Can the government function properly, can it move the country forward, when so little attention is paid to issues?
As your question that follows the one above implies, the issue isn't that "little attention" is paid to issues, but rather that the attention paid is inapt to the issues at hand. All the attention in the world amounts to naught if folks focus on immaterial aspects of the topic/issue. To wit, perusing some of the most heavily posted-in threads on USMB, one sees that overwhelming majority of comments don't actually offer substantive and soundly germane on the topic but rather offer a cacophony of
tu quoque, red herring, straw man and other insipid thoughts. Discourse too often is suffused with rhetoric not reason.
Do we not think that many of our Best & Brightest are going to stay away from politics because of this trend?
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
-- Isaac Asimov
Plenty of the best and brightest eschew high government service. I mean really...How many
U.S. Nobel laureates have held top level positions as the heads of key government organizations or as members of Congress? Are any U.S. science or economics laureates heading any government agencies? What Rhodes or Fulbright scholars have held high elected or appointed office? [1]
Note:
- The Rhodes Scholars whom I'm aware of and who have held high government service roles are: Bill Bradley, Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, Dean Rusk, Bill Fulbright, Strobe Talbot, Cory Booker, Gen. Wes Clark, and Bobby Jindal.
There may be a Nobel laureate or two holding or who held high elected/appointed office, but none come to mind.
According to Doug Casey we are headed for a disaster...a very bloody disaster. He makes a very good case for it. Divisiveness and hatred for one's political opponents seems to be on the rise in the people, MSM, academy, and central government. We Americans have little in common anymore.
Doug Casey on Why Race Will Break the U.S. Apart, Part I
When the U.S. democracy was started, it was much like that. It was very much like a Greek city-state, an extended one. Everybody shared culture, ethnicity, language, habits, and so forth, with just minor regional differences. People saw themselves first as New Yorkers, Virginians, or whatever, just as the Greeks saw themselves first as Athenians, Thebans, Corinthians, or many scores of other polities.
As you know I don’t believe in democracy, I believe in personal freedom. Democracy is workable enough in something like a cohesive city-state. But absolutely not once voters get involved in economic issues—the poor will always vote themselves a free lunch, and the rich will buy votes to give themselves more. Democracy always devolves into class warfare.
In ancient Greece, if you weren’t a landowner you weren’t respected. In the U.S., voting rules were determined by the States, and originally, everywhere, you had to be a landowner. That meant you had something to lose. But that’s not the case anymore.
Race Will Break the US Apart - LewRockwell LewRockwell.com
Doug Casey on Why Race Will Break the U.S. Apart, Part II
In the late ‘60s and the early ‘70s, hundreds of bombings took place at universities, banks, and all kinds of places. The National Guard was in cities like Detroit during the riots, and they were raking buildings with .50 caliber machine guns. It was wild.
I don’t think most remember this. At least, I don’t see it being brought up anywhere.
I lived in Washington DC then. It seemed like there was tear gas in the air half the time I went out on a date on a Friday or Saturday night
But as wild and wooly as things were back then, what we have now is much more serious.
The racial element is still there, but the ideological element is even more pronounced.
In those days, people at least talked to each other. You could have a disagreement, and it was a simple difference of opinion.
It’s much worse now. Today, there’s a visceral hatred between the left and the right, between the people that live in the so-called red counties and blue counties.
You add that to the racial situation. Then throw in the fact that the rich are getting richer at an exponential rate while the middle class is disappearing.
And let’s not forget the large-scale subsidized migration of people from totally alien Third World hellholes. This is not what the U.S. was founded on. Before changes in the immigration law that were made in the ‘60s, immigrants were culturally compatible opportunity seekers that were coming to America to improve themselves.
Now, people from all kinds of alien places are being imported by the hundreds of thousands by NGOs; they then go on welfare in enclaves in different places around the country. This is unlikely to end well. The U.S. is no longer a country.
That said, I’m actually for open borders. But it’s only possible if, A, there is zero welfare to attract the wrong types. And, B, all property was privately owned, to help ensure everyone is self-supporting.
Race vs. America - LewRockwell LewRockwell.com
