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November  7, 2012

By James Lewis





This  has been a mean-spirited campaign, and the meanest, most

destructive people  won.

 

So  be it.

In  the last two Democratic administrations we have seen a sleazier, angrier

 and more selfish part of America  rising up more and more in our political

class. The Founders told us that  ultimately our elected politicians are a

mirror of ourselves. Just like you,  before November 7, 2012, I lived in the

fervent hope that the degradation of the  Clinton and Obama years might be

an exception to the long trend of American  history. But two times eight

years of radical leftists in high office can't be an accident. We can't just

blame our sleazy  media, or just the leftist political class, as corrupt and

malevolent as they  truly are.

 

No  -- the balance of decency in America has changed. Every society has

normal,  decent people and the other kind. The America we grew up in

was fundamentally  decent. Decency was the expected standard.

 

Now  the balance has changed.

The  evidence for our sleazified culture can be seen all around. It is in our

pop  music, which has lost melody and now just has rhythm. We have a

President who  won on revenge against middle class values. That's what

he meant by telling his  people to vote for revenge. And they did --

showing us exactly who they  are.

 

We  are now a society divided between the makers and the takers, and

the takers are  on a campaign of theft and revenge.

We  have a President who takes dangerous pride in his hatred for

"middleclassness"  as Jeremiah Wright taught him to believe. We have

a President who culminated his  campaign with a ghetto singer rapping

about hoes and *****es, about drug-ridden  and broken families, as if all

those cruelties were good.

 

This  is not normal, decent America.

 

It  is not.

 

We  need to face that.

Morality  and values are not small things. The new tide in the affairs of

America also  means that we can no longer be trusted to defend civilized

values around the  world, as we have done for the last hundred years.

It's  a sea change. Fools around the world will applaud Obama as a savior,

but wise  people will see us crumbling. They know they will be the

worse for  it.





Today  the world is far more dangerous place than four years ago.  

If you  doubt that, keep an eye on the rise of barbarisms around the world.

Obama  constantly facilitates barbarism, and the barbarians understand

that much better  than decent people do.





History  buffs will remember that we've had decades of sleaze before.

The Founders were  followed by Jacksonian corruption. Abraham Lincoln

was followed by  Reconstruction. Yet we somehow found our way back.

Come-backs can happen, but  probably not soon.

So  this is an elegiac moment, a moment of mourning for what has passed.

From Truman  and Eisenhower to Bush 43 we have had leaders

of character.

 

No  longer.

Republicans  by and large still look, act, and speak like normal, decent

people. But they  have a hard time even understanding a thoroughly

sleazified America. Normal,  decent people do not know how to live in

this new, barbaric society. We live in  protected communities, we drive

around in SUVs, like armored cars.





The  left knows exactly how to act in this Brave New World. They've

made it. We are  now ruled by sleazy demagogues who take bribes from

foreign nations that do not  wish us well. Obama is the worst example

so far. Even the Clintons, both selfish  narcissists, were somewhat better.

With  the decline of American decency, the civilized world has lost its

foremost  defender. America wasn't a world power in earlier times of

corruption. We could  afford to make mistakes. Today, our national

decay endangers the world. The left  has purposely attacked our

self-respect, our pride in our morality and decency,  and our crucial role

in the defense of civilized values. We are no longer the  Leader of the

Free World, because we have lost -- for now -- the values that  guided us. 

 

America can no longer be trusted, as we saw so clearly in  Benghazi and

the fraudulent Arab Spring. Any nation that places any trust in our 

promises today is run by fools. Our allies must arm up to protect themselves,

or  they must find new, trustworthy allies.





For  sixty years Europe has lived off our willingness to come to its defense.  

The southern rim of Europe is now going bankrupt, and even France looks

ready to  crumble. Without our leadership Europe has to rely on itself, or

on Russia, or  on the spreading Muslim empires. But Europe has shown no

capacity to defend  itself. Maybe they will learn. Or maybe they will be

swamped.  We can no  longer be trusted.





William  Butler Yeats's most famous poem, "The Second Coming,"

was written out from  overwhelming sense of social degradation in Europe

in the 1920s and 30s. Years  afterwards Yeats wrote that maybe he was

anticipating the rise of Hitler and  Stalin, the two greatest evils that rose

from the rubble of World War  I

 

 

 





Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Originally Posted by INVICTUS:

.

November  7, 2012

By James Lewis



This  has been a mean-spirited campaign, and the meanest, most

destructive people  won.

 

So  be it.

