John Derbyshire of the National Review is ahead of the curve. He’s already in the depression stage of grief.
I see plainly that Western civilization, over my lifetime, has been a slow-sinking ship. The few who have known what is happening have worked desperately to seal the watertight doors, repair the fissures, pump out the flooded zones. It’s been a losing fight, though. The tilt of the decks is harder and harder to ignore. Last night, a major bulkhead gave way. Soon a funnel will topple over with a great crash and a shower of sparks. Yet still the band is playing, the people are dancing, the food coming up from the galley.
Steven Hayward, writing about my latest in the Claremont Review of Books, says it is “surprising that Derbyshire never raises the obvious question: without the conservative movement of the past 50 years, how much worse would things be?” Not much, would be my answer. Certainly those working the pumps have been engaged in a noble endeavor, which I’m proud to have been associated with. They could hear the dance music too, though. It got their feet a-tapping; then an ex-colleague came down from the ballroom to mock and tempt, and soon there was one less pair of hands on the pumps, and one more government program, one more subsidy, one more tax, one more restraint on freedom of speech or association, one more futile war.
It’ll be over soon. We’ll be down in the cold, lightless depths of imperial despotism — in which, after all, the great majority of human beings, throughout history, have always lived. It’s the natural way: liberty is an unstable temporary aberration.
Melodramatic? You bet. But the perfect epitaph to the Reagan Revolution. Derbyshire understands, as the real Jeffrey Lebowski put it, “Your revolution is over. The bums lost.” Of course, Derbyshire will get over his despondency. He’ll be back in the fray. But he’ll never see the America he just lost come back again. He will always remain in the cold, lightless depths.
Gosh, John, living during the collapse of an empire is a bummer, en’it? I hope you’ll join us in opposing all future Republican candidates so that we can hold off that “imperial despotism” just a little bit longer.
what’s odd is these despondent essays have a common theme. What
makesmade America ‘exceptional’iswas our refusal to emulate every other industrialized nation in providing health care to all our citizens. E.g.,Yet, as one of few progressives who have actually defended a limited argument for American exceptionalism (as you should remember) I never thought of it in those terms.
In my view, we simply found ourselves in a unique and indispensable position after World War Two, and we built a system which, by its own logic, asks us to slowly unwind our exceptional position in the interests of the those systems which only we could have built. It has nothing to do with capitalism (or, at least, our specific version of it), or oddities in our particular Constitution. It is just an artifact of history conjoined with some of the better instincts of our values and our aspirations for human rights and representative government and self-determination.
It’s the same with the knee-jerking about “illegals”. Anything that is foreign, they don’t want. I just don’t know why we cannot imitate Taiwan:
Uniquely American? You got it.
Particularly the last graph.
Thanks
I remember your argument for American exceptionalism very well. As a matter of fact, I was describing it to my husband over dinner the other night. I presented it as fairly as I could, considering how much I disliked it at the time. It came up as part of our discussion about why the United States can’t be more like France or the UK re: health care, why people keep insisting, “We are the greatest,” when we are so clearly not. It’s interesting that I connected those two dots before you pointed them out.
I still feel that our “unique and indispensable position” was delusional at the time and is responsible for many of our failings since. Before attempting to impose our ideals and aspirations on the rest of the world, we should have fulfilled them at home first.
I read the pajamas media despondent essay. don’t think it’s about american exceptionalism. seems to me congress passed hcr because of a recognition that no one can go it alone in a society where corporations run wild and view citizens merely as objects for exploitation -gov must protect the interests of everyone because everyone is at risk not just children, the elderly, economically marginalized. The pj essay seems to assume that the health care problem was a matter of a few people’s hard luck and others not wanting to work. pj seems to have some conceptual problem with the fact that it’s not possible for people in a complex society to go it alone. maybe recognizing the need for hcr means recognizing he’s not a rugged individual clearing forests and building his fortune on his own? I don’t know, seems there’s some huge reality gap there pertaining to his ideology
gawd, that’s some really awful melodrama. Derbyshire should send it to the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
“Western Civilization” and “liberty” in his language == rule of, by and for rich white men. If it is disappearing, good riddance.
He sounds like:
And, and, you’ll all cry at my funeral. Yes you will.
Yep, we might cry at his funeral.
But we damn well will dance at his wake.
despite my well-known ambivalence (and in many areas, outright antagnism) toward this bill, it really is delicious to see right-wing fucktards like John Derbyshire collectively soil themselves.
i mean let’s face it; it’s a republican bill. It’s got 200 amendments from the GOP; in many ways it’s like the GOP counterproposal to Hillary Clinton’s 1990s proposals, and at least one person (i forget who) says it’s to the right of Nixon’s HCR proposal. And these clowns call it “socialism”. Pardon me, i spelled that wrong, I mean “SOCLISM!!!!1!!”
I made a point of listening to right wing radio today, and it was so funny, I nearly rear-ended someone from laughing so hard.
I’m cracking up, too. There’s a gem atop Drudge Report right now. Atop Drudges upper left hand litany of doom caused by HCR is a link to an article (with graphic) showing the stock market surging on the news of HCR today.
Soooooo, that’s a bad thing Drudge? They’re so desperate to cast this in a bad light.
Hope they send some postcards from the cold, lightless depths!
I can live without a postcard, just as long as they don’t come back.
which they will, sigh.
Frankly I could give a bowell movement about what Derbyshire or any of those “morans” at NRO, etc. think right now.
Well guess what, Mr Derbyshire? I think the last 30 years really sucked. You’re right, civilization was definitely on its last legs. Now maybe it has a chance. And I’m feeling rather euphoric today. And you can go Cheney yourself.
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South . . . Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow . . . Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave . . . Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered.
A Civilization gone with the wind . . .
Memo to John Derbyshire:
We’ve tried unbridled capitalism, and we’ve allowed big pharma and the health insurance industry to play by their own rules. How did that turn out?
.
America’s demise with the Fall of the Bush Empire, Neocon’s pipedream of pre-emptive warfare and Wall Street’s unbridled capitalism halted. Reagan must be turning in his California grave. History will make judgement’s call on eight years of the House Bush build.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
they bet the farm on opposing HRC, and lost…big time…the party’s over.
there was an interesting commentary at slate regarding their vow to continue their gNOp approach to governance, specifically their vow to run against HRC in the coming elections, that asked a very astute question:
l think a generation or two in the wasteland would be the best thing that could happen to them, and if the dem’s can maintain the momentum, that’s exactly where they’re headed.
we shall see.
what maudlin weirdness he writes. were they all fantasizing they were John Galt and sleepwalking through life? – to me what he writes has no discernible link with reality.