Monday 8 November 2010

The Untouchables

City Journal looks at New York and California and has this observation on the left-wing false elite that struck me as insightful:
...California and New York—two states, deeply in debt, whose wealthy are beneficiaries of the global economy...
 That is one of the keys to understanding the mess we are in with the West and in particular for America and Britain.  In the old days, the Establishment and the American New England aristocracy differed from today's New Political Class in that the former were made up of men and women who had a stake in the future of their country.  If Britain or America suffered, then they suffered.  The New Political Class, on the other hand is largely made up of those whose source of wealth comes from outside.

A case in point is the entertainment industry in California.  It may be based in Los Angeles, but its income comes almost entirely from outside the city and state.  No wonder Hollywood supports suicidal policies that bankrupt their neighbours.  It doesn't affect them, so who cares?  And it doesn't have to be that money comes from outside a geographical boundary.  Reaching a certain level of personal wealth, tenure,  or status can all have the same result.  The key is that today's so-called elites are immune from the policies that they advocate.  A crippling welfare state?  Lost sovereignty? Uncontrolled immigration?  An intrusive nanny state?  Who cares?  It doesn't touch us.

Perhaps, but history shows many examples of others who thought so, and all of them turned out to be mistaken.

2 comments:

eon said...

I'm waiting for them to say, "We control the coasts. All your ports belong to us. Give us all the money now, or we cut off your trade and let you go down."

My response will be, "We have the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Gulf, and the Carolinas. We don't need you. Oh, and BTW, where will you get your food from?"

Crazy? I sincerely hope so. I fear it is not. We are not dealing with rational people here.

cheers (more or less)

eon

Wesley said...

Why is it that just as dogs return to their vomit, people return to outmoded ideas that lead to slavery and poverty every time they’re tried? The American Experiment, which created the wealthiest country the world has ever seen and benefitted everyone who came along for the ride, is being systematically destroyed in favor of a failed European style socialist utopia. And it’s being done with a childish lust for destruction by its architects and activist drone-implementers.

David, You evidence characteristics of a clear thinker, and by God, we need more people like you. Say, a few tens of millions in Britain and at least a couple hundred millions in the US. Then there’s the rest of the world…