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| Mark Steyn: Axis of Torpor vs. Axis of Crazy |
| 2013-03-20 |
| The assumption that developed nations will get richer under Washington's defense welfare has been the central tenet of the American era. So now the wealthiest countries in history cannot defend their own borders, while economic basket cases of one degree of derangement or another are nuclear powers. Perhaps this improbable division will hold. Perhaps the Axis of Crazy will be content just to jostle among itself leaving the Axis of Torpor to fret about lowering the retirement age to 48 and mandatory transgendered bathrooms and other pressing public-policy priorities. But, even under such an inherently unstable truce, the American position and the wider global economy would deteriorate. As the CPAC crowd suggested, there are takers on the right for the Rand Paul position. There are many on the left for Obama's drone-alone definition of great power. But there are ever fewer takers for a money-no-object global hegemon that spends 46 percent of the world's military budget and can't impress its will on a bunch of inbred goatherds. A broker America needs to learn to do more with less, and to rediscover the cold calculation of national interest rather than waging war as the world's largest NGO. In dismissing Paul as a "wacko bird," John McCain and Lindsey Graham assume that the too-big-to-fail status quo is forever. It's not; it's already over. |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |