Years ago I ran a non-profit, all volunteer charity in my hometown of Vancouver. The charity helped several thousand people and one of them was a 40-something woman who was a recovered heroin addict, homeless person, and prostitute. I took the opportunity to ask her a simple question: “Do you remember the event that prompted you to finally turn your life around for the positive?” Her response has stuck with me to this day: “I hit rock bottom. I needed to hit rock bottom to eventually change.” She went on to explain that “rock bottom” means different things to different people. But, for all, it is the pivotal moment that gives them the strength and courage to say “enough is enough” and begin the slow climb upward.
In our 24/7 news cycle, some might think that recent events in America are an aberration, a one-off that the nation will eventually get past. But such problems have been going on for a long time. Back in 1993, the WSJ’s Dan Henninger wrote an editorial called “No Guardrails”. Two days ago he wrote a new piece called “America’s New Nihilism”. Both are explained in detail here.
The recent riots and the Leftist response to them are mere warning signs along the spiralling highway down to the abyss. But make no mistake, the nation as a whole hasn’t yet come close to hitting rock bottom.
The left are afraid of Trump. They will do anything to prevent him being re-elected. Force people to stay home, businesses closing, crash the economy, riots. There were a bunch of hearings this week in regards to the whole Russia/FISA/Flynn files and how it was all a sham perpretrated by Obama and his crew. How many people know these hearings occured? Few. Look here not over there. As we get closer to the election, things will get worse…possibly even to the point of rock bottom.
The left is too far invested in this to stop. People will turn on them. Trump will get a massive majority.
Nothing is going to change in America because there is nothing to change. Last year, out of 40 million African Americans, 17 were unarmed and killed by police. One out of 2.4 million is almost irrelevant. Of the 17, most were likely threatening to the degree that the officer was forced to choose lethal force. George Floyd reacted to arrest for passing bogus bills with drug and/or booze induced violence. There is no obvious evidence the killing was racially motivated and I suspect the cop had absolutely no intent to kill him. People who would upset the US justice system for a small handful of bad judgement calls are mentally retarded or Democrat.
Unfortunately, nation-states are fundamentally different from individuals. If a nation-state reaches rock bottom, it is highly unlikely that it will ever rebound. The reason is that a good government requires honest, well-functioning institutions (courts, police, garbage removal, border controls, etc) supported by a tax-paying public that believes in freedom and democracy. Once that framework is seriously compromised, such as in Venezuela, the possibility of drastic change and a return to the nation that was before appears impossible.
In the post-WWII world era, what countries have bounced back from rock bottom to a climate of peace, prosperity, and political and economic prosperity, and have sustained that environment? From the devastation of WW11: Japan, South Korea, and Germany (for a time, but now in decline) accomplished this and have continued on. From the fall of the Soviet empire: Hungary, Poland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic are noteworthy examples, though all are threatened by the undemocratic socialist bureaucracies running the EU
All other democratic countries in the industrialized world have been in decline with the only significant reversal being the U.S. when it elected Trump in 2016. But if Trump is not re-elected in 2020, the decline of the U.S. will resume at a rapid rate.
So, rock-bottom for a nation-state is not a precondition for a bounce back, it is a terminal condition.
To truly hit bottom, the US will have to elect Biden as President, Congressional and state majorities. The problem?
A Venezuelan redux; when the people realize they’ve been conned; it’s too late, the state already owns their liberty.
There will be no digging out of that collectivist hole who’s primary goals is just that, control of thought and action.
The US Soviet. We are in similar times to the 1930s, with the left in love with collectivism, violent minions doing their bidding.
In the 30s, Erich Fromm wrote “Escape from Freedom” a description of how atomized automatons surrender natural rights.
That is worth a read too. Clearly the left has dismissed the warnings of Hayek’s statism. Indeed that idea is their nemesis.
Will Americans (and Canadians) demand law and order or, as we did in 2015, succumb to the political temper tantrum?
Robert, many years I was the national manager in Canada for a U S firm. The head office was in Long Island NY. We had our corp meetings at that office and I would be there a couple of times a year. I will never forget what the owner of the company said to me, I considered him a friend an never spoke of our conversations to anybody, the man is long dead. This goes back to the late 70’s. There was much discussion about race and the man said that he could not understand why blacks in America would not help their own people in the same manner that many European immigrants helped their people.
I remember one trip where we were driving from the airport to the office. There was a newer Oldsmobile broken down on the side of the expressway, Our driver made the comment that the owner should not have left the vehicle. The reason was apparent a couple of hours later as we were heading back in that direction. The car had been stripped and all four wheels were neatly stacked awaiting pick up. This was on a major artery. My point is, not much has changed.
I’m not sure wen the flush handle was pushed in the US, but on this side of the border it was 1968.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago I asked my Dad (a farmer) what the best years were. “65, 66, 67” he replied. “I was getting $3.50 a cwt for milk and we could buy butter and cheese for about 40 cents a pound. I bought a new tractor and a baler and a side rake and I paid cash, and we had money for the down payment on the second farm. Back then, if you worked, you could make a dollar and a dollar was worth something”. And then he paused…”And then along came that *&^%;^%$*g Trudeau.”
