Independence Day 2024

America is a priceless jewel whose setting is badly tarnished

George Noga
June 30, 2024

Despite all its problems, and there are many, America to the rest of the world remains a beacon of liberty and that shining city on a hill. That phrase is taken from a sermon by John Winthrop aboard the Arbella before he and his fellow settlers reached Massachusetts in 1630. He intended that phrase to mean that the Massachusetts Bay colony would shine as an example to the rest of the world. Actually, Winthrop borrowed the phrase from the bible (Matthew: chapter 5 verse 14), which reads, “We shall be as a city on a hill; the eyes of all people are upon us.”

On this, my eighty-first Independence Day, I am thankful and feel privileged to have lived at the best time to be an American – a sentiment shared by those of my generation of all political persuasions. Regrettably, my pride on this July 4th is tinctured with foreboding because, nearly without exception, my contemporaries also believe the future will be worse for our children and grandchildren.

Our progeny will inherit a dystopian world of wokism, climate madness, geopolitical threats and an inevitable debt crisis. We bequeath them a hyperpolitical nation where equal justice under law no longer can be counted on and where politics determine whether or not an American can receive a fair trial in much of the country. We have taken a page from the KGB’s “show me the man and I will show you the crime”.

Most of our cherished and trusted institutions have become hyperpoliticized and corrupted; these include: media, entertainment, corporations, military, sports, fact checkers, education, science, criminal justice, immigration, universities, social media, FBI, CIA and the intelligence community and even religion. Our politicians are bankrupting the most prosperous nation in the history of the planet.

I am once again reminded of Yeats’ apocalyptic poem, Second Coming, about a nation coming apart and foretelling impending crisis. On this Independence Day 2024, America hauntingly resembles Yeats’ poem, excerpted below.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Blue State Negative Feedback Loop

Half of America is in the throes of toxic progressive state and local governance. Blue states are deeply scarred by wokism, identity politics run amok, Kafkaesque regulation, confiscatory taxation, high living costs, forced unionization, crumbling infrastructure, underfunded pensions, public sector unions, corruption, failed government schools, rampant crime, strict gun control, no bail laws, squatters, massive public debt, unfunded liabilities, junk credit ratings, homelessness, open drug use, human waste, decriminalization, scarce and dilapidated housing, rent control, eviction bans, climate madness, high energy costs and wacky environmentalism.

Blue states’ most productive people, along with their tax base, are fleeing. They pit people against each other based on race, age, income, ethnicity and gender. They teach CRT, the 1619 Project and encourage young children to question their gender and to disrespect parents. Their forced pandemic lockdowns included churches but not liquor stores. Their unnecessary school closures cost children years of learning. All this dysfunction has created a vicious negative feedback loop. The more people and businesses that flee blue states, the worse it becomes – with no end in sight.

How Will It All End?

The Great Spending Crisis, which already has begun (please see my post of May 5, 2024 on my website www.mllg.us or in the Substack archives), will trigger the most tectonic change in America since its founding. America will be forced to cut spending by 30% or to print money triggering hyperinflation. Either way, the social fabric of the US will be rent. Thereafter things will go in one of two directions.

One direction is draconian tax increases, including a VAT and carbon tax, combined with sustained inflation. It will take a generation to recover during which living standards will regress. The government will become a leviathan and America will be forever transformed into a no-growth European-style social welfare state and its citizens, our children and grandchildren, will lead lives of quiet desperation. Some progressives see such a crisis as their best chance to impose their agenda.

The other direction is a return to first principles, where the purpose of government is to secure our liberty and protect its people from foreign and domestic violence. Americans would bite the bullet and slash spending by 30% and gradually pay down the debt by pro growth policies. This would also involve considerable pain as the 30% cuts would affect all aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, there is no possible solution to the Great Spending Crisis without great pain and a transformed America.

A Shining City on a Hill

Will America remain that shining city on a hill or will it succumb to wokism? In the midst of an existential crisis, people will panic and be willing to endure what hitherto was unthinkable. Whether that results in a leviathan state or a return to first principles remains to be seen, as in the ending of Yeats’ poem, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”