"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings."

- William Shakespeare

Many people are searching for a scapegoat/bogeyman for these tumultuous economic times. In a nation of victims someone (anyone) must be held accountable for our suffering. I drafted a list of the usual bogeyman but will spare you the trauma of reading it. Instead, Mark Hillman warns that instant gratification may be at the root of our national malaise/funk. More troubling, he believes we have transferred this same instant gratification ethos to our government.



He writes: "When we the people fail to practice self-discipline at home, we cannot possibly be serious about fiscal restraint in government...In roughly three generations, American society has been transformed from a nation of penny-pinchers, scrimpers and savers to a nation of consumption-addicted spendthrifts oblivious to tomorrow."

Once on a trip to Saratoga (in the interest of full disclosure I was there wagering on the ponies) we wandered into the downtown area for some coffee. I remember peering into the window of a bank (it was a very old and venerable building) and being struck by a quote chiseled in marble and set over the tellers that read, "FRUGALITY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL THE VIRTUES." I wondered whether or not the quote would make cents (sense) to the throngs of Skidmore students darting in and out of the cafes.

More importantly, and leaving economics aside, whenever a writer says we're "oblivious to tomorrow" my ears become a little more attuned (Born to see; meant to look). I've connected the words - oblivious to tomorrow - to this dour passage from a Peggy Noonan Op-Ed:

When I was young we didn't wear earrings, but if we had, everyone would have had a pair or two. I know a 12-year-old with dozens of pairs. They're thrown all over her desk and bureau. She's not rich, and they're inexpensive, but her parents buy her more when she wants them. Someone said, "It's affluence," and someone else nodded, but I said, "Yeah, but it's also the fear parents have that we're at the end of something, and they want their kids to have good memories. They're buying them good memories, in this case the joy a kid feels right down to her stomach when the earrings are taken out of the case."

This is where the left and right diverge economically and philosophically and why Obama's soaring rhetoric is so popular this campaign season.

Unfortunately, Obama is simply resurrecting the same old bogeyman to usher in "the same old Great Society programs". In the speech he says, "...a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many."

Does Hillary believe in the same BIG government programs? Absolutely. But the Obama camp has two secret weapons- a vacuous suit with exceptional oratory skills and its closeness to the unofficial queen of the New Age movement. His camp was able to sense, very early on, what Peggy Noonan was writing about. Here is Michelle Obama on the campaign trail:

That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

Did Oprah write that?

There was a moment in this campaign when I considered (albeit briefly) heaving reason aside and supporting Obama because I've lost all faith in our elites. This was momentary (BIG momentary) lapse of reason, for having read Kirk and Kreeft for almost as many years as Obama listened to Reverend Wright, I know where this inevitably ends:

Ideology, in short, is a political formula that promises mankind and earthly paradise; but in cruel fact what ideology has created is a series of terrestrial hells.†

But this is the opportunity of a lifetime for Obama and the liberal wing of the Democratic party and they're going for broke. There are 300+ million empty vessels waiting to be saved by Obama the Messiah and rehabilitated by legions of central planners.

I'M ASKING YOU TO BELIEVE. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washinton...I'm asking you to believe in yours."

- Obama '08

The Anchoress believes this painless coup was in the works for a long time and offers the best (and most beautiful) interpretation of where this "obliviousness" may take us:

The ending, of course, is the coup d’état. Believing that the rest of us, now disillusioned, are no longer clinging to romantic ideals of honor, or truth or nobility, these always-restless First Children, devoted to deconstruction, believe they are about to take down the presidency, the churches, the "old" government and even the "old" media. They expect to put into place something "brand new." But believe me when I tell you what they are building is older than dirt. And up from it. Which is why they will need their fortresses. Castro lives in one, too.

They've been practicing all of this, by the way, perfecting the Art of the Painless Coup so thoroughly that most ordinary folks do not even realize what has occurred.

Over the past 40 years these hyperactive First Children have been pulling off small scale coups with varying levels of success. They managed to deconstruct the academies, so that education is less a broadening of knowledge than a narrowing of perspective. They have deconstructed the liturgy to insist that a pantomime in clownface is a vast improvement over 2000 year-old sacrament and liturgy. They have deconstructed government by constructing something so huge and unweildly that nothing coming out of it is reliable or dependable, and almost no one is accountable, either. They have deconstructed the press to the point where the truth of a story is less important than how it may be framed and spun. They have deconstructed the idea of fascism to mean "those democracies in Israel and America" rather than the freedom-suppressing regimes which surround them.

We have created and are responsible for this national malaise. We have opened the door for this government recklessness and malfeasance and are grossly indifferent (and some would argue expectant) to the encroachment.

As John Hawkins writes:

We have gotten to a point in our society where people can pursue courses of action that we know, they know, that everyone knows are highly likely to end in disaster. But then, when the aforementioned tragedy inevitably occurs, there is a demand that the federal government "fix the problem."

The federal government has responded by inflating our currency to postpone this reckoning despite having a tremendous moral and ethical responsibility to protect our currency from debasement. Henry Hazlitt, a man as venerable as the old bank and its motto in marble, knew the curse of inflation. He writes:

Yet the ardor for inflation never dies. It would almost seem as if no country is capable of profiting from the experience of another and no generation of learning from the suffering of its forbears. Each generation and country follows the same mirage. Each grasps for the same Dead Sea fruit that turns to dust and ashes in its mouth. For it is the nature of inflation to give birth to a thousand illusions.

Inflation itself is a form of taxation. It is perhaps the worst possible form, which usually bears hardest on those least able to pay.

Ron Paul may be a little lopsided, but you know there are problems when the nation's accountant, David Walker, resigns/retires and goes on a nationwide tour to warn the country about the looming financial crisis.

Whether we like it or not, history has was a way of forcing us to confront our excesses.

†Russell Kirk, The Politics of Prudence.

Labels: democrats, economics