A Decade of Self-Delusion

Here's Pat Buchanan with a pre-mortem of the DC Empire:

According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

What other parallels does the US have with the old Soviet Union? For one thing, the US has convinced itself that its power and wealth are permanent, and that its growth and future success are inevitable. And then there's that ultimate delusion: That the American way is the one and only true way. Peoples in benighted lands who do not understand that might need a friendly nudge or two to make them see the light. Those who're so stubborn as to continue to refuse our obviously superior way of life might need a little extra nudging -- daisy cutters and napalm are especially good for opening eyes to reason. But while DC congratulated itself and expended billions in asserting its rightful dominance, the bills came due, as Buchanan continues:

We did it to ourselves. We believed all that hubristic blather about our being the “greatest empire since Rome,” the “indispensable nation” and “unipolar power” advancing to “benevolent global hegemony” in a series of “cakewalk” wars to “end tyranny in our world.”

The question, Buchanan concludes, is "whether America’s decline is irreversible."

That depends.

The Neocon notion of "America" as an authoritarian empire that will dominate the culture and politics of the world is clearly dying. To which many say, "Good riddance." But the real America, the America of historic communities founded on Western, Christian civilization, governed by a decentralized, limited government -- in other words, the America the Founders fought and died for -- possesses untapped strength.