Ingratitude and Ignorance Are Driving The Destruction of The Greatest Civilization In Human History
I started writing my Imperfect America blog in 2009. It’s my passion, despite the sad fact that it’s never made me a penny. Not even on Twitter, new or old, where my account is constantly throttled!
My first post was titled “Racism, America’s Original Sin.” It was a response to the new normal of anyone disagreeing with Barack Obama being called a racist. In it, I talk about the 3/5th Compromise and the fact that it gave Southerners less power in the House than they wanted, but more importantly, it was the key to America being one nation rather than two, one free and one slave. I pointed out that blacks would likely have been much worse off in a nation of only slave states. The 3/5th Compromise is a literal example of the subtitle of my blog: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”
a consequence of Western civilization.
For most of human history, life was brutal, short, and dangerous. For most people today, it’s not. And there’s a reason, which is these five elements: Free speech, the rule of law, limited government, private property, and capitalism, which combined to give humans the unprecedented ability and motivation to be creative and productive.
The results were extraordinary. Longer lifespans. More food. Larger and safer living quarters and conditions. Vastly more options for making a living and safter conditions when doing so. Cheaper, faster and more comfortable transportation. Unprecedented communication tools and energy. Exponentially more information available and accessible. Leisure time, something almost unheard of throughout history. And the list goes on.
But none of that happens in a fascist state. Nor a communist state. None of that happens in a tyranny, nor a cradle-to-grave nanny state. None of that happens when science, math, and human nature are ignored, and finally, none of that happens when there are no consequences for bad actors.
But those negatives are all elements of what America is becoming. Families on welfare for generations. Giant banks and corporations privatizing profits and socializing losses. Government regulation of virtually every aspect of life. Violent criminals let loose on society with slaps on the wrist. Freedom of speech defined by whose feelings get hurt. Merit taking a back seat to a spectrum of victimization categories. And this list too goes on.
But here’s the thing. No society ever prospered based on victimization, a nanny state culture where citizens turned on one another, and the few worked to support the many. Never, not one. And no, modern European nanny states haven’t prospered because of their paternalism. They prospered despite it because the United States guaranteed their security for the last 75 years.
I write to try to make a difference. I try to showcase the fact that most Americans, indeed most Westerners, have lost sight of the reality that we’re living in the greatest and most prosperous time in human history, and more importantly, they willingly choose to ignore what created it and indeed attack those responsible.
It’s not politically correct to say, but this civilization was largely created by white people, most originating in Western Europe. Nor is it PC to say that Christianity was the force that impelled it. And finally, it’s individual liberty, private property, limited government, and capitalism that were the oil that lubricated the engine of advancement.
To the degree that modern America and Western civilization are making policies that are antithetical to all of those things, they’re killing the goose that laid the golden civilizational egg. It would be one thing if they could point to an example of some place, some time, or some civilization that was equal to or greater than ours, particularly at scale. But they don’t because they can’t. It didn’t work in New Harmony, Indiana, it never worked in the Soviet Union, and it didn’t work in the 1960s communes.
It was Western civilization and the United States that took men to flight, put men on the moon, discovered DNA, invented the computer, harnessed nuclear power, and revolutionized farming.
Nonetheless, every day we’re faced with a growing faction of citizens who whine because someone else has something they don’t, they’re victims of someone else’s success, bad actors shouldn’t have to face the consequences of their actions, or someone is saying something that hurts their feelings.
And for them, the solution is always the same: More government. More government to take from others to give to them. To stop others from being successful. To silence and imprison enemies and allow fellow travelers to do anything with impunity. That’s called tyranny, and it never, ever, leads to prosperity.
Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the enemy of joy.” I think it’s no coincidence that he also said, “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.” Both refer to setting oneself apart from others.
This is, I think, the fundamental problem with America and the West right now: comparison, envy, and a lack of gratitude for exactly where we are in the big picture. That skewed perspective is what leads huge swaths of the population to be willing to destroy the good in pursuit of the illusion of perfection. I write to try to wake America and the West up to the fact that continued prosperity is not guaranteed. Much had to go right for us to get here, but it wouldn’t take much going wrong to destroy it.
You can only lay siege to the foundations of a civilization for so long before it collapses. We’re seeing that across Europe and the United States today. Gone is the appreciation of and gratitude for men who did great things and built this civilization, replaced by reverence for and desire to become influencers, most of whom have accomplished nothing.
You have large numbers of illegals in the West who don’t share Western values and native-born minorities who hate the majorities and think the rules don’t apply to them. Add to that a self-hating wing of the majority, and you have a perfect storm that will destroy the West and take civilization as we know it with it.
Europe will find itself part of the caliphate, while the United States will devolve into a bloody morass of demographically defined armed camps. And eventually, the economically and militarily empowered Chinese communists, not constrained by morals of any kind, will enslave much of the world.
When that history is written, it will say that a once great West committed civilizational suicide, having crucified itself on a cross anchored by diversity, globalism, environmentalism, and compassion.
I’d prefer not to go quietly into that good night, thank you, which is why I write. I may make all the noise of a tree falling in the woods, but I’m going to continue doing so for as long as the Lord allows.
Follow Vince on X at @ImperfectUSA.
Jesus Christ is King
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