Is Democracy Doomed?

Although
many argue that the national government has usurped states’ rights, the
states have many mechanisms to restore their diminished power. For
instance, the Supreme Court has recently made decisions in favor of a
limited national government and increased state power. Following the
Kavanaugh confirmation, this trend will likely continue into the
foreseeable future. Additionally, Article V grants states the power to
propose a constitutional amendment, such as the Balanced Budget
Amendment, which is gaining momentum, or congressional term limits.

There
are an infinite number of possibilities for what the United States will
become, but hopefully the exceptional model of American democracy will
survive well beyond the historic 200-year lifespan.

the rational system will trump the emotional religion. the system is large progressive in function and form. Not even starting on culture, the church, edu., news, the rest of the world. i wish it where true. i like a comforting fantasy as much as the next guy. doesn’t make it true

even if that works it doesn’t stop progressives from ripping it apart again

Is Democracy Doomed?

cultml:

Phantogram – Cruel World (Official Audio)

I’m putting you out of your misery
‘Cause darling you’re dragging me down
I wish I could say that I’m sorry
But I’m over that, now I’m taking you out
It’s a cruel, cruel world

I used to see beauty in people
But now I see muscle and bones
You know I never wanted to hurt you
But I’m sorry, my friend, this is the end

Finding Wisdom as the Branches Shrivel

As I said to the audience in Newton, we live in a time when man can
find wisdom – almost the entirety of human knowledge – on a pocket-sized
device he carries around with him all day. In theory, the tree of life
should be spreading its branches broad and embracing over ever more of
humanity. Instead, in the Age of Digital Wisdom, too many retreat into
dark corners sealed off from any wider enlightenment.

In a world of hermetically sealed ideological ghettos, it is a
melancholy fact that Islam, the secular polytechnic left and the
subterranean skinhead right all meet at what Laura Rosen Cohen calls Jew-Hate Junction.

…Instead, in the Age of Digital Wisdom, too many retreat into dark corners sealed off from any wider enlightenment.

Finding Wisdom as the Branches Shrivel

Medicare Reform Has No Constituency | National Review

It is easy to dismiss this as a failure of leadership, and to some
extent it is. Republicans could have, should have tried harder. But
leaving it at that overlooks the more fundamental reality: A virtually
insuperable coalition controls the politics of Medicare and can
successfully fend off assaults on reforms.

There are two broad groups that oppose fundamental transformations to
Medicare: the medical-services industry and senior citizens. While they
do not amount to a majority of the population, they nevertheless have
incredible political power.

On the flip side, young voters, who stand to benefit the most from
reforms that reduce the cost to the public fisc, tend to vote
Democratic, and they would not receive the benefits from GOP reforms
until many years in the future. Similarly, in the short run, no industry
groups would benefit if the government reduced its expected commitment
to providing medical care.

Medicare Reform Has No Constituency | National Review

The Sad, Sad Culture of Progressivism

There,
one finds all sorts of new and interesting topics to feel bad about.
One can educate one’s sense of moral outrage, refining the palate to the
subtler nuances of the same eternal whine. The vibrant Red whine: How bad western civilization is in general. The anti-American White whine: How bad America is in particular.
All such reading fuels the same peculiarly self-destructive end. The
progressive is taught to believe that an entirely unproductive and
pathologically disheartened outlook is the mark of a superior being.
Life is to be lamented from start to finish. Ordinary happiness is for
the stupid. Such an ongoing narrative is as sticky and as lethal as a
Venus fly trap. Try reading a little of the public intellectual Noam
Chomsky. See how wonderfully acerbic and languid he is? Read a bit of
the revisionist historian Howard Zinn. Such a blistering indictment of
the West by a man who hasn’t troubled himself to examine any
inconvenient historical data. Even a cursory study of leftist literature
will make it plain to any conservative how leftists have developed an
unspoken longing for cultural suicide. They have few or no children.
They have no reason to be bothered if America is eventually transformed
into just another Latin American failed state. They have been told their
whole lives that it would serve us right.

The Sad, Sad Culture of Progressivism