What needs “change”?
Yesterday I wrote about Europeans who expect us to bow to their whims when we elect our president this year. Today, in the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens writes about the world’s perception of Americans as a naive race in his Great (American) Expectations;
Barack Obama, still fresh from his victory in Iowa last week and confident of another in New Hampshire tonight, has as his signature campaign theme the promise to “end the division” in America. Notice the irony: The scale of his Iowa victory, in a state that’s 94% white, is perhaps the clearest indication so far that the division Mr. Obama promises to end has largely been put to rest.
Meanwhile, in Kenya last week a mob surrounded a church in which, according to an Associated Press report, “hundreds of terrified people had taken refuge.” The church was put to flame, while the mob used machetes, Hutu-style, to hack to death whoever tried to escape. The killers in this case were of the Luo tribe, their victims were of the Kikuyu, and the issue over which they are bleeding is their own presidential election.
[Barack Obama]When foreigners assail Americans for being naive, it is often on account of contrasts like these. A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word “hunger.” A nation in which the most celebrated recent cases of racism, at Duke University or in Jena, La., are wholly or mostly contrived is not a racist nation. A nation in which our “division” is defined by the vitriol of Ann Coulter or James Carville is not a truly divided one — at least while Mr. Carville is married to Republican operative Mary Matalin and Ms. Coulter is romantically linked with New York City Democrat Andrew Stein.
Someone let me know when Ann Coulter inspires her acolytes to herd Democrats into a church. But, probably the largest point of Stephen’s piece is that during this presidential campaign, Americans are getting twisted up in knots over the plight of the “poor” who can barely afford sky-rocketing cable TV access, the disparity in wages – wages that only one-half of one percent earn, more government regulations to protect homebuyers – these are the problems of a rich nation. Stephens makes an excellent point to wards the end of his piece;
There is great virtue in the American way, which expects CEOs to perform on a quarterly basis, presidents and Congresses to reinvent politics in 100 days, generals to wipe out opponents in 100 hours without taking significant casualties, doctors to save life and limb every time, search engines to yield a million results in less than a second, and so on. There is also great virtue in the belief that what is bad can be made good, and that what is good can be made great, and that what is fractionally less than great is downright awful.
But these virtues can spawn vices. One is impatience. Another is a culture of chronic complaint. A third is the belief that every problem has a solution, that trial is possible without error, that risks must always be zero, that every inconvenience is an outrage, every setback a disaster and every mishap a plausible basis for a lawsuit.
It’s those chronic complainers that have the microphone during this election. If we don’t support Hillary Clinton, we’re misogynists. If we don’t support Barack Obama, we ‘re racists. If we don’t send our money to Ron Paul, we’re not really conservative (got news for you pauliens – a real conservative, or libertarian, wouldn’t run for political office).
The Democrats are always pointing out what’s wrong with this nation – and how they’ll fight for us and change the country. Anyone out there prepared to ask them in public what exactly needs (NEEDS) to be changed? Aside from the mind-numbing whining from the various classes of manufactured victims.
