Peggy is Pissed

Normally, I just skim Peggy Noonan's weekly editorial quickly (typically forwarded by the Lord of Truth). Not this week. Somebody pissed in her cornflakes...

The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.

...The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can't figure a way out. Have you heard, "If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better"? Or, "If only we follow the Republicans, they'll make it all work again"? I bet you haven't, or not much.

This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I'm not sure we're fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.

Part of the reason is that the problems—debt, spending, war—seem too big. But a larger part is that our federal government, from the White House through Congress, and so many state and local governments, seems to be demonstrating every day that they cannot make things better. They are not offering a new path, they are only offering old paths—spend more, regulate more, tax more in an attempt to make us more healthy locally and nationally. And in the long term everyone—well, not those in government, but most everyone else—seems to know that won't work. It's not a way out. It's not a path through.

And so the disheartenedness of the leadership class, of those in business, of those who have something. This week the New York Post carried a report that 1.5 million people had left high-tax New York state between 2000 and 2008, more than a million of them from even higher-tax New York City. They took their tax dollars with them—in 2006 alone more than $4 billion.

You know what New York, both state and city, will do to make up for the lost money. They'll raise taxes.

...When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren't they worried about the impact of what they're doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they've never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don't have the habit of worry. They talk about their "concerns"—they're big on that word. But they're not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa's lap.

They don't feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—"strongest nation in the world," "indispensable nation," "unipolar power," "highest standard of living"—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.

This is worth reading. Look, at the end of the day, I think there's an element of "the sky is falling" here that I don't subscribe to. I've always been of the opinion that the American people are imaginative and ingenious enough to overcome the stupidity foisted on them by Washington. Or put more simply, I've always had faith in the maxim that God looks after drunks, children, and the United States of America.

But then again, I do worry about the fact that we're discouraging people (actively) from pursuing their dreams, and discouraging dissent against the government at the same time. I know people who have, to one degree or another, opted out of the rat race, gone John Galt, etc.... and they seem to be doing so for no reason other than a desire to quit dealing with the headaches that come with dealing with government. People in Washington seem intent to solve every problem brought to them by creating a government solution for that problem, financed by taxpayer dollars or debt. Even worse, there are costs of larger government that aren't easily quantified, specifically the ones that discourage innovation and creativity. The next great invention or product that could generate massive revenue and change the world for the better is out there in someone's mind or scribbled in their notebook or sitting in a Word document on their laptop. But it may not get to market, because of too much regulation and too many taxes and too many cases where people are working for someone other than themselves and their family. I don't think people in DC pay enough attention to this problem... and as with most such problems, they won't until it's a crisis.