Blue Crab Boulevard

Doubling Down On America

A rather interesting opinion piece by Joel Achenbach in today's Washington Post is worth a read. It discusses a pretty common doom-and-gloom theme that a lot of people are promoting these days: America is a declining power. Well, maybe, Achenbach says, but when things look the worst is the best time to get great odds from a bookie. He advises doubling down on America. It is an interesting take.

Declinism crosses partisan lines. You can find it in fat books, dense journal articles and angry hip-hop songs. Hollywood takes it as a given. We're past our prime, suffering from incompetent leaders, an overextended military and an incurious, flabby citizenry.

All this strikes me as the cue to place a bet on America. Don't despair: double down.

Here's what I'd tell my children if they were to ponder whether this country will remain the most powerful on the planet: Think like a bookie. When things look most dire is when you get the best odds. Watch that Vegas line. Right now, the smart move is to take the United States and the points.

This doesn't mean that our national problems and deep-seated flaws will magically be cured. Nor should we arrogate to ourselves a special status in the eyes of Providence; putting "In God We Trust" on our coins does not guarantee that the reverse will also be true. Any number of wild cards could come into play (if computers become Terminators and try to wipe us out, all bets are off). If the past is a foreign country, as someone once said, then the future is another planet entirely. So any predictions herein are made with the proviso that I am prepared to retract them tomorrow.

What his argument boils down to is that many of the folks making gloomy predictions are doing so by only looking at America itself. (This is the cultural chauvinism I have pointed out many times.) But America does not exist in a vacuum and we do not control what other countries do or how they will react to various problems or opportunities.

It's probably adaptive to plan for the worst. Humans evolved in places where the most complacent and serene members of the tribe quickly became lion chow. But many Americans may simply not see clearly the extent of our current geopolitical power. It's a side effect of our solipsism. We're not terribly engaged with the rest of the world, don't tend to speak a second or third language and famously can't find Iraq on a map.

Achenbach points out a few things that will very likely have impact on world politics and the global economy that America is completely powerless to change at all:

China's rivers are sewers. Environmental problems make the Chinese economic boom unsustainable. That's the recent assessment of China's deputy minister for the environment in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel: "This miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. Acid rain is falling on one third of the Chinese territory, half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless, while one fourth of our citizens does not have access to clean drinking water."

Moreover, China will be the first country to get old before it gets rich. China's one-child policy, so rigidly enforced in the 1980s and 1990s, will haunt the country as it finds itself without enough workers to support a geriatric population.

Actual events can have a funny way of negating the best predictions. So is Achenbach any better at predicting outcomes? No, but he also admits that up front. Sure there are problems in this country. It may be that it is time for some big ideas to address them. Maybe it is time to double down.

Civilization, Politics, World news | Gaius September 2, 2007

By reliapundit, September 2, 2007 @ 8:49 am

this negative defeatist crap comes from the same people who gave us Jimmy Carter and the fall of Saigon.

this crowd thought the USSR was the future and capitalism was dead.

it’s wishful thinking on their part.

they are postmodernists who want the USA to get its comeuppance.

they were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

i’ll admit that it would be easier for us to defeat the enemy if they didn’t have a fifth column of bleeding heart lefties ruling the academy and the MSM and the state department and the cia.

but that’ll just slow us down a little.

we will win.

the American Revolution was the last great and good revolution.

the one’s which came after were all reactionary and backward-looking.

the future belongs to those who fight for liberty.

the future is ours.

no place on Earth matches our wealth, diversity of ideas and peoples, our grasp or our reach.

the only thing which can stop us is that fifth column.
By Cowgirl, September 2, 2007 @ 9:05 am

I’m liking this. I will read the original article now.

Reliapundit is spot-on!
By Anthony (Los Angeles), September 2, 2007 @ 9:46 am

“America is in decline” seems to be a periodic fashion among the intelligentsia. I remember the 70’s and 80s when it was thought Japan would just eventually buy the US, or USSR had us beat. We all know how that turned out. This country has too many natural advantages –including its people– to go into long-term decline any time soon.

The quickest cure for a gloomy national mood is to stop paying attention to the MSM purveyors of doom, I think. They have an economic interest in making everything look as bad as possible.
By Sylvia, September 2, 2007 @ 1:36 pm

Stop by a middle school and sit in on the gifted and talented class for an hour. You’ll walk away glowing with confidence in the future of the United States.
By Sam L., September 2, 2007 @ 11:08 pm

And remember–the Democrats don’t have any big ideas (other than big government).
By Sam L., September 2, 2007 @ 11:11 pm

Which seems to be the theme of your previous post titled “No Argument”.