“We can bear neither our diseases nor their remedies.”
So shrugged the ancient historian Livy (59 B.C.- A.D. 17) of the long decline of Roman national character that, in his age, finally ended the Roman Republic.
Like a patient whose medicine proves worse than the disease, Livy lamented that the Romans knew that they had become corrupt and lawless.
But the very contemplation of the hard medicine needed for restoration—and the furious reaction that would meet the remedy—made it impossible to save the patient.
America is nearing such an impasse.
We know that no state can long exist after opening its borders to over 7 million illegal aliens, requiring neither background checks nor legality.
The recent murder of a Georgia female jogger by an illegal alien and the savage beating of New York policemen by similar others hardly merit media attention.
Everyone knows that neither new appropriations nor new laws are needed to secure the border as it was in 2020.
Instead, we could just stop suicidal catch-and-release, deport lawbreakers, privilege the legal over the illegal immigrant, demand would-be refugees apply for asylum first in their native countries, finish the border wall, and pressure Mexico to stop undermining the territorial integrity of its northern neighbor.
But then we shrug, “We can’t do that”—paralyzed in fear of being smeared as “xenophobic,” “nativist,” or “racist.”
So this generation apparently feels that it can endure the collateral damage of daily assaults on American citizens, the near bankruptcy of our cities, and 100,000 fentanyl deaths per year—but certainly not the idea that it is somehow not politically correct or compassionate.
The same is true of the $35 trillion debt, now costing more than $1 trillion a year in interest payments—and growing. We all know it is unsustainable. Americans understand it will eventually lead either to destructive hyperinflation, suicidal renunciation of federal debt, or confiscation of private savings.
Yet we ignore the reckless spending and keep borrowing well over $1 trillion a year. Apparently, our generation prefers being praised as “virtuous” and “caring.” So it leaves the next generation to be smeared as “cruel” and “unfair” when it is forced to cut federal entitlements and bloated government or face civilizational collapse.
The crime epidemic is also similar. Everyone accepts that no society can long endure quasi-legalized shoplifting or green-lighting smash-and-grabbers and carjackers to be released without bail.
But we assume that such a civilizational implosion will never reach our own sanctuary neighborhoods or safe places of work—at least not yet.
We also know that restoring deterrence by arresting, convicting, and jailing repeat felons will return safety to our streets.
But again, we fear even more that advocating “law and order” will earn slanders like “racist” or “reactionary.”
Ditto the homeless. In an age of self-congratulation and hyper-environmentalism, we know that a million homeless defecating, urinating, injecting, and assaulting on our downtown sidewalks and storefronts is medieval.
We know that it is illegal to camp out on the street and publicly harass citizens or relieve oneself in public.
And we know the cure lies in building and staffing more mental institutions and providing areas far from public spaces where the homeless can find shelter, sanitation, and medical care.
But the very idea of removing anyone from his accustomed sidewalk spot, or the notion of the use of force to transport the mentally ill to proper and humane facilities, terrifies us.
So we walk around, step over, and ignore those on the street.
Is the assumption that the odds of being assaulted or sickened acceptable? Or do we just not wish to learn where the flotsam, jetsam, and human offal of the street end up?
Most accept that had Donald Trump just not run for president in 2024 or was a man of the left, he would not now be facing four different felony court cases.
Most accept that three of the four prosecutors have either in advance promised to get Trump or have proved grossly unethical.
Most know it is wrong to try to remove a leading presidential candidate from state ballots.
Yet many shrug that this new weaponization of America’s legal system is the flamboyant Trump’s own problem, not their own. So they ignore the third worldization of our political system, which they quietly acknowledge is otherwise leading us to a Venezuela-like mess.
The paralysis of American society extends to our foreign policy as well. We deplore the terrorism of Iran and its thuggish surrogates. But we fear more the nasty, costly business of stopping its aggression.
Societies do not always collapse from a lack of wealth, invasion, or natural catastrophes.
Most often, they know what is destroying them. But they are so paralyzed by their fear that the road to salvation becomes too painful to even contemplate.
So they implode gradually, then suddenly.
In 1998, William Bennett, former Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, wrote a book titled “The Death of Outrage”. The book’s premise was the seeming indifference or apathy of the public to the serial abuses of office and unpresidential character of President Bill (Slick Willy) Clinton.
It was this lack of outrage that presaged the beginning of America’s suicide watch. As VDH chronicles, even though we see, hear and understand that our society is crumbling all around us, we lack the clarity of mind and determination of spirit to defuse the ticking timebomb of civilizational collapse.
As Mark Twain quipped, “History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” I hear the fat lady humming quite loudly.
Donald Trump is the personification of American outrage. William Bennett, like so many Conservatives, is great at bloviating about what ails us and worse than poor about doing anything about it.
Throughout his op-ed VDH writes, “We know, fill in the disaster, but we are afraid to do anything about it.”
I kept asking myself who is this “We?” It must be VDH and the Democrat rat lunatic asylum hiding in his pocket.
Conservatives like me have been waiting a life time for an American titan like President Trump to lead us into battle. In the mean time we voted for Republicans who when elected, simply integrated themselves into the Washington DC organized crime syndicate.
In just four years of his first term, President Trump fixed the 60 year mess called the post-World War II period. Peace and prosperity broke out all over the world.
Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly describes stupid actions in the past that were destructive, but not how western societies recovered (sort of).
I agree. Who is this “We” Kemosabe?
We all know who it is: it’s the liberal ruling class that rules by the conceit that it is the Ally of the Oppressed Peoples against the White Oppressors.
Three lies: First, every ruling class is in it for themselves. Second, the Oppressed are in fact the Mascots of the rulers. Third, the White Oppressors are the ruling class itself.
When it came to the recently established Board of Education Bill Bennett was more of the Problem than any solution. He wanted to be the Czar. It needed to be destroyed and that was never his intention.