Steyn manages it:
If you take the view that the U.S. is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it’s less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we’ll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America’s enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.
Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon.
Our future? Commonplace and unexceptional.
No one much cared for Rome either.
Until it was gone.
Update: On to the next thing!
Frustrated with the lack of action to overhaul the country’s immigration system, tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied on the National Mall and marched through the streets of the capital Sunday, waving American flags and holding homemade signs in English and Spanish.
Supporters traveled from around the country in hopes the rally would re-energize Congress to take up the volatile issue. Some lawmakers oppose any attempt to help an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens while others insist on stronger border controls first.
President Barack Obama, who promised to make overhauling the immigration system a top priority in his first year, sought to reassure those at the rally with a video message presented on giant screens at the National Mall. The president said he was committed to working with Congress this year on a comprehensive bill to fix a “broken immigration system.”
It’s the march of progress, comrades – It can’t be stopped!
Praise be Obama, Komrade!
The question is, will the denouement start with a bang, or a whimper? Niall Ferguson votes for bang:
Actually, the period is knowable. It’s when they run out of other (productive) peoples’ money.
SMC knocks off ‘Nova, Kansas outed by WHO? March Madness is really in D.C. where Common Sense is routed by the Buffons.
Well, I know how to turn a conservative electorate that is already on fire into something I wouldn’t want to face any where. Just toss out that you want to allow 30 million illegal aliens to become ‘instacitizens’ using the fig leaf of immigration reform.
The city of Rome may have died in the late 5th century, but the Roman Empire survived and flourished for another nearly thousand years! Indeed it was still called the “Roman Empire” – and it was – but its center was re-located to Constantinople.
While what is now Europe suffered bitterly through the horrible dark ages, the Byzantine Empire flourished with both famous and enlightened rulers, and also in spite of corruption and some tyranny. It saved the ancient Greek and Roman writings, while advancing art, law and trade. Most importantly, it provided a buffer and barrier for the West from the Muslim hordes. It ruled and flourished until the Renaissance. This eastern Rome of a millennium not only saved Western Civilization, but also provided the necessary framework for the Renaissance.
Century after century, many predicted Byzantium’s fall. The empire went broke more than once. It’s Navy was decimated. Some Crudaders attacked them. And indeed, often it looked like the end for the empire. But century after century, they prevailed. And so shall we!
Oh yes. The Eastern Roman Empire had massive immigrations for a millennium. Some were slaves, some were traders and merchants, many wanted to escape Muslims, Bulgarians, or the Mongols, and many just wanted to see and be in the jewel of Constantinople. The helped the City and the empire thrive, rather than destroy it.
That’s the bright side.
Byzantium only survived by setting its enemies against one another other — and only survived during the final few hundred years of its existence by paying massive annual tributes to expansionist neighbors.
During its final centuries of existence, that tribute consisted of the children of its citizens, who were raised as soldiers of its enemies and eventually returned to Byzantium as its conquerors — through the holes they blew in its walls with cannons the size of school buses.
And the true heirs of the Roman Empire were the Franks. Byzantium only retained the form and formalities.
With all due respect to you and Byzantium, Flit, taking solace in the fact that Byzantium fell slowly is kind of like taking solace in the fact that one has prostate cancer rather than lung or kidney cancer — the end of Life As We Know It has happened, the only question is how long we can keep up the appearances.
My senator, Senator Johnson, opined that those who were against this bill are on the wrong side of history. I know a little history, and he’s absolutely right. Most of the major powers in the world have gone on to grant themselves benefits from the public trough. They then devalue their currency so they can pay the bill, import a load of cheap labor from other countries to inflate the labor, and finally lose their country and way of life as the immigrants take power and the debt becomes so large it can no longer be serviced along with niceties like infrastructure, protection of trade routes, and the services that were promised.
Let’s take a step through history and look at the dead empires that have done this. The Assyrians, Macedonians, Athens, Rome, the Byzantines and Ottoman Turks (which ushered in the Dark Ages where not many decent empires could be found), followed by Russia under Peter the Great. I’ll give the Dark Ages a pass, hard to build an empire when the Black Death is ravaging your lands. Let’s now look at the Colonial empires. France, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal… Notice anybody on that list that remains a world power? Anybody with an economy approaching that of New York city or California? Anybody who continues to command respect on the world stage? Anybody even remotely capable of keeping their own trade routes open via force if necessary?
