is a Kahzar name and Kagan is the Americanization.)
After viewing nominee Kagan on the morning news I would think it more likely she would be nominated to the starting position of right guard on an NFL team than to the Supreme Court. Let’s face it, this is a face and body you would identify with All Star Wrestling rather than the highest court in the land.
After reading of her attributes, I would imagine she has more qualifications seducing coeds than deciding legal issues. This creature is the antithesis of who or what we want or need in high office or representing the US. She will cause, if her nomination is approved, the court to be even more the butt of jokes than it already is.
@ Elbrac You really need to brush up on your history. Badly. Greece has been subject to American intervention for quite some time. The idea of changing government and placing government that will accede to terms and financing that sell the country out is not something that just happened to the PIIGS, it is the M.O. of the debt slavery cartel worldwide. There is no lending for some extravagant social spending. Instead there is a small elite who gets rich off the money. And another portion of that are folks that engage in manipulation of markets to create the economic collapse. Often we see it with massive currency traders and debt issuers. That is literally the business of the George Soros types and Goldman Sachs of the world. It is in fact the whole of the international financial structure.
@ Andrea I didn’t make these up Eliot Abrams (PNAC author, author and promoter of the “Salvadoran Option” aka Death Squads and ultra Terrorism); Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,Norman Podhoretz,Douglas Feith, Midge Decter, Bill Kristol (Neo-conservative Israel firsters, Office of Special Plans, Committe for the Free World)…
I didn’t make up Ben Bernanke (Fed Reserve), Alan Greespan (Fed Reserve), Robert Rubin (Sec Tres), Mary Schapiro (Securities Exchange Comm), James Wolfensohn (World Bank pres), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (Director of the IMF), Paul Wolfowitz (World Bank pres), Richard Hoolbrooke (UN Ambassador, Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan), Dennis Ross (NSC Advisor, Middle East Special Envoy, Jewish People Policy Planning Institute), Richard Nathan Haass (Pres of CFR), Gary Gensler (chairman U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission), Sheila Bair(chairman, FDIC), Peter Orszag(Director, Office of Management and Budget), Lawrence Summers(Chairman National Economic Council, frm Sec Treasury)…
I didn’t make up Rahm Emanuel (White House Chief of Staff, Campaign organizer and IDF vet), David Axelrod (Presidential chief strategist and Senior adviser), Elena Kagan (Solicitor General of the United States , Supreme Court nominee),Dan Shapiro (Head of Middle East at National Security Council), Allen Weinstein (National Endowment for Democracy), Madeleine K. Albright (National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, frm Sec of State)…
I didn’t make up the ‘Czars’ Economic Czar– Larry Summers, Regulatory Czar – Cass Sunstein, Pay Czar– Kenneth Feinberg,Guantanamo/Military, Jails Czar – Daniel Fried, Car Czar– Steven Rattner, Border Czar– Alan Bersin, Climate Czar– Todd Stern, Global Warming Czar– Carol Browner…
I could go on, I didn’t even touch the private financial sector, media, etc. U.S. population, less than 2% World population, less than .00% This is the most astounding phenomenon ever.
If this was the same situation in any other group there would be some speculation. But people are also concerned at the policies and the direction this elite has taken the country and world in because it has been so markedly downward, destructive and abysmal and also contrary to the beliefs and values of the nation. Many would say we have been seeing is the emergence of decadence and plain evil. Historically it has parallels but this is unprecedented.
@Joe It is funny to see amidst your scheme, so much that is rooted in the equality of man, a universal brotherhood under the Father God, and issues of clerical control, the misguided and the ignorant as the detriments of society. It looks like a time warp of Enlightenment idealism.
The problem is that such thinking is constraining and hypocritical. Post-Enlightenment understanding points to a more complex world.
Modern understanding re-embraces the concepts of good vs evil as well as knowledge vs ignorance. There is evil in this world and that evil may be inherent in individuals, regardless of whether we are willing to confront that reality. The whole idea that everyone is committing wrong because of ignorance or misguided beliefs is willful fantasy.
Man and society are not blank slates but carry the weight of history, culture, behavioral characteristics, and various capacities and predilections. We must respect those things to the greatest degree possible but we also must understand that these things can be a source of conflict.
We also must drop the fallacy of the “rational man”. Our behavior is has much or more so by psychology, physical environment, biological impulses, and other factors. Even in our thinking we are not just rational (cognitive and interpretive); we are also intuitive, imitative.
One of the essential elements of P-E thinking is recognizing hypocrisy in man. For example, colonialism, neo-colonialism and the oligarchic state which Enlightenment hypocrisy danced around or condoned, with its lack of respect for distinct identities, cultures and legacies.
By respecting patrimony, individual rights and societal dynamics we can progress. But we have to stop thinking that our society has to be exported or imprinted on others. Societies if they are to be positively influenced by another have to be allowed to do so on their own terms.
To some degree there will be conflict as people attempt to control their patrimony and legacy and defend against hegemony. Some of the actions and attitudes will not be based upon what is just but just on the “will to power” or the conflict established hierarchy. That is what we see in much of the debate about immigration. Many people who have been pushed down in society are attempting to push others down rather than to fight against those who are in the superior position. And that segues to “militiaman’s” comments.
@militiaman Why don’t you stop being a whining eunuch and do something about the people who really have power who are causing the circumstances you have a problem with? I know why, because you are FRAIL. If you had any self respect we would see you at the CFR, CSIS, AEI, AIPAC, Council for the Americas, the IRI HQ, The World Bank and the IMF HQ, WTO, Business Roundtable, NAFTA Secretariat, NED, USAID, etc. Of course I am not urging you to do anything that would be illegal, hazardous, etc. (Important disclaimer there.) However, if you are going to pretend that you are rousting up the redneck army for an assault on winning America, that is where you would be aiming your verbiage and idle, implied threats. But you won’t. Maybe you will hide on a construction site and attack an unarmed Indian trying to get enough money to eat because people are destroying his country in America’s name. Or throw a rock during a protest at a woman or child. But you will never, ever have the guts to do anything that will actually address the reason why America has the problems that you are seemingly so distressed about (or at least what Fox is telling you that you are distressed about.)
In fairness, you have picked up that there are those who want to take your mind away from the national wealth and half of your paycheck going to “bailouts” of finance companies, “bailouts” of manufacturers, “bailouts” of mega real estate development companies, the military industrial complex, bases in over a hundred countries, klepto-maniacal government contractors, multiple simultaneous wars, everything from corporate agriculture to corporate pharmaceuticals, domestic and international Zionism and Judo-fascism, and so much more that has nothing to do with your benefit. Obama was supposed to keep you the public busy for a while but he hasn’t. Instead people are noticing that it is the same thing. So they send you out on a near race war to keep you from thinking about them. Don’t fall for it. Those sad Indians who are crossing the border want to go home as much as anyone. They can’t do it in a world where the Zionists and their traitor lackeys are turning whole nations into sweatshops, taking away their ability to grow and eat healthy food and to have healthy economies. These evil people, running the IMF, World Bank and IADB and international policy worldwide want to turn us all into rootless, wandering slaves. As some one pointed out earlier, this is the path to a new Dark Age. We cannot let them have their way.