C Thomas and Austerity talk about how Americans ruined the greatest nation on earth through mis-appropriated hubris.
“The founders knew that democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government.” Walter E WilliamsGood morning, I’m Austerity Jones. I am back with C Thomas Printer to discuss things to think about today: Government and what’s going on in our world. C Thomas what are you thinking on?
C Thomas: Good morning Austerity. I’m thinking about how sad or angry our founding fathers would be at us. These were some of the most enlightened men ever, they created the most successful government ever, and they set the foundation for a country that was literally a backwoods frontier into the greatest nation this world has seen ever. A nation that saved the world in World War II from oppression, then had the compassion to rebuild it afterward. A nation that created and valued knowledge and were the cutting edge in science, medical and even architectural breakthroughs. A country that fostered capitalism and allowed the Americans to have the highest standard of living in history of the world per capita. They opened their arms to immigrants and were proud to be a nation where the only thing required to succeed was hard work. They freed slaves, allowed women to vote, and tried to lead with morality and logic and courage. They were Big Tom Callahan and they built something beautiful that people could rely on, and then we, their heirs, ruined it.
Austerity: Who is Big Tom Callahan?
C Thomas: He is the father of Tommy Boy. That is what we have become Austerity. We have become Tommy Boy and this ain’t Hollywood. Tommy Boy was a fictional movie about nepotism and a drunk underachieving son coming back to work at the business his dad built and the town depended on. Big Tom Callahan built an auto parts empire and his son went away to college for 7 years to drink and play rugby finally scraped across the finish line with a degree and comes back to work. Spoiler alert, but the dad dies and Tommy screws everything up because he has no skills, no experience, no work ethic, and the business and the town are about to go under. Then Hollywood re-writes a great come from behind story about how he saves the day. The late Chris Farley and David Spade star and the movie is very funny, but it always strikes me as sad.
That movie happened and lots of towns didn’t get saved by Hollywood. People lost jobs, those towns are now meth capitals of their states, those towns are the rust belt. We used to be the world’s producer of stuff made in those towns, and the world’s greatest creditor nation, but now we have slipped into being the greatest debtor nation, the world’s largest buyer of plastic crap from China. Those towns represent dust, the dust of our greatness. The dust that Trump was going to rebuild, but then he became an even greater spender of money that wasn’t his than his predecessor Obama who was a greater spender than his predecessor. Don’t confuse this as a blue and red thing for a minute though. This is an American thing. We bemoan how bad hydrocarbons are while we type on them, drive EV cars that are made of them and get charged with them, then we plaster our face with them. We are Tommy Boy.
We have forgotten what made us great, the hard working people. The people left alone to create what was best for themselves and then in aggregate what was best for the country. Our constitution has an enumerated powers clause which was to prevent a large bureaucratic government from which they had just fled. Not just fled mind you, openly resisted, joining together different states with very little in common, arguing, pleading, cajoling and debating each other about what type of government they wanted to have all while fighting the greatest nation on earth and defeating them. They orated, they convinced through logical argument that the best interests of people are against government, they cooperated, and they built something. They were Big Tom Callahan and they built factories and towns and went on to create a nation. A young nation that was the envy of the world or as it has often been called, the shining “city on a hill” as John Winthrop once called it.
Then we came along. We drank, and overslept, and didn’t care when it was being taken away brick by brick, one small law at a time, one more regulation at a time. We didn’t involve ourselves in government or even pay attention to it which was just want the power usurpers wanted. We were asleep at the wheel and then this Republic, that was our birthright to protect and showcase to the world, began to fall apart. It took a while to notice yes, and there are still remnants of it today, but mostly just dust. Our great cities are full of junkies lying across the sidewalks because someone ruled that the sidewalk is public property and therefore they can lie there forcing people on their way to work to step over them. Looking down at their passed out corpse like bodies and realizing that their tax dollars are probably supporting this junkie, another terrible governmental decision.