Yeah, thought so. We’re effectively an island country, same as England. Trade is our economic lifeline, and our largest trading partners are across the oceans with the exceptions of Canada and Mexico, neither of which have significant navies or need for them.
And we’ve just pledged a full year worth of GNP, that is all the wealth of the whole country we earn this year, into health insurance for a boomer generation now retiring and their heirs who are fewer in number, and we’re not reproducing fast enough to make up with warm bodies what we’re losing in earnings and taxes.
We’re going to solve this with immigration, to get more people paying taxes and cheaper labor so we can afford to maintain our standard of living. We’re going to deflate the currency to make those interest payments easier for the Treasury to pay, and we’re going to cut the military that keeps our trade routes open and enforces our diplomatic will at sea.
Pax Americana just ended. We just turned into Canada. Lots of land, pretty good GNP, can’t afford to do a damned thing to enforce our wishes on the world stage and the only jobs being created are in government.
Let me explain this to you, because jobs aren’t all equal in the calculation of GNP. If you have 100 people and 25 of them are in government, the taxes of 75 people support the other 25. Those 25 pay taxes, so you get a 25% (depending upon the tax rate) break on their labor. Instead of paying them $30/hr you’re only paying them $22.50/hr. Which is really great until you start to see that for every hour you work you have to pay almost a quarter of that income to employing a government worker. Then there’s your retirement, his retirement, paying for the military and the roads and now health care…
At some point there’s too few working and producing and adding value to support those siphoning the earnings off of the productive to make working worthwhile.
Now look at Britain, where three generations of family live in council housing and consider it a right to suckle off the government and the taxpayers for their daily bread. They, like the government worker, add zero to the total GNP, and produce nothing. But it’s a right, they’ve earned it by virtue of consuming oxygen, and they vote for whomever keeps those checks coming.
I’ve read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and we are on that same historical path. Senator Johnson’s statement that we opposed to this bill are against history is perfectly correct, we are against emulating the decline and fall of other empires throughout history.
I wonder if he has a plan to distribute bread and provide circuses while we implode?
– Max
What you said, Sir! Dammit! (imagine other nastier cuss words, if you please)
We’re going to solve this with immigration, to get more people paying taxes and cheaper labor so we can afford to maintain our standard of living.
Only if those future immigrants bring their jobs with them.
And if anyone believes that’s going to happen, I’ve got a real deal for you — carbon offset futures for the volcano in Iceland…
But it’s a right,
I contest this. It’s not a right. A right, such as the right to free speech and the right to own a gun, is something granted by God that the government is charged with ensuring that your ability to use your own resources to exercise it is not interfered with. What has been done in England and what has been done with this health care bill is to take something that was already a right and turn it into an entitlement. That is something that is granted by the government and that said government ensures you can do even if you have made no effort to ammass any resources at all. It does this by taking by threat of force the resources of people who HAVE been industrious enough to amass them.
I have no problem with assisting people who are unable to provide for themselves through no fault of their own. I have a big problem with what’s going on now.
Ron, I think Max was being sarcastic – the parasites regard it as a right.
Yeah, if we allow this poison pill to remain in the system we will prevail just like the Brits did after WWII when the left took over.
Friends don’t let friends…….
Listen to Mark Steyn. Because, as usual-he has it all wrong. America will did not start to decline because of the health care vote tonight-it allowed that process to start ten years ago-or perhaps longer-when it failed to recognize the multi-polar worl…
Dammit, Skippy-San, don’t mess with us, ‘specially tonight. I, for one, most definitely do NOT welcome our new insect overlords. The constitutional crisis _would_ have to happen when I am too old and sick to play infantry, wouldn’t it? Whatever. I’ll see what I can do.
I thought of this when I read the too old and sick to play infantry part.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
Steadfast to journey’s end.
Thanks! That was right helpful to my thinking.
You should go into stand up comedy Skippy. Steyn is seldom wrong on these things. The problem for you is we have every other western European NATO country to show just how far off base you are. Do you ever think with something besides your heart?
Well, we’ll all have the opportunity to stop this march of nonsense in November. It will take until 2012 to repeal it, best case.
If we don’t, then shame on us. Government we deserve, etc..
Not really. All this can be defunded in January of 2011 if we win Congress. Pull the financial plug.
