Be afraid. Be very afraid. The America of 2012 is not the America of 2008. If Barack Obama wins this election, the America of 2016 will resemble the beaten and bankrupt countries of Western Europe more than it will the America we grew up in. This isn’t Chicken Little speaking. Take a hard look at the trends, and then drop everything else you had in mind for the next four weeks, and make sure everyone you know votes for Romney-Ryan. We have one last chance to save the republic.
1) Dependency on government handouts: As Dick Morris points out in his latest book Here Come the Black Helicopters!, 20% of Americans received some kind of means-tested government check in 2008, when George W. Bush left office. Now 32% of Americans get some kind of means-tested support — food stamps, disability, welfare, and so forth. That’s a third of the country. Transfer payments are now fully one-fifth of personal income, as I observed in an essay last year. Obama’s arbitrary and perhaps illegal changes in welfare work requirements create a cycle of dependency, as the Romney campaign has warned. They also create a built-in majority for the welfare state. Morris observes that the shift to dependency gives the Democrats a majority on paper. The only question now is turnout. Give this another four years, and the number of Americans who have a stake in economic growth will be a minority of the population.
2) Religious commitment: The Pew Institute’s bombshell survey released this week showed that the number of Americans not affiliated with any religion rose from 15% in 2007 to almost 20% in 2011, and that the unaffiliated are much likelier to vote Democratic (63% of unaffiliated lean Democratic vs. 48% of all registered voters).
This prompted rejoicing in the liberal camp. Writing in the London Guardian, Sarah Posner argued that
…the data shows [conservative Christians] are clearly losing the public. Another survey last week from the Public Religion Research Institute showed that while Mitt Romney has the support of 80% of younger white evangelical millennials (aged 18 to 25), this is a small and diminishing constituency: white evangelicals comprise only 12.3% of that age group. That’s less than half their proportion of the 50 to 64 population. The Pew survey showed that while 32% of Americans aged 50 to 64 are white evangelicals, only 13% of those aged 18 to 29 are.
3) European-style birth rates: “The overall fertility rate for women in the U.S. — defined as the number of newborns per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 — was 63.2 last year, down from 64.1 in 2010 and the lowest rate since the government started collecting these statistics in 1920,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 3. Most ominous was the crash in Hispanic fertility: “Hispanic women between 20 and 24 saw their fertility rate drop to 115 last year from 165 in 2007.” Religious commitment and child-bearing are closely linked, as a number of analysts have pointed out (I review the relationship in my book How Civilizations Die). So the fertility decline is part of the same story as the decline in religious affiliation. It suggests that while Protestant numbers show the steepest decline in affiliation, Hispanic Catholics are behaving less and less like Catholics used to.
4) Declining patriotism: In 2002, 60% of Americans agreed with the statement, “Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior,” according to a Pew survey. In 2012 the proportion dropped to 49%. For the first time, a minority of Americans believe in American exceptionalism.
5) National debt: Suffice it to say that during the past 12 months, foreigners bought almost half ($600 billion) of the $1.3 trillion in new debt paper issued by the Treasury to cover Obama’s deficits. And the Chinese actually dumped $165 billion of Treasury securities during those 12 months. Someone should update Gov. Romney’s talking points: We can’t borrow from the Chinese because the Chinese don’t want to lend to us. If this continues, as PIMCO’s Bill Gross and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon have been warning, American paper will be junk and our economy will collapse. I don’t know when, but I’m pretty sure it would happen before 2016.
6) Nuclear weapons in the hands of state sponsors of terrorism as American power collapses overseas.
We are becoming a different people, more like the feckless, infertile, dependent Europeans and less like the men and women who built this country. We aren’t there yet. But we have lost so much ground under Obama that we do not know whether the country will pass a point of no return during a second Obama term. One can’t blame all of this on Barack Obama, to be sure. To what extent he is the cause or the effect of these problems, or neither, is something we can’t divine from the numbers. Nonetheless, the president of the United States sets the tone for public attitudes. A president who disparages and undermines entrepreneurship, promotes dependency, fails to defend American security interests, and apologizes for American values is a big part of the problem.
All the experts say this election will depend on turnout. That is why I am appealing to every reader of this site to get active. Organize a party, drive people to the polls, call everyone you know, and make sure that everyone who might vote for Romney does vote for Romney. We many not get another chance like this. Not ever.
Donald freyman Said:
CBS Poll: Romney Wins 65-34 on Economy;
CNN Poll: Romney Wins 54-40 on Economy,
49-46 on Health Care,
51-44 on Taxes,
59-36 on Deficit,
49-46 on Leadership,
All in Favor of Romney.
But don’t let that stop you. Keep on pumping those pom-poms, comrade cheerleader. “Give me a Zero!”
@ sunshine:
OY gevalt! Obama creamed Romney at last nite’s debate. Shiva services will be announced shortly!!!
@ bahmi:
Just remember if obama wins, there will be more foodstamps to share
@ Larry Shapiro:
Similar to the responses in Germany in the 30’s ? Wake up to the reality of this president. What on earth does it take? He is presently lying about protecting our ambassador in Lybia. Yes lying, as he does about many issues.
Obama has weakened our country which is a very dangerous thing to do for us all.
I think there is an intergalactic menace called the Black Hole Gang who are looking to turn off Earth’s gravity so everything will go sailing into outer space in order to cull stupidness from the Universe. This is what we get for sending all those messages.
