UPDATE: From the UK's Sunday Telegraph, its article titled 'Democracy
In Decline' - here are some excerpts...Around the world democracy is in retreat. ...The generals have taken back power (in countless countries). Asia, Africa, South America. the Middle East ...(all over the world). And this does not even include China and Russia. The Democracy Index found recently that only 8.4% of the world's population lived in full democracies* The late great Charles Krauthammer is quoted as saying in 2017..."and now in a development once unimaginable, mature Western Democracies are experiencing a surge of ethnonationalism a blood and soil patriotism a weariness with parliamentary dysfunction and an attraction ...to strongman rule." The article goes on to note that 'American conservatism has suddenly been transformed into something much closer to European Authoritarianism. ...hardly anyone is making the case for constitutional democracy..the open society is slipping away unmourned ...By heaven we'll miss it when it is gone'.
*I am not sure if our own country Canada is in this 8.4% but if it is, sadly I believe it is mis-classified.
As in the 'Beacon On The Hill'...The U S of A
I have written a lot of late concerning the Decline of Democracy and Our Freedoms generally but in the past we could always count on America to our south to preserve these rights and to protect us. This is becoming less evident though with the passage of time.
Crime is up big time in America - the murder capital - Chicago has seen its murder rate climb some 69% in less than 2 years. Mass Shootings have become a daily occurrence and muggings no longer even warrant comment. The Homeless have taken over their City Streets - drugs, needles, excrement, crime along with them.
And the Bad Guys - China, Russia and Their Ilk are on the rise.
I was going to do a Blog on this Subject but Allister Heath of the London Daily Telegraph beat me to it and in doing so ...did a far better job than I could ever do.
Allister Heath: America — the dying city on a hill
LONDON — It was the land of capitalism, freedom,
the melting pot and the American dream: its deep imperfections notwithstanding,
I always held it to be a self-evident truth that there was much the United
States of America could teach Britain. On visits during my teenage and student
years, I was enthralled by the dynamism, the can-do attitude, the work ethic,
the quality of life of the middle classes, the commitment to religious freedom
and civil society, the brilliance of the universities, the romance of its great
cities and the lifestyle epitomized by the homes and cars of its suburbs.
Much of what Alexis de Tocqueville described in his brilliant,
premonitory “Democracy in America” in 1835 remained correct: there were
crippling caveats, of course, but the U.S. was the greatest ever experiment in
building a modern civilization based around constitutionally limited
government, individualism and mass participation in wealth and decision-making.
Even America’s awful downsides, the hideous, shocking ways in
which it deviated from its founding principles, some of which I witnessed first
hand on an exchange program at a horribly divided school in Baltimore, appeared
to be slowly improving. It was still possible to hope that the despicable evil
of racism, the appalling legacy of slavery and segregation, were finally on the
way out, that progress was being made, that Martin Luther King’s dream of
judging people on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin,
might one day be reached.
America’s other horrors, not least rampant violence, were also
in retreat: the fight against crime was liberating cities such as New York and
ushering in an urban renaissance, which other countries would eventually copy.
There were other problems, of course, not least homelessness and poverty, but
lesser versions of these were hardly absent in Europe, including the French
banlieues.
A quarter of a century later, I still love America but the
tragic reality is that today’s United States is no longer Ronald Reagan’s
shining city on a hill. It is, instead, a republic in decline, plunged into a
moral, economic, philosophical and existential crisis that may yet destroy it.
Joe Biden’s useless presidency will merely intensify the forces driving the
nihilism that is eating away at America’s soul.
So what happened since my student days? Automation,
globalization and the failures of state education slashed the returns to
blue-collar, unskilled work. Stagnant wages for such groups, combined with the
increased cost of housing (caused by regulatory-imposed scarcity and cheap
money) have affected poorer Americans severely, with falling life expectancy
among certain demographics even before COVID, as well as a collapse in marriage
and fertility and a surge in loneliness and addiction.
This economic crisis has gone hand in hand with the rise of
secularism: just 47 per cent of Americans now belong to a house of worship,
according to Gallup, the first time in 80 years that this has fallen below
half, and down disastrously from 70 per cent in 1999. The result of all this
has been to push working-class people towards populism and graduates towards a
form of neo-Corbynite left.
At the same time, returns to Ivy League degrees increased
sharply, creating a super-class of married, two-income families that congregate
in cities or exclusive suburbs. In the 1950s, the average CEO or lawyer had
largely similar tastes to the average worker, almost uniquely in the West; now
tastes are radically different depending on class, as has always been the case
in the Old World.
Their beliefs have diverged equally drastically: America’s
elites, led by younger graduates, have abandoned their post-1960s liberalism
and embraced instead what Wesley Yang has described as its “successor
ideology”: the sinister “woke” secular religion of so-called “social justice
warriors” who see the world through the distorted prism of “intersectionality,”
oppression, identity politics and the catch-all of “white supremacy.” These people
say they want to fight racism but, in reality, are balkanizing America and have
no interest in a truly meritocratic, colour-blind society finally at peace with
itself, the original liberal ideal.
In the authoritarian, anti-democratic worldview that now dominates
universities, big business, government and cultural institutions, free speech
is dismissed as violence, conservatism as fascism and differences of opinion as
“micro-aggressions.” Capitalism is loathed, as is free enquiry. The old elite —
whether left-liberal or Reaganite — tried to help the poor: the new elite
dislikes the working class and seeks to deploy “cancel culture” to stamp out
dissent. It attacks selective state schooling and campaigns to defund the
police, moves that have led to an explosion of crime and are hitting minorities
especially badly.
The right, for its part, has also gone mad: too many Republicans
have ditched their old principles — be it free markets, limited government or
social conservatism — and instead embraced a dumbed-down, populist demagoguery
on a long list of issues. Many Republican voters still believe, against all
facts and evidence, that the election was rigged; on COVID, conspiracies have
been rife. Trumpism could be the death of the Republican party.
Left and right hate each other: they refuse to talk, to live
together and they don’t want their children to marry one another. Race
relations are also deteriorating again after years of gradual progress,
according to polling.
The economic chaos to date is nothing compared to what might
happen. The establishment believes it can borrow with impunity: the dollar
remains the world’s reserve currency, granting it seigniorage, geopolitical and
other privileges. Yet one day this will end, especially if America goes on
consuming above its means. The U.S. continues to attract the best and brightest
from all around the world, helping to prop up its world-beating tech industry.
But how long can this last if hard work is being replaced by identity politics,
and with the spectre of extortionate taxes being pushed by neo-Marxists? The
tech giants — once disruptive, libertarian ventures that empowered ordinary
people — have often become corporatized agents of the woke elites, and will
eventually face a global reckoning. China, meanwhile, is powering ahead with
its own tech and military investments.
Can America still be saved? I hope so, for the sake of its
wonderful people and for what we used to call “the free world.” However, for
the first time, I’m no longer sure.
-----
