To think that Greece's troubles are an ocean and a sea away from where we stand in North America is to have your head in the Mediterranean sand.

American Thinker
February 15, 2010
By RHJ King

In Greece we have
a near bankrupt, over-indebted, overspending nanny state, drowning in
future liabilities; where civil servants are pampered and overpaid;
in which unions are demanding a continuation of their inflated wages and
entitlements; and productive individuals and businesses are leaving for
more favorable climes.
Where have we heard all this before? Ah yes: California.

California is our Greece, and New York is our Italy.

The PIIGS, as they are called, being the fiscally fragile EU
sub-community of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (with
Britain not far behind), are all countries facing potential financial
collapse. They bought into -- or by joining the EU, were brought into --
the great 20th-century political model of the social democracy. This is
a model that holds that the state, or the government, is the umbrella
under which all its people gather and are protected. The proponents of
this view include most if not all of the modern Western democracies.

It seems that this form of governance is showing symptoms of a fatal
disease. That is not to say that capitalism is ill, but that "social
democracy" is finally succumbing to the flesh-eating disease called
sustainability. Those with a strong manufacturing base, like Germany,
could linger on, although present-day economic pacts (and birthrates)
will make that difficult.

Resource-rich countries like Canada should be prosperous, but instead of
having the economy of Alberta nationwide, it has the debt of every other
social democracy because it practices the politics of Quebec.

England's grand fall from imperialism to the present is a more
complicated tale, but its history from the Second World War through
today is a lesson that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore. Here are two
words to get you started: automobile industry. The social engineering
practiced by the Brits has not only bankrupted the country financially,
but it has also brought the mother island to the point where cultural
bankruptcy is also a strong possibility.

The USA has future financial liabilities somewhere between 57 and 64
trillion dollars. How does each and every one of its individual citizens
feel about owing half a million dollars?

The question that needs to be asked is what went wrong. Who screwed up?

Recently, and far too often, economists have been polishing their
favorite theories with very partisan rags. They consequently have too
few responses that would provably answer those questions.

(Am I the only one who has come to look at these guys as the most inept
group of soothsayers that has ever attempted to peer through tomorrow?
How many actually foresaw what they all now claim was the inevitable
recent financial collapse? Perhaps two.)

Politicians will blame the failure on those across the aisle. Leftists
are blaming it on capitalism. Those on the right point a finger at
socialism and bloated government. Many voters will accuse a corrupt
system where special interests and lobbyists have replaced "we the
people." Most will probably confess that they just don't know, or repeat
some nonsense they saw in the paper. You've probably read recently what
some pundits have suggested. We are struggling, they say, because of the
stupidity of people who don't know what is good for them.

A few years ago, George Carlin, in a sit-down with Dennis Miller,
posited that he looked down at the world from a perch well above the
fray, laughing, and thought that the people he saw were extremely
stupid.

Looking at our world from a larger perspective is not something we the
people have done enough of. That is, we are not often forced to examine
where we are politically relative to where we've been and where it all
might lead. Yes, of course people have lives to lead. We are very busy.

Carlin was a cynic -- or I should say that he was a funny cynic. But he
taught some good lessons. We have for decades muddled about in the
middle, compromising, being bipartisan, and working the hell out of the
smaller worries, and we haven't taken a moment to see that we've
incrementally gone from Tocqueville's empowered citizens in
get-things-done communities to neutered whiners in a nanny state that
has a banana-republic future.

Secondly, and you saw this coming, we are to blame -- we the people of
the western democracies. We, most of us, have been very stupid. Great
things have surely been done inside and outside the political arena. But
we have let a lot slide.

Those in Europe dropped their continent so deep in the muddle that it is
veering away from democracy together with its ruling elite. Canada is in
neutral. Mr. Obama has turned on the flood lights in America and shocked
a number of us awake.

The questions are:

Is it possible for a country designed to resist radical political shifts
to roll back decades of policy and uncover the flame at the core of a
great nation, the embers of which still burn in some of our hearts?
Are there enough of us able to stay awake long enough, and be tough
enough, to carry this through?

Removing the "social" from the democracy may be a long journey.