Books on the decline of America are coming thick and fast. The latest, Time to Start Thinking: America and the Spectre of Descent, by The Financial Times’s chief US commentator Edward Luce, is published this week….In summary, he concludes that global economic dominance, having quit Europe around the end of last century, moved west to the United States and now, after another hundred years, is relocating to Asia. Nothing can be done about this, he says. It is just the way it is. China and India (and he throws in Indonesia for good measure) are simply too big and too industrious not to fight it out for the soon-to-be vacated Number One slot.
But ”“ and this is where it gets interesting ”“ Luce is frustrated by the way in which the US, outside of rhetoric, is capitulating to the inevitable, giving up almost without a fight. Were its leaders to defy history, he suggests, they would quickly regain the world’s respect and write a new and valuable interpretation of the American dream.
I would hazard a guess that a couple things are going on; many are unconcerned for the “greatness of America” because they are fixated on getting their existing entitlements and pushing for more, and a smaller group of people that are unconcerned about the “greatness of America” because God is greater and they realize that America has forgotten that fact.
Perhaps a timely lesson from Holy Week would illuminate how America got into this situation, and perhaps a path back to “greatness”:
” Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:10-12)
Do not bet against the USA. I remember the late 1980’s when the common wisdom was that the Asian tigers, Japan, Indonesia, …, were going to eat our lunch as we declined into mediocrity. That preceded one of the great economic expansions in world history as the Americans out-innovated the world in high tech. Of course we over extended and there was a subsequent pull back. But look at Japan. Who would take Japan over the past 25 years as opposed to us? Our power is our innovative entrepreneurial spirit that is unleashed when our backs are against the wall.
The only thing that may change the game is an overconfident, populist social-engineering nanny government that squelches the power of the individual and uses its power to build up unsustainable debt in pursuit of equality of outcome, also known as mediocrity.
Shrugs. History is full of rising and falling among world powers and America is a very young, very green “power” in the grand scheme of things. We don’t have all of the answers, never have, and perhaps it’s a relief to finally recognize that.
If falling from “#1” means living within our means, maybe that’s a good thing. Let someone else be “#1” for a while and see how the world likes it.
He who bets against this country is taking an awful chance, and more than one would-be foe or antagonist has found that out to his sorrow. We’ve been viewed as weak and as a “paper tiger” before, and have come out ahead every time. Don’t bet against us.
RE: “why is America not raging against the dying of its light?”
Because a lot of us recognize that there won’t be a “dying of its light” if we return to the principles of our constitutional Republic. And if we don’t . . . then we deserve to die anyway.
Hard for me to feel incredibly dire about it all. Nations come and nations go. Of course, I’d certainly rather we return to a constitutional Republic, but if we choose not to . . . c’est la vie.