Walter Russell Mead starts out discussing the fact that school funding is a serious problem . . .4/11/2016 A Drought of Ideas
. . . but ends indicting the entire political system noting that the failures of government create "a weakness that undermines the strength of our republic at home and endangers world peace." This is a seminal article, which you must read. I think it so important I will not comment or quote it here but implore you go and read the whole thing. This is the slow strangling death of the blue model. It must be replaced and very soon. The longer we wait the more damage we do here and abroad. Mead ends, "And of course behind the crisis of state and municipal governance, there is the broader problem of the crises of the American middle class and of American society. These are big problems and they require bold, unconventional thinking. We clearly aren’t getting enough of that today and the nation knows it. Establishment politicians leave the public unsatisfied; that opens the door to the quacks and the snake oil salesmen. But the failures of social imagination and political vision that weaken our country’s political order have graver consequences still. A nation as poorly governed as the United States now is cannot long serve as the cornerstone of world order: the combination of budget pressures and political dysfunction at home is already sapping the nation’s will and capacity to lead abroad, and this is likely to get worse rather than better without a course change. The problems of a predominantly African-American college on the South Side of Chicago may seem like small beer to those not directly involved, but they point to something larger. The decay in our institutions points to a weakness at the heart of liberal society, a weakness that undermines the strength of our republic at home and endangers world peace. It is time for America to step up its game, and as the first step in that process it is time for a wave of creative social thought, some coming from the Right and some from the Left, so that the present stale competition between parties bereft of serious policy ideas can be replaced by something meaningful and real." It is time to finally ditch the progressive blue model, and turn fully to embrace the Third Way with its ownership society, streamlined, reformed welfare state, and smaller more independent government entities. Or we can just wait for this buggy to fall apart, your call.
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