Here’s the FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest things in America for 2011. I’ve done a scariest things in Whitewater for years, and here’s the national version. (The 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 local editions are available for comparison.)
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly frightening to super scary.
10. Empire. We’re a republic, not an empire, but that doesn’t stop proud schemers from dreaming of perpetual empire, in Iraq or elsewhere. Pres. Obama is right to bring Americans in Iraq home: we’ve been there long enough. Americans have served there well and ably, beyond any other nation’s ability.
Our strength lies not in control over foreign territory, but in the openness of our institutions and strength through the freedom of our markets.
9. Delicacy and Sensitivity. In Wisconsin, someone intentionally dumped beer on Assemblyman Robin Vos as a protest. It was wrong to do, but to hear people tell it, Vos was shockingly assaulted.
Beer, as a bad thing in Wisconsin – can no one shake anything off? He might even have made a joke of it (“Domestic or imported?”), but instead he’s portrayed as a true victim. A man got wet, from beer, in Wisconsin – he’ll survive, and would have done better to take it in stride (and insist against charges being pressed).
Hundreds of graduate students could profitably write on how America’s Greatest Generation led to America’s Most Sensitive Generation…in just a generation.
8. Occupy This or That. We’ve had ant-war protests, Tea Party protests, and now Occupy protests. We’re still standing, and these protests have involved little if any violence despite vast numbers attending. I don’t agree with much of the Occupy rhetoric, but no matter. America will be just fine, and the protests are no harm – but much benefit – to society.
7. Classes. No one’s supposed to talk about class in America. Now some are talking about classes (and divisions with classes). Why not? Go ahead, have at it. Anne Applebaum’s right, by the way. See, Can America survive without its backbone, the middle class?
6. Public Employee Unions. All those state workers are thugs you see, wrecking America. No one looks at the state legislators, governors, county executives, county boards, mayors, town councils, and school boards that gave them them what they have and asks for accountability from those givers.
It’s politicians who’ve failed here. Giving government more power by dissolving union rights only compounds a long-standing political failure.
5. Mormons. I’m not a member of the Latter Day Saints, and doubtless very few readers are. Still, we’re sure to learn more about that faith over the next year, much of it from among those topics designed to scare us into voting against Romney.
There are many reasons to be doubtful of a Romney presidency. His Mormon faith isn’t one of them. That won’t stop the Right (and later the Left) from saying that we should be very afraid indeed.
4. Free Marketeers. Either free marketeers are falsely portrayed as agents of indifference, or big-government types long guilty of indifference are portraying themselves as free marketeers. Either way, advocacy of free markets in capital, labor, and goods is misunderstood. Proponents will have to do a better job; we’ll not find help from others.
3. Contest Shows. Having watched little of them, I now know why I’ve previously avoided Dancing with the Stars, America’s Got Talent, etc.: there’s a level of manipulation and melodrama found elsewhere only from television news or political commercials.
Add into the mix that some on of both sides of the judging table are utter loons, and these shows are just too odd for prolonged viewing.
2. Individual Mandates. Government’s outrageous requirement that you buy a product or service will only grow if left unchecked — and you though you lived in free society.
1. Big Government. It’s back — and nothing has kept it down. 2010’s Tea Party wins haven’t changed the 2012 presidential election prospects, at least not yet. If you’re looking at an Obama-Romney race, you’re not looking at a race between men committed to limited government. The Tea Party might want to explain how, despite all their efforts, we’ve landed here. They’ll find their answer in the many diffuse, disparate, distracted efforts they’ve undertaken in the last year.
Small government, and small government alone, would have been the better bet, for the Tea Party and for America. They haven’t taken that path.
2012 may wind up looking like 2008, to America’s detriment.
Scary, indeed.