Especially since it’s looking like a reform movement will have the momentum for much broader changes.
That’s provided, of course, that the states don’t use the Thermonuclear Option and call for a Constutitional Convention. Which is no longer improbable.
We’re going to solve this with immigration, to get more people paying taxes and cheaper labor so we can afford to maintain our standard of living.
Except that we’ve had immigrants working here for generations, the majority of whom are not paying taxes. Neither will they, if they can help it. Why change now what has worked so well for decades, cradle to grave welfare and non-taxable income?
The InstaCitizen option has been put out there several times before, but not taken up by the vast majority. Why? Well, who the hell in their right mind is going to start paying taxes after years of getting a free ride? It takes a certain amount of integrity to become a registered alien, to work and pay taxes, and to see to it that you pay for the things you receive.
If there is a bright side to the voting today, it is that the split in the vote wasn’t that big. Come November we need to make some changes…in both chambers of Congress…including that lame RINO in Arizona. It’s a shame that San Francisco doesn’t have a viable opponent for the incumbent. Here in Washington, we’re working on it. If, at the very least, we can change out McDermott (consistent 85% of the vote) and Inslee, that would be a great start.
Except that we’ve had immigrants working here for generations, the majority of whom are not paying taxes.
Is this true? Or is this statement due to the error of conflating “immigrant” with “illegal alien”. Because lots of my half-Polish wife’s relatives are immigrants, and they work hard and pay lots of taxes. The woman in the cube near mine from Bosnia works hard and pays lots of taxes. Of course, they came here legally and became U.S. citizens. But while they are properly described as “citizens”, they are also properly described as “immigrants”.
I’m a strong supporter of immigrant rights. But different immigrants are due different rights, something that those who support giving illegal aliens unearned rights have done their damndest to obscure by convincing the media to stop using the only properly descriptive term for people who are here in the United States illegally and to use the term “immigrant” in such context as to hide the fact that they want us to reward lawbreakers.
Apart from the underground economy, illegal immigrants still contribute payroll taxes through their employers, often under false SSNs. The open economic question is whether they use more in resources than they contribute to production.
May I respectfully suggest that there remains another question, that of whether anyone whose first act with regard to a country is to break its laws should be allowed ANY role in its economy or should be allowed to stay, once detected.
Not, as you might surmise, a question up for debate in MY mind, Jas..
Lex, I can’t remember the source of the studies (I think the Talk-radio host Neal Boortz as them in his archives–I may root around over there) but I think that’s “settled science” (heh) insofar as the majority of reputable studies (of course much depends on base assumptions) indicate that they are an ultimate negative cost factor.
And it does no good to look just at macro statistics to my mind either Lex. The influx of illegals has a highly concentrated “disparate impact” on communities which overwhelms local health/educational systems, etc. It’s like the story of the 6-foot tall man who drowned while fording a stream which only “averaged” four feet in depth.
And I might add in respect to the stolen and/or made up SS numbers this little pearl of wisdom. Every time these people send their “remittances” back to Mexico or where-ever by wire or mail they are committing wire and/or mail fraud. That’s a FEDERAL crime–a serious one. What do you think would happen to one of us if we were caught doing something like that and charged? And and are not firms like Western Union and some banks who set up special programs to facilitate such things (and even ADVERTISE them!) thereby complicit in the crime as a co-defendent/conspirator/accessory?
*Some* illegals contribute to the system through payroll taxes.
Those working day-labor as “independent contractors” — don’t.
Those comprising 30% of the US prison population doing hard time — don’t.
Those comprising the rising gang population in the suburbs and rural towns across the South — don’t.
Those using stolen identities to collect welfare checks in the Northeast and in the larger cities in the Sun Belt — and California — don’t.
/grumble
Health care reform – finally. Comrade Obama has given the democrats the “you’re finished in November, face reality – you know it, I know it, the voters know it. So let’s get on with immigration reform, carbon caps, and repeal of DADT” speech.
Guns, gold, and gear. Get ‘em now.
Stand by for heavy rolls.
GOT ‘EM!! Lets ROLL, G-Man!!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, many of us swore the oath to “… defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” Maybe we can afford to wait until November, maybe we can’t. I’m with G-man, get your s**t in one bag and stand by.
