Readers of this blog and my previous know that I believe that we went too far away from the WRITTEN rules for what was created as "America". America was a nation with a "government" to keep the borders secure from challenges both domestic and foreign, to err on the side of liberty vs "safety" ( Franklin; "Those that trade liberty for safety wind up with neither") and a willingness to allow people and families to seek, build and KEEP fortunes. In America, results mattered.
What does the author of the column think America was supposed to be about? Why does he believe "the experiment" was a failure"? Well, because of ...
Working societies — if they are to endure, grow, and cohere, if they are to prosper, hang together, and really mature — need moral universals. Moral universals are simply things that people believe everyone should have. In the UK, those things — those moral universals — are healthcare and media and welfare. In Germany, they are healthcare and media and welfare and higher education. And so on.So "moral universals" are what "everyone believes that everyone SHOULD have"! Isn't that cool? If we all believed that everyone ought to have a Gulfstream jet, then "wham", everyone would have one! Hmnm ... like a lot of metaphysics, it doesn't seem like this form of absolutes is really quite as cut and dried as some might tell us.
Even crazier, why did "the American Experiement" end NOW? Was it on a timer? I mean, in 1900 EVERYONE in America didn't have "healthcare, media, welfare, and higher education" -- so why wasn't it over then?
Without moral universals, there is no process of civilization, and democracy itself can no longer continue to grow and develop.To the extent that there is any such thing as "moral universals", they are NOT "stuff", they are TRUTHS like "all men are created equal" (meaning equal before God and the law, not equal as to what is in their billfold, or obviously how smart they are). Some set of people "hold these truths" because they share fundamental non-negotiable beliefs -- like they are Christians, or "Americans" ... the sort that had a written Constitiution, valued liberty, hard work, private property, etc, and were not at all enamored with "free stuff".
From my view, the "end of the experiment" came because there was no longer any group that believed in a common set of ideas, even less that believed in a written Constitution and LIMITED government. UNlimited government is nothing new ... every potentate, pasha, pharoh, dictator, monarch in history has had THAT!
When the SCOTUS started legislatoing from the bench, the written Constitution died. When BO proudly weilded his "phone and his pen", and especially now that the Administrative / Deep State is in open revolt against the duly elected president, "America is over".
It certainly isn't over because the State doesn't spend enough money on the populace though -- the elderly have all sorts of assistance including FICA and Medicare. Vast swaths of BOistan live off SNAP, Welfare, Secition 8, Aid to women with a lot of kids out of wedlock, etc
All of that is "progressive social goods", except many of them are rotten and lead to misery, addiction and suicide.
Most of the "good west" with all those "moral universal social goods" are in bad shape as well -- high deficits, rising suicide and drug use rates, low birth rates, lots of immigrants increasing crime, etc.
Venezuala had LOTS of what is being espoused in the article ..., except now they don't, so you eat your pets, then the rats, then maybe your kids. But you do it as a REAL "moral universal" -- the kind you ACTUALLY have a "right" to ... HUNGER!
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