In  the last two Democratic administrations we have seen a sleazier, angrier

 and more selfish part of America  rising up more and more in our political

class. The Founders told us that  ultimately our elected politicians are a

mirror of ourselves. Just like you,  before November 7, 2012, I lived in the

fervent hope that the degradation of the  Clinton and Obama years might be

an exception to the long trend of American  history. But two times eight

years of radical leftists in high office can't be an accident. We can't just

blame our sleazy  media, or just the leftist political class, as corrupt and

malevolent as they  truly are.

 

No  -- the balance of decency in America has changed. Every society has

normal,  decent people and the other kind. The America we grew up in

was fundamentally  decent. Decency was the expected standard.

 

Now  the balance has changed.

The  evidence for our sleazified culture can be seen all around. It is in our

pop  music, which has lost melody and now just has rhythm. We have a

President who  won on revenge against middle class values. That's what

he meant by telling his  people to vote for revenge. And they did --

showing us exactly who they  are.

 

We  are now a society divided between the makers and the takers, and

the takers are  on a campaign of theft and revenge.

We  have a President who takes dangerous pride in his hatred for

"middleclassness"  as Jeremiah Wright taught him to believe. We have

a President who culminated his  campaign with a ghetto singer rapping

about hoes and *****es, about drug-ridden  and broken families, as if all

those cruelties were good.

 

This  is not normal, decent America.

 

It  is not.

 

We  need to face that.

Morality  and values are not small things. The new tide in the affairs of

America also  means that we can no longer be trusted to defend civilized

values around the  world, as we have done for the last hundred years.

It's  a sea change. Fools around the world will applaud Obama as a savior,

but wise  people will see us crumbling. They know they will be the

worse for  it.



Today  the world is far more dangerous place than four years ago.  

If you  doubt that, keep an eye on the rise of barbarisms around the world.

Obama  constantly facilitates barbarism, and the barbarians understand

that much better  than decent people do.



History  buffs will remember that we've had decades of sleaze before.

The Founders were  followed by Jacksonian corruption. Abraham Lincoln

was followed by  Reconstruction. Yet we somehow found our way back.

Come-backs can happen, but  probably not soon.

So  this is an elegiac moment, a moment of mourning for what has passed.

From Truman  and Eisenhower to Bush 43 we have had leaders

of character.

 

No  longer.

Republicans  by and large still look, act, and speak like normal, decent

people. But they  have a hard time even understanding a thoroughly

sleazified America. Normal,  decent people do not know how to live in

this new, barbaric society. We live in  protected communities, we drive

around in SUVs, like armored cars.



The  left knows exactly how to act in this Brave New World. They've

made it. We are  now ruled by sleazy demagogues who take bribes from

foreign nations that do not  wish us well. Obama is the worst example

so far. Even the Clintons, both selfish  narcissists, were somewhat better.

With  the decline of American decency, the civilized world has lost its

foremost  defender. America wasn't a world power in earlier times of

corruption. We could  afford to make mistakes. Today, our national

decay endangers the world. The left  has purposely attacked our

self-respect, our pride in our morality and decency,  and our crucial role

in the defense of civilized values. We are no longer the  Leader of the

Free World, because we have lost -- for now -- the values that  guided us. 

 

America can no longer be trusted, as we saw so clearly in  Benghazi and

the fraudulent Arab Spring. Any nation that places any trust in our 

promises today is run by fools. Our allies must arm up to protect themselves,

or  they must find new, trustworthy allies.



For  sixty years Europe has lived off our willingness to come to its defense.  

The southern rim of Europe is now going bankrupt, and even France looks

ready to  crumble. Without our leadership Europe has to rely on itself, or

on Russia, or  on the spreading Muslim empires. But Europe has shown no

capacity to defend  itself. Maybe they will learn. Or maybe they will be

swamped.  We can no  longer be trusted.



William  Butler Yeats's most famous poem, "The Second Coming,"

was written out from  overwhelming sense of social degradation in Europe

in the 1920s and 30s. Years  afterwards Yeats wrote that maybe he was

anticipating the rise of Hitler and  Stalin, the two greatest evils that rose

from the rubble of World War  I

 

but for God, this would be devastating.... 

very interesting post Vic, thanks for sharing it.

hg<><

 



It was those non-sleazy Republican neoconservative warmongering imperialists who inveigled this nation into the war in Iraq on false pretenses, with the deaths of over 4000 Americans, grievous injury of many more, deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis, and the displacement of something like a half million innocent people  into refugee status--not to mention the expenditure of nearly a trillion dollars and counting. "Ordinary decency" was dealt a heavy blow by such lying, devious buccaneering.

 

Talk about barbarity!

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