James Poulos thinks we should face reality:
“Just a little bigger brains and bigger hearts at the top,” the left insists with a smile. “And just a little more taxes. Then our leaders can invent the partnership between big business and big government that’s sure to make our system work.”
“No,” says the right, “just a little more growth and productivity — and a can-do spirit. That’ll guarantee the output we need to successfully drag along this parasitic welfare state we’ll never get rid of.”
Despair lurks behind both these moral and political sales pitches — in the sinking realization that the only thing holding them together is moxie. In a cruel twist, the feverish torpor Tocqueville warned us about over 150 years ago has arisen from our bipartisan unwillingness even to countenance the possibility that the age of optimism is necessarily over.
The Dish 