An Honest Assessment of Our Future

This is an honest assessment of our American future.  Fair warning: it is not pretty. I wish I could be as optimistic as Reagan was in tough times 30 years ago, but I can't.  I hope my concerns are exaggerated, but I must write what I really think because I have always valued truth and reality more than that which appeases and feels good but is false. So beginning with the social symptom of the moment and diagnosing long-term implications in a concise commentary, this is what I think about our long-term prospects.

At this time, the United States government is heading full speed toward a shutdown. The US Congress has failed for over six months now to pass a budget for fiscal year 2011, which is half-over. Shutdowns have loomed several times over the past few months, but this time it looks serious.
Should this happen? The answer depends upon your point of view and who you hold accountable for the current mess. Personally, I believe someone has to stand up and say ‘Enough!’ Enough spending money we don’t have. Enough living on credit – the bills are coming due. Personally, I believe those who are forcing the issue are patriots defending our freedom no less than if they were on the battlefield.

But how did it come to this? How did one Congress after another, led by both Democrats and Republicans, keep spending us into this massive whirlpool of debt? However it came to be, it is a problem which threatens our freedom, and it has to be addressed. So, do I think this should happen? If necessary to stop the headlong charge toward economic oblivion, yes. But it never should have come to this.

With ongoing fiscal irresponsibility, the US Congress has and is accomplishing two things. In the first place, the budget makers of Congress (supported in their irresponsibility by the Executive) are running the country full speed toward economic perdition. What no nation has ever been able to do militarily, defeat the United States, is going to be accomplished when the US Congress runs the nation into default and bankruptcy. In that situation we will either hand over the keys of the republic to the people we owe money, or we will forsake our dedication to freedom, nationalize our assets, establish a new authoritarian order, and prepare to defend ourselves, alone among the community of nations.

In the second place, less draconian but more certain, the irresponsibility of the Congress is destroying the faith of the people in their government, in their very system of government. We are learning that Congress cannot be trusted to do the right thing with our national finances, that elected representatives all will ultimately take the easy way out, that our ‘representatives’ do not have our best interests at heart but care most about their own wellbeing and power. Even if we escape bankruptcy, the people of this nation and the world are losing faith in the America we used to know. The American government is proving untrustworthy to her own people. The people are beginning to lose sight of the America that was once the bright hope of humanity. Now America’s leaders, far from inspiring the world, are mostly thought of as just another greedy, corrupt bunch trying to make a buck and stay in power.

In short, the greed and incompetence of Congresses past and present is a cancer on the American dream of liberty and prosperity. The failure is not in the system of representative democracy. The American system of government by the people through their elected representatives worked well for about 160 years. If you choose to discount the period before the Civil War when not all Americans were free, it still worked well for a century. The fault is not in the system. It is partially the failure of those we elected. It is more a failure of judgment, ethics, and will among the citizens who clamor more and more every election cycle to get something for nothing.

The Roman Republic lasted just under five centuries before it became a dictatorship under Caesar, although the Roman Empire maintained power and influence if not individual freedom for another four centuries.* The British Empire lasted just over three centuries before the worldwide empire collapsed back to just the British Isles, but at least they preserved their own freedom.

The great American experiment is a little more than two centuries old, although the United States has been a world power for only a bit over one century. Not a bad run, I suppose, but I hoped it would last longer.

Back to the present situation. It is still possible at this moment that a government shutdown will be avoided. If so, the points above are in no way diminished. It never should have come to this. If the shutdown does happen, I do not believe it will be immediately catastrophic. We’ll get through it with a minimum of inconvenience. Each side will blame the other for being unwilling to do the right thing. Ultimately a budget will be passed. But this shutdown, threatened or real, nevertheless represents the latest and most significant flare-up of the cancer of greed, selfishness, and political intolerance that continues to erode our national character.

The decline of the American Republic has been underway for some time. Reversing the process now would take a miracle. The miracle would need to be equal parts fiscal restraint and rebirth of a national community of virtue (see Montesquieu**). Pray for the miracle. Do what you can to bring it about. Be prepared for whatever may come. Pray.
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* For more on the comparison between our America and ancient Rome, see the article, “U.S. Decline, Sloth Look a Lot Like End of Rome” at www.thefinancialphysician.com/blog/?p=2550
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** Montesquieu – A French philosopher of the 18th century who expressed many of the principles used to establish the United States government. He wrote that a republic of free persons must be characterized by virtue if it is to survive.
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Postscript:
For an outstanding assessment of the government shutdown fiasco, take a look at Ruben Navarrette's editorial of April 7 on CNN.com at www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/07/navarrette.debt.burden/index.html?hpt=Sbin#.
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A closing thought from a principled patriot:

“A people that values its privileges

above its principles soon loses both.”

--Dwight Eisenhower