Sustaining Liberty - The Changing World Order

 I have been reading a lot about the rise of socialism and predictions of a crisis that might herald the decline of America (as we know it).  Some of the sources include the following books and essays (in chronological order by publication date):   Please note, I'm listing the books to give credit to the original authors for their work.   I'll provide links to the books at the end of this post.

• The Future in America A Search After Realities - H.G. Wells    1906
• The Road to Serfdom – F.A. Hayek    1944
• Rules For Radicals - Saul Alinsky      1971  
• The  Fate of Empires and Search For Survival - Sir John Glubb   1976        
• The Fourth Turning – William Straus and Neil Howe   1997
• The Rise of the Creative Class - Richard Florida   2002
• The Great Reset – Richard Florida  2011
• The Changing World Order – Ray Dalio  2021
• The Next Civil War Dispatches from the American Future - Stephen Marche    2022

 
To be honest, they fall into three seemingly unrelated categories:

1. Elitism
2. The conflict between individual liberties vs supremacy of the 'state' (which requires elitism)
3. The rise and decline of great nations

These topics are intertwined.   The elites of today may scream for 'democracy' while they cancel and shit upon anyone who defies their 'moral imperative' or disagree with their 'intellectual superiority'.

These elites destroy individual liberty by crushing critical thinking, open debate and self determination. They embrace socialist control because they believe they are smarter and more humanitarian than the working people they pretend to care about.

Finally, there are great social and economic cycles that contribute to the rise and decline of nations.

Those with the power to influence public attitude and belief (i.e the media and the elites) can either help sustain greatness or they can accelerate decline.

It occurs to me that the decline of an oppressive regime can increase individual freedom (consider the collapse of the Soviet Union).  BUT, the decline of America will irrevocably lead to global serfdom.

As I mentioned in "Duck and Cover", the media and elites have always manipulated our attitudes. However, in the previous cycle, the elites celebrated American exceptionalism, hard work, prosperity and a growing middle class.

The current big cycle points to American decline... we have massive debt which contributes to raging inflation. Even worse,  we have replaced the concept of working to earn a living with the expectation of welfare entitlements.   The elites of today are tearing us down.

We are in a battle where liberty and self-determination are at stake.  AND the current 'elites' are dedicated to accelerating the decline and end of America. The big questions are these....

•  Can we sustain and preserve our liberties if American itself falters?
•  Can we prevent American decline while being reduced to a divisive nation of victims by the 'elites' ?
• Can we discredit the 'elites' and restore belief in America?

I will be writing about these questions and the authors who have influenced my thinking in future posts.   Here are links to the books for your reading enjoyment.

In the next post I'll talk about how the current batch of 'Elites' came to be.  It seems that the socialist cancer always starts in Europe... and this cycle is no exception.