Born in the USA

I want to believe that real Americans still exist, the ones who forged a great nation with the power of their will and strength of their ingenuity. Somewhere, perhaps hidden amongst the over entitled cowards who wait for weekly handouts and the bloated bureaucrats who dole them out. Maybe among those who don't believe that 20 years of work should be rewarded with an inalienable god given right to 40+ years of pay. Or the ones who understand that although the system is NOT designed to be fair, it is one of the few that can be beaten if you simply have the ability to THINK and TRY!



There must, there absolutely must still be true patriots among us who can pull our collective heads out of socialist leaning asses long enough to get some fresh air before it's simply too late. As a history enthusiast I can tell you that this has all happened before. Great nations like great anything (athletes, models, cars, homes, relationships, etc.) must be maintained. Right now our country is suffering from an extreme case of deferred maintenance. We were handed a mansion and we've been throwing a spring break party so wild that it would make Ancient Romans blush.


However you may feel about money and profit, you cannot deny that capitalism has its uses. Despite what the blasted weed smoking slackers advocating the forcible redistribution of wealth would have you believe, the pursuit of profit has created all of modern civilization. For us jaded New Yorkers capitalism may be synonymous 12 bottles of Dom, a Ferrari and a pair of supermodels fighting over your black card. But capitalism means that an African dairy herder can use a solar panel to charge her cell phone so she can accept orders for milk from neighbors scattered across thousands of square miles. It means that a Chinese rice farmer can access the sum total of human knowledge with the taps of a few keys to increase his crop yields. It means that people who have been ruled by a madman for over four decades can organize a resistance in the face of automatic weapons fire and air strikes.


Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We all know that line. The key word in that famous sentence is: PURSUIT. We should all be allowed to pursue our dreams wherever they may lead us. Just because that dream is never realized doesn't mean the game is rigged. There are winners and there are losers. Throughout our lives we will all experience what it feels like to be both of those. In ye olden times losing usually meant starving to death in the unforgiving wilderness. These days, at least in America, at least for now, losing just means someone else won more.


However the stakes are changing and most of us have no idea how high they're getting. Losing in the United States of America will be a fond memory if we actually lose the United States of America. The message set forth by the founding fathers have universal appeal. Our cultural influence (hegemony some would call it) has spread to all corners of the globe. Everyone wants to be a winner, to create a better life for themselves. Before they have the luxury of delving into what it means to be a virtuous human being, they must first deal with the raw and real task of accumulating wealth. A simple fact that an increasing number of Americans take increasingly for granted is that wealth = security. Security=freedom. Freedom=happiness. The logic is unassailable. Without our position as the world's wealthiest nation we would never have had the time to develop this national malaise of the spirit coated in self-loathing.


At the conclusion of the Second World War the United States found itself with no natural predators, no serious competitors, no other contenders to the throne. So we happily expanded the franchise that is USA. That's not to say there weren't bumps in the ensuing six decades, but on a macro level we have successfully exported the notion of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness to nearly every other culture on the planet.


For anyone who's ever worked for a difficult boss and quit, I'm sure you'll understand that being given freedom is nothing like getting freedom for yourself. The USA as the oh so generous giver of freedom has bequeathed the tools of independence upon a world that is ever more resentful. The USA has not been anything near a saint, in fact it's become more of a weakened tribal elder who's edicts are met with a mixture of pity and derision rather than obedience and respect.


Some may argue, "so what? We don't want to be the world's police any way." It's much better to be the police than to be policed especially if you've spent the last sixty odd years policing those who would police you. How's that for a tongue twister?


Our entire way of life is provided for by the vastness of our wealth which funds our security which in protects our freedom and ensures our ability to pursue happiness. Again the linchpin of this beautiful system is wealth. Times have changed and we have changed them. The United States is still the world's foremost military power and despite their best attempts no other nation or even group of nations could hope to impose its will on the United States through brute force. However our vulnerability lies in our wealth.


