| | Fred,
Mitt is so fortunate in that if he wins, all he as to do is put on his tennis shoes... You know the old joke of the two guys in the woods and one of them has a pair of tennies tied around his neck. He stops to put them on, and the other fellow says, "What are those for?" "In case we are chased by a grizzly bear," is the answer. "But, didn't you know that a grizzly can outrun even a horse?" "Yes," the fellow replies as he finishes tying the shoes, "but I'm not racing a grizzly, just you."
All that we need is a dramatically better place for the money of the world to live. Treat it with respect - no capital gains tax; honor it's privacy (money doesn't commit crimes people do). No death tax. Put a lower tax on corporate earnings that any other nation (make us number 1) and if it is all done as serious, lasting policy based upon good principle - saying, "THIS is America - We don't tie our hands behind our back and then try to out and work!" - then stand back and watch the sparks fly as banks around the world light-up the transfer wires.
Will Mitt realize this? If he did would he have the stones? I don't know. If I were him I'd be putting together some kind of massive tax reform proposal, making it bullet-proof, and working on the timing for its political release.
I don't know if he has much else he can do. If he can't find good ways to cut spending and do real stimulating (lower taxes and lower regulations) then he will, as you say, be the one at the helm when the ship goes under, yelling at his biographer, "Not fair! It wasn't me. My ideas were good!"
I'm optimistic for the short run, because I so love reason and common sense, and the bulk of the American people are good people who do work and catch more of the subtleties than we 'insiders' think. But for the middle-term - say the next two decades, I'm pessimistic. The rot continues to flow from the educational system, the conservatives are still resisting becoming libertarians, some of the conservatives will never take a step towards Libertarianism because the are really just there to be soldiers for Jesus.
And against that backdrop we see these terribly dangerous things happening:
1.) A very vocal and extreme group has a moral ideology that embraces much of day-to-day life and they have some who are unrelenting spokespeople and others who will carry a club. They won't compromise. (Notice that I could be speaking of either radical Islam or American Progressivism).
2.) They have found a political alliance with big money that both are happy with (here I'm only talking about American Progressivism - but look at how Pakistan came into being in 1947 - I assure you, contrary to any claims it was NOT a popular movement - but a tiny, tiny minority of loud mullahs and quiet, monied Muslim landlords and money people, that caused India to be partitioned by the British).
3.) The spokespeople for the minority are finding themselves close enough to owning mainstream media and finally able to openly speak negatively about their real enemies - Capitalism and Individualism. (Side Note: I've been watching and reading the news the world watches and reads this last two weeks. News shows from around the world, Russia, India, France, Dubai, Tokyo, Singapore and from sources as diverse as BBC, CNN, Al-jazzera, TVMonde, etc. They see NONE of the constitutional conservative, fiscal conservative, libertarian viewpoints - NONE. They are all like MSNBC except that most of their coverage is on other parts of the world. The only time that Capitalism is mentioned was when a Charlie Rose interview with two socialists were be quite gleeful in saying that finally the American public can openly question Capitalism and the value of tossing it out.)
4.) A willingness to lie blatantly, to pretend to be speaking for a large majority of people, to use differences to stir up distrust and factionalism and to foment riot, to ignore violence that might be on the part of their supporters while using any other violence as evidence of the other sides evil nature, and to engage in ugly attacks on any opposition and to do so from their made-up moral high-ground through a willing press.
Look back through history and see how often successful revolutions, good or bad, fits some of that paradigm described above... enough to scare anyone? The older I become, the more I think that the majority is rarely at work in times of great change... that instead it is a small minority who have exercised fortuitous alignment of the levers of power.
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