Abu Wabu

Power Line presents an article by Herb London, President of the Hudson Institute, a Professor Emeritus at NYU, and a former candidate for Governor of New York on the Conservative Party ticket. Professor London describes Obama's America to the last detail:

Americans were notoriously optimistic because we counted on tomorrow being better than yesterday. We were an open people dependent on fair play and a free market bounded by a standard of virtue. With all the blemishes in our past and breaches in our own ethics, we were a model of civic rectitude. "Dems that gives, gets;" those who wish to bilk the system will be discovered and isolated.

There was a time not so long ago when people did not depend on government to bail them out of financial difficulty, a time when the nanny state bred apprehension, not affection. Now, it seems, in the new America almost everyone wants a free ride. The non-tax payer wants a rebate from the taxpayer. The poor man wants everything the rich man has and he wants the rich man to give it to him.

Enemies of the nation, it turns out, are not enemies at all; we merely defined them as adversaries. Had we been clever in the past, we could have defined them out of existence. All we have to do is engage in "soft power," diplomacy and clever negotiating skill. Surely those who want to kill us will be persuaded that swords should be converted into plowshares. It's odd, but Osama bin Laden doesn't seem to embrace this position.

The America of now is one where Orwellian logic rules. Redistribution of wealth is fairness. Taxes are patriotic. The free market should be a regulated market. Big government is good for you. Politicians know what kind of health care is best for you. Choice should be limited, except when it comes to abortion. Power comes from being
powerless. Progressive education is designed to promote progress toward socialism. Race doesn't count unless a person of color tells you it counts. Higher education gets lower each year. Those who create our problems should be asked to solve them. Religion should be a private matter that does not inform public morality. Liberal is radical. Free speech is selective speech. Courage is impetuousness.

Yes, Americans - many Americans - want change. The level of dissatisfaction runs deep. But the national cri de coeur hasn't a direction. That's what makes it so dangerous. Americans live better than at any moment in our collective history, notwithstanding the meltdown on Wall Street, yet despair is ubiquitous. Admittedly observing 401K accounts disappear as soap bubbles will make anyone angry. Nonetheless, it is a privilege to live in the land of the free, a privilege now regarded as an entitlement.

It was once wrong to use community groups such as ACORN to steal an election. It was once wrong to conceal one's past in order to invent an identity. It was once wrong to use the instrument of government finance to satisfy a constituency and then claim an unregulated market is what ails us. It was once wrong to lie in a campaign and still is except when the media panjandrums avert their gaze for the lies of a favored candidate.

An idiot blogger (no link) recently observed the peace sign's fiftieth birthday by demanding of it, "But what have you done for me lately?", perfectly capturing the terminally flawed entitlement mentality of the left.

"What have you done for me lately?" Whatever it is, it's never enough. The maw opens ever wider.

The whiney and the selfish have, for now, won the day. The good news is that they always self-destruct; it's up to the rest of us to save the American Experiment. It will be very difficult, but we can do it.

Yes We Can.