This is precisely the goal of this administration.
It is a form of official subversion from the left far left.@ bahmi:
Everybody with a minimum of interest in politics (internal and external) knows that Pr. O ideological fathers were: Islamist, communist and revolutionary nihilist. To construct a new society they want to destroy America and its constitution. The poor education leads to a total lack of interest in the country and its past greatness; from here its down to destruction.
Pr. O has used deception with the help of the “communists who use far left as their denomination out of fear of the label communist. But that is the goal of the far left. Neocommunism the islamoamerican way.
Although I am a Canadian, I feel very strongly that the USA is definitely on a decline, that it will be hard to bring it up, if Obama rules for another 4 years. He encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to topple Mubarak of Egypt, a strong ally. and instead they have now a worse dictator to impose the Sharia Law withing a few years. This goes for Alegeria; Syria; and possibly Jordan in a year or two.
Obama is a Muslim covered with a Christian cloth. I would like to know when and where was he Baptized, if ever? I would like him to come clean and tell us – is he a Christian or a Muslim, because you cannot be both
I am afraid for us all in the free world that he is taking us by the nose and we are following his music as a Hypnotist does. God help us….Rahamim
Even 60% is a low number. This is very distressing. No wonder muslims are confident they can infiltrate and take over America. How can we resist islamization if we don’t even believe our civilization is vastly superior? This lack of self-confidence and moral confusion is what is causing Europe to become islamized.
Overall this is a depressing article.
I disagree that this is Obama’s fault. If patriotism is lower, one of the main reasons is the wealthy who refuse to pay more taxes. Who is at fault for this? The right wing Republicans, who cry the sky is falling, then do nothing to help. These are the dastardly dudes who make sure they and theirs are cared for and let the former middle class fall off the slope. If you vote for these Republicans, you are pushing the country over the edge. If the most successful investor in the U.S., Warren Buffet, says this issue is critical, you better believe it. To blame people who have been thrown out of house and home for taking government benefits is the height if ignorance.
Americans are less religious? After decades of dealing with the Catholic Church in their biggest scandal in modern history, who deep down only seem to be sorry about the losses in its coffers, who can blame people for being turned off on religion? It’s the individual churches and parishes whose priests practice the teachings of the Bible, that are keeping it alive. How could this have ever happen? Muslim wars are also responsible for the turnoff of people on religion. People say if this is what G-d allows, who needs him? My theory is that the centuries of Christian wars in Europe from 1500s on played a role in pushing our Founding Fathers toward a Constitution requiring the separation between church and state.
National debt? Let’s raise taxes on the Huns who hide their wealth. Or they can leave. I don’t want our jets and battleships to protect these people.
We are becoming a different people? Yes, poorer, more hopeless and fearing for our grandchildren.
The cost of food is killing us. It used to be you could eat potatoes and beans and make it. Now the cost of these humble items has gone up and up. What will be left to eat? Popcorn? Leaves? I treat my two cats to a can of tuna once in a while. I opened a can this morning and instead of gobbling it down as usual, they sniffed and sniffed, drank the juice and left the rest. What does this mean? Is this tuna contaminated? Not really tuna? Or tuna of such a low grade it doesn’t taste good?
My advice to everyone is: Grow more food. Have your farmers grow as much as possible for home use and share the rest. This is an original Jewish deed for charity.
Grow food. Grow food. Grow food!!
As a Canadian living almost on the border, with access to all American news outlets via cable and frequent border-crosser, I can understand the anguish. A trip to Buffalo or Niagara Falls, NY shows what America can become but it’s been this way for a long time. Detroit looks like a battle zone while, across the river, Windsor is booming. So while Obama didn’t create the blight, he has done nothing to make it better. Will he destroy the country over the next four years? He will try. But I believe in the American people and their ability to ride out the storm. Will Americans get the government they deserve? A lot will but those who contribute will not.
It would be a rough four more years and the American dream will take a beating. If it shakes up the people and causes them to clean house and return government by the people, it could be a good thing. The America the world respects has gone into hibernation. Time to wake it up and Romney is the right guy to do that.
I don’t understand why this fact has not become part of the election campaigns: Obama is directly responsible for rioting and killing throughout the Muslim world by throwing a spotlight onto some stinky, little video that nobody knew about until he made it the rationale for the Libya killings. Once the video was revealed, it went viral and every radical Muslim (which is almost all of them) adopted it as their battle flag. It’s all Obama’s fault and he can’t sidestep this one.
Apocalypic paranoia.
Reading this article makes one sick to think of the lying weasels who run this nation of America. America has not become debilitated overnite, it’s taken a long time, but it has been deadly. Once our so-called educational system went commie, that was it.
Yet, are we Americans exceptional? This fool Rush Limbore insists we are but a careful look at matters tells us we are a sinking ship ready to Deep Six. The America of my youth is now the America of lying despots who are clearly into destroying this nation. Obama has clearly turned his communist bent toward us, he’s now proud of that.
Just imagine. After nearly 4 years, we do not have the slightest idea who this man allegedly called Hussein Obama really is. That I find boggling, yet who will American jews vote for this time? WE thought this Obama was going to be lox on bagels, he’s really become suet on moldy crackers.How did we do that? Will we do that again?