Is America Over?

  Future Buddha in Tashilunpo Monastery, Tibet - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

The question “Is American Over?” adorned the cover of the November/December 2011 edition of Foreign Affairs Magazine.  The feature article "The Broken Contract" by New Yorker staff writer George Packer revisited a favorite subject of progressives - the demise and hopelessness of America.  His essay was adapted from the Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Lecture on American Civilization given at the New York City Public Library.  One can imagine hand wringing New Yorkers nodding their heads in agreement, as Mr. Packer confirmed their traditional cause cél`ebre.

Mr. Packer is a Yale graduate and professional journalist.  Born in 1960, his parents were Stanford University academics. According to Mr. Packer, all was well until 1978 when high inflation, gas prices, and unemployment beset America.   Coincidentally, three reform bills introduced in Congress that year were defeated despite “strong public support.”  It is difficult to imagine that these events devastated Mr. Packer, who was 18 years old at the time, to this level of despondency.  His epiphany may have had more to do with the President, the hapless Jimmy Carter, than the state of American society.

The article subjects the reader to a “woe is me” rant, where the world would be perfect if everyone just agreed with Mr. Packer.  As long as the Brookings Institute had sole possession of the podium, intellectual integrity was assured.  Ruination came when the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute gave conservatives a voice in the political process.

No diatribe would be complete without a class warfare discussion. He laments the erosion of the middle class but fails to acknowledge that much of this is due to entitlement programs which have bred dependence and and shackled the taxpayer with extraordinary levels of debt which eventually will have to be paid.  One must ask the question:  In the progressive’s view is there such a concept as an unnecessary social program, even if it is fails to achieve the promised results and is so poorly administrated that it threatens to bankrupt the country?   Omitted in the discussion is one of the most profound impediments to middle class sustainability: the proliferation of single parent families and the adverse economic impact on standard of living.

The concept of the broken American dream or contract is easy to manipulate and a technique often used by liberal writers to justify their arguments.  In the extreme any circumstance other than perfection could qualify for inclusion and examples usually lay blame on the system rather than the individual.  If a child with multiple siblings is raised by an uneducated single mother, who is to blame if this translates into another broken American dream?  

Dashed American dreams go both ways.  Prior to the watershed year of 1978 a good friend, who is now a practicing attorney, had ambitions about training to be a physician.  He attended UCLA, received excellent grades in premed, and scored well on the MCAT examinations.  Despite his qualifications, he was not accepted to medical school because of a quota system.  His contract was just as broken as the intercity child who fails to finish high school.        

When reading this article, one has the impression the author secretly realizes his view of the world and how to solve its problems are untenable.  Packer and others like him want to believe the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Obama agenda will secure a perfect society; it is unbearable to admit the promise of socialism is a hollow one and unsustainable over long periods of time.  Contrary to Mr. Packer’s naive account, there were no less problems prior to 1978.  The difference is most of us dealt with them individually rather than relying on government agencies and wide eyed Pollyannas who averred with enough money and regulations Utopia was at hand.