Under Prinz Dummkopf, we’ll not only hit bottom, he’ll make sure we start digging even deeper once we get there.
I agree with your father. I remember, before Ex-husband of Maggie, when (what used to be called) Canada was considered to be the second-most prosperous country in the world. And the alleged sire of Dear Leader took office…..
Pierre Elliot Twadels screwed Canada and the current crop of idiots are allowing his spawn to finish the job.
Not so sure that the USA is that easy to kill.
It is an ideal,a dream or a shared illusion.
Now in the urban centres ,it seems to be in decay.
But urbanites have delusions of adequacy that allows them to embrace democracy,as in two wolves and a lamb voting on who’s for lunch.
As their theft ,by power of bloc vote, rises those they steal from retreat or starve.
The classic “Socialism is wonderful ,until you run out of other peoples money”.
When you map the concentrations of Democrat Power,you see how little threat they pose to the country in general,how easily contained these regions are.
So their power lies in threats,bluster and stagecraft..
For open battle will see them quickly destroyed .
Trump Derangement Syndrome may have our Progressive Comrades believing their own BS.
These staged riots,with both Democrats and their Media Wing providing support are already backfiring.
The idiots blew their cover,for the message to residents of Democrat Enclaves is impossible to ignore.
Law and Order?
Or
Death by Democrat?
Outside the cities?
Arm up,they are savages.
Trump?
Or
Waves of looting mobs?
Who the hell is advising the Democrats?
Or are they beyond any rational help?
The regular folk, the flyover folk, the suburban folk have mostly been sitting on the sidelines watching on with justified contempt and scorn as the mostly Democratic urbanites destroy their cities. If, IF, these rioters and lefties start to come for these peaceful people on the sidelines we will see this all come to a screeching halt. No National Guard will be required. The violence will be put down quickly. Regular folk have enough confidence and pride not to allow this decay to fester.
Thank you for that, Robert. We are probing for the bottom. And let me add something I had never anticipated about the underclass of “disenfranchised” Americans growing restless and increasingly violent … they have newly minted members of the bottom-dwellers … college graduates. Yes, Obama has created a whole new group of bottom-dwellers … college students. College students who have collected USELESS classes and in a few cases USELESS degrees, thanks to Obama’s NEW government-funded student loans. Loans that acted as a new welfare system for 20-somethings. Coupled with Obamakkare’s provision allowing “the unlaunched” 27 year olds to remain infantilized … the underclass has grown to unsustainable levels.
Annual budget appropriations totaling multiple trillions of dollars on Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, public housing, rent subsidies and federal aid to public schools have produced . . . what?
I actually have an answer to that question … “time”. The liberal welfare State of America has bought time … a delay of the coming revolution. A delay of the great American implosion. And yet … the more we spend, the more the underclass expands. The left has done everything in their power to expand the underclass to ever more unsustainable levels. And what does unsustainable mean? It’s the inflection point where it no longer makes sense to work. Where so much $$ is taken out of your pycheck in taxes, that people lose all incentive to work. We are watching this in miniature, where a “free” $600/week is a better economic deal than working.
If we want to become the Soviet Union … sorry … err … “Democratic Socialism” … then keep expanding the underclass, and keep expanding the social programs that keep them from working. You will eventually hit bottom and implode America as we know it. There is nothing more evil than that … and the Democrats are pushing for that bottom … faster and faster
By age 27 I had worked for 3 years in London coding big main frame computers, then I went to Zambia and worked for a copper mining company for 3 years on contract doing the same. At 26 I married and still am to the same woman for 52 years. I then chose to emigrate to Canada where I have been ever since. Britain was then run by the Labour party under Harold Wilson, ugh, and Canada was the promised land to me.
Not so much promise these days. I lived and prospered during those “halcyon” days. My kids are ok at the moment but my grandkids are very young as both my children waited late in the scheme of things to have their children. I will not live to see great grandchildren. I wish there was some way of insulating them from the ongoing insanity. Maybe they will learn enough on their own to understand just how stupid Canadians have been and try their own form of correction. It is interesting Stephen that the old saying , the more things change the more the remain the same is appropriate, and I hate that word.
OWG You and I have much in common as I am an Old White Guy too. My grandchildren are just 8 years old so like you I will not see great grandchildren, I doubt I will see their marriages or partnerships.
This is true– they have not hit rock bottom — but they are seeing a slow disintegration of freedom and social civility. Same in Canada, but without the violent disruptions. Countries change over time, and depending on the forces in play, they can change for the better or change for the worse. Various groups jockeying for power bring about instability– and sometimes revolutions. The outcome of revolutions are never predictable. Often what happens is when a regime is toppled, the focussed, organized and often ruthless group ends up taking power. The protestors/dems and communists may want to topple Trump and the capitalist system, but watch out for the Mudlims who are just waiting to fill a power vacuum. That is what happened in Iran and they still cannot get rid of them. People can change when they hit rock bottom, but countries never agree on what should come next and there are too many different agendas — so could easily be just a different version of chaos and difficulty.