Liberty MavenThere Are No Miracles
November 25th, 2008 8:33 pm | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Bailouts, Debt, Economics, Individual Responsibility, Money, Politics, government spending | 2 Responses
A Russian political analyst has predicted the U.S. is in the process of collapse, and hope for an Obama miracle will disintegrate in the spring. Do you believe he is right?
Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: “A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”
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November 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm (#)
While I agree completely with Panarin’s reasoning behind why the U.S. will potentially collapse, I do think he is way off the mark on what some might argue is a minor point: that we will break up into six parts, or even the six parts which he names. He’s making some pretty generalized, superficial observations, based almost completely on inaccurate geographical stereotypes.
For instance, I live in Texas. Texas is not made up of a bunch of Native Texans, bent on seceding. Texas, like California and many of the other regions within the United States with large metropolitan populations, is a true melting pot of the world. He also conveniently forgets that Texas is also a Southern state with a large Hispanic AND Asian population, and that California is both a Northern and a Southern state. Interesting, also, that he mentions Alaska and Canada, but not Hawaii or Puerto Rico.
In his analysis, he mentions the Native American peoples, yet completely overlooks the “always sovereign” and “Unconquered People”, the Seminoles, as well as the recently-declared sovereign Lakota Nation, who recently founded their own financial institution, based on a gold and silver-backed currency. I have to ask, did he feel this was irrelevant, or did he simply not know these things? I’m not sure which would be worse.
But, as I said in the beginning, I share his observations. Perhaps the fact that I am quibbling over the precise fallout simply echoes just how much I share them.
November 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am (#)
Panarin is oh so wrong.
He is looking at the U S through the eyes of Russian politics. The Tsars conquered an empire, but in many ways, never consolidated it until the Soviets, and even then there was no real assimilation. The Russians have always viewed the Mongols, Turks, those in the Baltic, the Ukrainians, not to mention the Armenians and Georgians as second class citizens, if that.
The basis for the U S is in the Declaration–that political religion of equality and liberty. The Russian has no such similar creed, except force.
Indeed, our revolution was over rights and that creed–their several revolutions and changes in government were of, by and for force and fraud.
Yes, one can be clever and argue that our basis is also a set of lies (John Calhoun said so–se his Speech on the Oregon Bill, 1848)but we have made great attempts at liberty, free markets and equality. The Russains not so.
There is also the fact that most European social scientists still cannot figure out our system of multiple sovereignities. James Madison described these multinple sovereignities many times, indeed, during the Nullification Crisis, he wrote against Calhoun’s attempt at Nullification by describing these sovereignities to Edward Everett in 1830. The Russains, like the French or Germans, have no “States” that have “rights” as we understand them. In their parliaments and diets, the provinces are not represented as they are in our Senate and House–these provinces are purely for administration and have no political power of their own.
Oh, yes, there are those who will claim that we are no longer these United States, but the United States, and yet, the Senate is still composed of members elected from the States–not appointed by D C, and the House is composed of memebers elected from the States–there are no cross-State members and none are appointed by D C. But in Europe, even city mayors are appointed by the central governemnts.
That we even have secession movements here are quite unusual for Europe–any such talk there is treated harshly by the central authority as a direct threat, where here, we think of this talk as something American or at least the musing of the local governments–recall that the NE States wanted to seceed prior to the addition of the Bill of Rights, that Utah wanted to seceed over relifion, and Californai wanted to be an independent republic prior to its annexation by the US. The discussion about Texas is apt as Texas had been an independent republic and wished to revert to same after the Civil war if the CSA had won.
The Russian social scientists view is incomplete–and indeed, is only such a view of a social scientist who, as Leo Strauss described over fifty years ago, as fiddling while Rome burns, but is excused because he doesn’t know that he fiddles or that Rome burns.