Admin note for the gentleman from Finland whose posts here are invariably deleted, and whose IP addresses are swiftly added to the spam filter: I do not know whether teh craziness of your comments are founded in some mental illness, or whether the language barrier prevents you from adding value to our forum. Or both.
I don’t care, you’re off the island, find some other place to muddy up.
Look on the bright side: At least the USS OBAMA won’t get built. All that money will go to keeping this monstrosity afloat, pun intended…it might be in the Chinese, Venezuelan, or Iranian fleet, though.
OhGOD!! The USS OBAMA! I hadn’t thought of that! OMG!!! FAR too much, too sickening to even contemplate. Time to hit the Barbancourt this AM to blot out all such thoughts….looks like another day shot spent contemplating my navel in a drunken haze….
See…for you doubters here, I DO have an interest in things “naval.” –even participate in “naval exercises.”
vx –
Don’t worry. If the USS Obama is ever built, you probably won’t even know about it. Why? Because it would most likely be a “black ops” vessel.
(Sorry… I couldn’t restrain myself.)
OMG! That’s funny! Thanks for making my day Flit.
And to anyone who cares, the ships that have recently been named after Presidents, I believe starting with either the Kennedy or the Eisenhower, they use their full names, such as USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. So, could we really ever see a USS Barack H. Obama?
That’s USS Barack H. Obama *the Second*.
If we’re gonna get ridiculous, we might as well get *totally* ridiculous.
Imagine the USS Edward M. Kennedy–capsizing and going straight to the bottom right off the ways.
Racist!
/irony
Gotta love the Finn’s. Trick is to keep them on your side.
They’re like drunken artic badgers — with knives. Just ask the lost Soviet legions.
John LeCarre had a great line in one of his novels. Smiley is speaking with a somewhat morose Finnish agent and he jokingly asked if Finns were ever happy.
“Oh, yes. Whenever we see Russians — over iron sights.”
BillT, A telling quip/question I recall along the same lines Re a morose/happy Finn..it goes…
” How can you tell an introverted Finn from an extroverted Finn?”…
Ans…”An introverted Finn looks at his shoelaces while he’s talking to you…
… an extroverted Finn looks at your shoelaces while he’s talking to you”. Best
Congress has just passed a new law of economics. In a bid to free workers from the slavery of capitalism, His ‘Oliness has decreed that sharing means caring, and caring requires sharing. The collective has spoken. Any thought criminal who attempts to interfere with the regulation of the wondrous and scientific plan will be cared for in the most scientific way. Pelosi knows best. All hail Pelosi!
From now on, your total dedication is expected. For the use of your home as assisted living quarters by members of the Party, you will be designated a Red Star Hero – an award coveted by all right-thinking people.
All others must immmediately report to the Karl Marx reeducation center for proletariat training. And remember, thinking is hereby proscribed – this is for your health. Thoughts lead to unhappiness, which leads to desire for change. Only approved agents of change are licensed to think. So be happy! Don’t think!
And sports-fans, Bill K is only HALF kidding. Worse–his predictions will probably turn out closer to the mark than is good for mental health–especially mine!
This Norse Badger prefers an HK USP45F. I don’t like knives. It always seemed to me that a person I find with a gun is counting on it’s being a force multiplier, while a person with a knife has already decided that he doesn’t mind the idea of sticking it in someone. Watching Calibre Press’ Surviving Edged Weapons in a Defense and Arrest Tactics class just made me more convinced that I don’t like knives. Man, that was a scary tape.
Ah, fellow Norseman. I agree though my choice would be my newly-acquired S&W M&P. With that in one hand and my Beretta 92FS Inox in the other and The Oracle with his Kimber 1911 – I daresay we’d be quite a site.
Using a knife provides that *personal* touch so sadly lacking in modern combat. Kinda puts “Reach out and touch someone” in a whole new perspective.
Which is not to say that I recommend bringing a knife to a gunfight — except when you don’t want to waste ammo on the coup de grace…
BillT: I’ll let my 9mm lead reach out and touch someone thankyouverymuch.
Personally, I’d rather use a Rifle to do that, if I can. For me, the further away the better. I have to aversion to having pain inflicted upon my person.
Concur. For many reasons, among them squeamishness, prudent care for my continued survival, and not wishing to get splattered with infectious precious bodily fluids.
The knife is the ultimate CIWS. Use as a last ditch effort.