'Shine, Perishing Republic'

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Monkey logos by Katherine Roe
(who had no part in the color design)

Hosting graciously provided by Oliver Fross.

Sun, 03/21/2010 - 19:50 — H.L. Monkey

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening

to empire

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the

mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots

to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;

and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly

long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:

shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening

center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there

are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,

insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say –

God, when he walked on earth.

Robinson Jeffers (1941)

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Comments

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 07:16 — Joel

OK, one more comment

1941, eh? Seems that predictions of the end of freedom, the end of the American experiment, have been with us always. We of course saw a dramatic expansion of freedom -- for women and for minorities -- in the decades following Mr. Jeffers' poem. The American economy, already a powerful machine, came to dominate the world. And doomsayers have accompanied us the entire way. If widening access to health care is really the act that sends us irrevocably into decline and festering corruption, then the underlying structure of our national experiment wasn't really all that strong to begin with.

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 07:25 — Ben

Re: OK, one more comment

Well, John Adams said that "there is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." There are no guarantees. Government always centralizes, always arrogates power to itself. This can only be resisted, rarely stopped. Nothing lasts forever.

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 07:43 — Khabalox

Site Name

Maybe we should change it to Infinite Chicken Littles.

(Though, as I read it, there is a very bright silver lining to the clouds over Jeffers' perishing republic.)

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 07:53 — Deregulator

Depends on your vision of the good society

If you believe in the vision of the American Founders -- free and responsible adults, given the liberty and responsibility to pursue their own dreams (no matter how modest) -- then yeah, that's perishing.

If your ideal is France (or Germany, or Italy, etc.), where high-single-digit or low-double-digit unemployment is the norm, a bloated, strike-happy public sector is the cause of constant strife, religious/ethnic tensions play out in public frequently, the burden of government entitlements will stifle perpetually any hopes of economic dynamism, and inventors/innovators/entrepreneurs can't get the hell out fast enough, then we're happily on that path. In fact, we shifted into a higher gear last night.

But hey, you get free health care and six weeks vacation annually.

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 08:46 — Joel

Re: The Good Society

There's a lot to work with here, but I'll note that religious/ethnic tensions in Europe predate the rise of the welfare state there by, oh, a few centuries or so. And that in fact, the rise of that welfare state occurred after World War II in Western European nations in large part to tamp down those tensions and thus fight off the temptations of Communism -- but that was back in the days when folks, even in the United States, understood there was a major difference in the freedom levels between a social democracy and what was offered by the Soviet state

Mon, 03/22/2010 - 08:35 — Anonymous (not verified)

1941, eh? Seems that

1941, eh? Seems that predictions of the end of freedom, the end of the American experiment, have been with us always. We of course saw a dramatic expansion of freedom -- for women and for minorities -- in the decades following Mr. Jeffers' poem.

What in the current health care bill will result in "a dramatic expansion of freedom"? Will the 18,000 new enforcers at the IRS do so? Will the new and vast health care bureaucracy do so?

The American economy, already a powerful machine, came to dominate the world. And doomsayers have accompanied us the entire way.

Then count me among the doomsayers today. The new burdens this health care bill impose on the economy will likely ensure that it is no longer a "powerful machine," but one with the guts ripped out.

If widening access to health care is really the act that sends us irrevocably into decline and festering corruption, then the underlying structure of our national experiment wasn't really all that strong to begin with."

This Democratic government take-over of the health system, in which all choice and delivery will be directed by a faceless bureaucratic leviathan, was not the only way to "widen access to health care." There were ways to improve access and bring down costs that did not also cede control over 1/6th of our economy to central planners in the government. I wonder if supporters of this plan would also suggest that the "underlying structure of our national experiment" had failed if Obama and Pelosi hadn't bribed and fooled the last few members necessary at the last minute to bring about this monstrosity.