Our wealth is and has been under attack by forces both foreign and domestic because that is the only place that we can be attacked. Whether the genesis of these attacks are by design, by accident or a simple unfortunate confluence of self-imposed short sightedness coupled with opportunistic exploitation by others is far too complex for me to explain credibly. However these attacks are occurring.


We have become a nation of obese and insolvent crybabies who are too busy consuming the contents of our diapers to realize that we're about to bagged and sold to a nice cannibal couple who are going to raise us as dinner. I'm going to try to explain the danger with as little hyperbole as possible.


At some point in the not too distant past we became convinced that stuff = happiness.


We began to trade our dollars for stuff; oil, cars, cheap clothes, crappy housewares and a multitude of junk.


Those who sell this stuff to us began to hoard our dollars.


We ran out of dollars. But we still wanted to buy stuff.


Sellers: "Hey you ran out of dollars, but your credit's good here."


US: "Gee golly mister, are you sure? I mean we can always come back after we've made more dollars."


Sellers: "Don't be silly Sammy, you'll make more money when you grow up, so why not spend it now?"


US: "You're right. I'm gonna make trillions one day, gotta spend money to make money right?"


Sellers" "Why yes Sammy, you're absolutely right. Now why don't you try our newest crack coated candy"


US: "Crack coated? Isn't that addictive? Aw hell, you only live once."


So Sammy begins paying for crack with his credit card. Through a combination of complacency and simple old fashioned greed (wanting more for nothing) we as a nation have become addicted to cheap products. These products are all maintained at artificially low prices because we wouldn't want to appear to have inequality due to unequal distribution of means. Everyone should be able to ball with big TVs, big houses and big cars. This consumerist mindset became woven into the fabric of American identity.


Now larger numbers of people could settle for lower paychecks and pointless jobs because they only had to work X number of hours to obtain the latest widget of wonder. That is the fundamental logical disconnect that will be exploited by those seeking to end America's dominance by forcibly eroding its wealth. Our national addiction to cheap excess will ironically be the one thing that causes everything to become expensive.


Right wing madness with a heavy dose of conspiracy theory right? Why would other nations want to hurt their biggest customer. Who would buy their cheap products if we, the big old US of A didn't. The USA has 350 million some odd people. I can think of two places off the top of my head that can replace that client base many times over. Starts with a Chin and ends with a dia. There will come a time in the not too distant future where those countries who export so many of the goods that we've come to depend on will no longer need to do so. They will have sufficient domestic demand to offset their need for our business.


What happens then?


Well we go to the back of the bus and stay there until we've learned our lesson.


Our national debt to income ratio makes a sub-prime Las Vegas stripper property flipper look like Warren Buffet. How many things in the past few years have become backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States Government?" It's that credit that continues to fuel our daily lives. At some point the other nations of the world will say "Sorry Sammy, but you're tapped. Your credit is no good here. Come back when you have some Francs, Yuan or Kronens"


Once that happens we'll stumble out onto the street wondering where did it all go wrong right before the nasty symptoms of junk withdrawal kick-in. The subsequent spasms will shake our great nation to its very core and may even threaten our very survival as a Union of federated states.


So those are the problems. What are the solutions oh wise one?


We are staring up from the bottom of an ever deepening pit. How will we get out of it? The best way to get out of a hole is to stop digging. As a nation we must begin to recognize and reward true talent and not penalize it. Wealth creation should be as important a part of education as anything else. We have to revive the entrepreneurial spirit of self sufficiency that created this great nation in the first place.


These are lofty goals and they cannot be achieved without a healthy dose of brutal honesty. There are many in this country who are dead weight. They are a drag on society for a host of reasons. But the worst aren't the criminals, not even the criminally stupid, but the ones who seek only to make money without any thought to creating wealth. Those are two very disparate activities which are often erroneously lumped together by those too stupid or too lazy.


Will we wake up before it's too late? I hope so, but I've also learned to never underestimate the power of idiocy.


God bless America, someone has to.