2012 is the most pivotal election in the US since 1980. Americans will either choose to revert back to their Constitution, and to what truly makes a country great and repudiate Marxist-Eco socialism, or they will vote to follow Europe over the abyss into the dark hell-hole of communal suicide. No salvation post 2012 if the Americans choose poorly. Worse the entire geo-political structure of the planet would reverberate with chaos and danger. America becoming Sweden is a project of immorality merged with ignorance.
Steyn's 'America Alone' the precursor to this work 'After America', was a flawed demography survey in which America would survive while most of the rest of the world would collapse due to a higher birth-rate. As reviewed previously, the problem with such a deductionist approach is that most of America's high birth-rate comes from Hispanics. The core of America, or 'Red State' America has a slightly higher than replacement rate. The true population growth lies in the Hispanic community. Like Jews some 80 % of Hispanics vote for the [un]Democratic party. This collection of sophists, Marxists, eco-communists, union workers, rich lawyers, Hollywood-sexual deviants and lovers of the big nanny state are only too happy to turn America into a Moslem-dominated larger version of poor, disgruntled, disturbed Belgium. Steyn misses the key point about the political-economy - Culture, not birth-rates is King. And when your culture is run-amok Socialism what happens? As Steyn writes in After America:
“In America, federal spending (inflation adjusted) went from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 Trillion in 2008 [it is actually $3.5 Trillion in 2011].”
“By 1788, Louis XIV's government in France was spending a mere 60% of revenues on debt service, and we know how that worked out for the House of Bourbon shortly thereafter.”
...”by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20 percent of its revenue in debt interest. Whereas defense spending will be down to between 14 and 16 percent.”
“...debt service projections for 2015 would increase from $290 billion to $847 billion. China would be in a position to quadruple its military budget and stick US taxpayers with the bill.”
Bankruptcy is always ugly. So is the cultural decline associated with the big-Nanny PC Marxist state. Steyn quoting a British historian on the current cultural apathy and decline:
“...[no we can't] land on the moon, swiftly win wars against weak opposition and then control the defeated nation, secure national borders, discover breakthrough medical treatments, prevent crime, design and build to a tight deadline, educate people so they can work before the age of 22.....”
The Obamabots were screaming 'Yes we Can'. I guess they meant, Yes We Can do nothing and still enjoy a great standard of living. Or Yes we Can never grow up. You can live in Sweden, or the future USA, and be a child your entire life. The mommy-state will do everything for you from wiping your nose to issuing state-approved toilet paper to wipe your backside with. Let's not forget the 27.000 words in EU legislation organizing and regulating the sale of cabbage. God forbid that anyone would actually buy some cabbage which was unregulated by an encyclopedia sized bureaucratic diktat. That too will come to America. 30.000 word dictations on the sale of napkins.
“To open a restaurant in NYC requires dealing with the conflicting demands of at least eleven municipal agencies, plus submitting to twenty-three city inspections, and applying for thirty different permits and certificates.”
In 'After America' Steyn corrects the obvious problem with his first book, that being the fact that culture is king, with a long brood about American decline and the domestic and geo-political chaos which would inevitably follow an American self-implosion. After America then what ? UN world government dominated by the Moslem bloc ? A Chinese 'protection zone' throughout all of East Asia which allows a water-starved China access to watershed and riverine areas in neighbouring states under the rubric of 'stability' ? A Greater Russia reconquering the weak bits of Eastern Europe ? A Moslem Caliphate built on the 'Arab Spring' springing up from Tripoli to Ankara and wiping out any Jews and Christians foolish enough to remain in the lands of Muhammad ?
If and when America goes bankrupt and its military becomes the size of Canada's token 19.000 under-funded police force, the world will most certainly become a far uglier place. The America-haters should read this book. Their wish to demolish the largest obstacle between civilisation and the resurrection to power of theologies from the neolithic era, might well occur. Jubilee for the big brains.
If you object to the cultural Marxist multi-cult nirvana and Socialism:
“The evolution from -isms to phobias is part of the medicalization of dissent: the Conformicrats simply declare your position a form of mental illness.”
Speaking of cabbage, Public workers make a lot of it:
“In 2009, the average civilian employee of the United States government earned $81,258 in salary plus $41,791 in benefits. Total: $123,049. The average American employed in the private sector earned $50,462 in salary plus $10,589 in benefits. Total: $61,051.”
High cost of Low regulation:
“By 2005, the costs of federal regulatory compliance alone...were up to $1.13 Trillion or approaching 10 % of GDP. In much of America it takes far more paperwork to start a business than to go on welfare.”
High taxes and poor regulation means offshoring:
“From 1947 to the start of the downturn in 2008, manufacturing declined from 25.6 percent of the economy to 11 percent, while finance, insurance, real estate, and 'professional services' grew from 13.9 per cent to 33.5 percent.”
Depreciated, useless Lower Education:
“In 1940, a majority of the U.S. Population had no more than a Grade Eight education. By 2008, 40 per cent of 18-24 year olds were enrolled in college.....the typical American is almost twice as old by the time he completes his education as he was in 1940, and has spent over twice as long in the classroom...”
The blessings of Euro-UK socialism?
“...debauch your human capital. The UK has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers, the highest abortion rate; marriage is all but defunct, except for toffs, upscale gays, and Muslims.”
and
“...In Wales, Northern Ireland, and parts of northern England, the state accounts for between 73 and 78 percent of the economy...”
And the outcome of America's Socialist failure? The reduction ad-absurdum of once virile and intelligent US culture, into the apathetic stupidity and finally dissolution that all communal programs demand. Culture is King:
“Culture is not immutable. But changing culture is tough and thankless and something America's ever weakening assimilationists no longer have the stomach for. So go with the numbers: the SouthWest will be Mexican, and Washington's writ will no longer run....” and in quoting Andrew McCarthy; “Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historic inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil does not recede willingly before the wheels of progress.”
All true. The American fetish with Marxist-PC-communalism will end in a disaster. No one knows what shape that destruction will take. The US dissolving into disparate nation states is surely one likely outcome. So too is global chaos. Going bankrupt and destroying a successful culture and replacing it with post-modern gibberish and shibboleths has its consequences. History is not necessarily linear not does it evolve in 'stage theories' to broad sunlit uplands of hopey dopey change and rainbows, in nice steps and progressions. Oftentimes a civilization crashes, regresses, dissolves or simply breaks apart, ripped and torn asunder by various forces of culture, finance, external aggression, and population decline. Steyn's book outlines why American hegemony might well fall, and what will happen if it does.