Our cities are unsafe because someone thought that not prosecuting crimes was a good idea, stores leave because of open brazen theft and entire neighborhoods with amazing architecture built by the Big Tom Callahans of yesteryear are now the backdrops of shootings and violence and vacancy. People are choosing to leave quality homes built 100 years ago to last 200 years by master craftsmen to move to the suburbs and live in a newly built cookie cutter home, they can’t afford, made of drywall and soft board that will be falling apart in 50 years. They are moving to escape the situation that is left by lack of quality decisions made by our governments. We don’t care about quality anymore in the United States. But at least we can smoke weed, probably to numb and dumb our brains down so that we won’t notice. I think it was a dereliction of duty. Which brings us to the word of the week: dereliction.
Dereliction- the act of abandoning something.
We mentioned last week and have been mentioning this week on our Instagram account the happenings in Sri Lanka. I look at them and their desperation for survival. They are angry, they don’t know what to do, they have so few options, and it will get worse. The government took what little money they had and wasted it, now they can’t buy fuel, food, and they don’t know what to do… Other than take a swim in the presidential pool, but why the hell not. They had an election today and elected a new leader, and I hope that he leads them well.
I just think back to when our nation was in their spot, and the government was making terrible decisions that affected them, England at the time was making the decisions. We were so lucky to have men of vision, and logic, and intellect, and courage to take our rag tag bunch of farmers and merchants and fight the greatest nation on earth, not once but twice in 30 years, and usurp them as the preeminent world power in less than 150. Our dereliction was not informing the following generations why what they did was important, what they created, and how god damned lucky we are to live here. I don’t think Sri Lanka will be as fortunate with their rebellion.
One day in the history books people will read about how Americans ruined the greatest nation on earth through mis-appropriated hubris.
Austerity: Mis-appropriated hubris? What do you mean?
C Thomas: Well, the sons of great men thought that they too were great men merely because of osmosis or birthright. When in actuality, most didn’t earn anything; they didn’t add to the nation, they didn’t make it better for their children. It rotted on their watch. Then their children made it worse because everything was easy in America, so there was no struggle and the more rotten it became. The struggle is what causes the greatness in the first place. The following generations just earned it a little less and a little less. We gave medals to the undeserving, a pass instead of a fail, and a silence instead of a rebuke. When did the criminal become the hero and the cops the bad guys? When did the people that produce for others become greedy and the people that don’t have the pride to provide for themselves but beg for the charity of others become the noble?
Our nation was founded in “God we trust” and that is printed on our coins still, but I think it was a gradual shift away from religion and toward a more secular society. It’s possible to have morality without religion, but widespread I think it is rare. The breakdown of the family unit didn’t help going from one earner to the two income households with kids left to fend for themselves in day cares and after school programs so that every family can go to Disneyland and drive two SUVS. Now we have a national bank that is screwing us over with inflation, an overextended empire that is crumbling, a reserve currency that is losing value every day, and I’m just waiting for “King Biden” to raise taxes to pay for all of it. Then and only then will we truly become what we fought to leave- a dying empire with a behemoth federal government just like England at the time. Boy, have we killed the golden goose Austerity.
Austerity: That isn’t a very pleasant story C Thomas.
C Thomas: I know it isn’t, but for all the negativity on the news about shootings, and bullying, and hot days in the summer (did you know that hot days happened in the summer because wow are people surprised). Between all that this story however solemn must be told. There are over a million podcasts, blogs, and social media sites, and most of them are positive. They want to have the excitement at 9.7 all the time.
This cooperative is more real life Austerity, and we are going to continue to try and be attentive. For evey crazy G Spot story, we must point out what’s really happening. This is about history and our place in it, and we have to be honest about how we screwed up, how we continue to screw up and we have to try to learn if we can fix anything that is left. We have a housing bubble, a stock market bubble, runaway inflation, a bond bubble, a looming debt crisis, $31 trillion in debt, and now our dollar is starting to bubble because everyone around the world might still be doing worse than us. There is a shred of positivity to end this thing on.
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” PlatoSincerely yours,
C Thomas Printer
Also born on this date:
Pam Tillis,
Amelia Earhart,
Anna Paquin,
Lynda Carter,
Simon Bolivar,
Alexandre Dumas,
and bringing up the rear Jennifer Lopez.