Hanson:
Even in its current malaise, the U.S. still
soars above the global competition.
Germany’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, supposedly once said that there was “a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.”
Apparently,
late 19th-century observers could not quite explain how the U.S. thrived when
by logic it should not. That paradox has never been more true than today.
The
U.S. government now owes more than $18 trillion in long-term debt. Even after
recent income-tax hikes for the very wealthy and huge cuts in the defense
budget, the Obama administration will still run an annual budget deficit of
nearly $500 billion.
No
government official dares to trim Social Security or Medicare. Everyone knows
that both programs are fiscally unsustainable.
More
than 11 million undocumented immigrants are residing in the U.S. as federal
immigration law is reduced to a bothersome irritant. A record 92 million
American citizens 16 and older are not working.
Red-state
and blue-state animosities reveal a nation more divided than at any time since
the 1960s — or perhaps the pre–Civil War 1850s.
The
permanent bureaucracy is awash in serial scandals. The IRS, VA, GSA, NSA, ICE,
and Secret Service have all deservedly lost the public trust.
Congress
suffers from overwhelming public disapproval. President Obama’s approval rating
hovers just above 40 percent.
Our new
foreign policy could be characterized as managed decline. Three defense
secretaries have retired or resigned under Obama. Two of them, Robert Gates and
Leon Panetta, wrote memoirs in which they blasted the administration. From
Russia to the Pacific to the Middle East, the world seems to be descending into
the law of the jungle as the U.S. withdraws from its traditional role as a
global overseer of the postwar order.
The
Michael Brown shooting illustrates seemingly irreconcilable racial divides not
seen in 50 years. Al Sharpton once was seen as a social arsonist and tax
delinquent. Now he appears to be the White House’s most influential advisor on
racial matters.
Student-loan
debt has surpassed $1 trillion. Six years of college has become the new normal.
Even then, more than a third of the students who enter college never graduate.
In such
a depressing American landscape, why is the United States doing pretty well?
Put
simply, millions of quiet, determined Americans get up every morning and tune
out the incompetence and corruption of their government. They simply ignore
destructive fads of popular culture. They have no time for the demagoguery of
their politicians and the divisive rhetoric of social activists. Instead, these
quiet Americans simply go to work, pursue their own talents, excel at what they
do, and seek to take care of their families.
The
result of their singular expertise is that even in America’s current illness,
the nation still soars above the global competition.
Only in
America can you find the sort of innovation, talent, legal framework, and
can-do attitude needed to invent and refine hydraulic fracking and horizontal
drilling. Just a few hundred thousand scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, oil
riggers, and skilled craftsman have revived the once-ossified oil industry for
320 million Americans.
The
United States is not running out of fuels — as was predicted over the last 20
years. It instead has become the largest gas-and-oil producer in the world.
The
epitaph for Silicon Valley is written each year. Its tech industry is copied
the world over. Yet seemingly each year a new American technical innovation —
the laptop, Google, Facebook, the iPad, the iPhone — sweeps the world.
Apparently, American informality, meritocracy, and top-flight engineering still
draw global talent into Northern California, which sends back out the latest
gadgets to be gobbled up by billions.
Neither
drought, nor needlessly cumbersome regulations, nor unfair trade practices have
stalled American agriculture. The farms of the United States — where less than
2 percent of the population resides — have never turned out so much safe,
nutritious, and cheap food that is feeding the world and earning America
hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign exchange.
The
U.S. military — in which fewer than 1 in 100 Americans serve — is facing record
cuts. The Navy will have fewer ships than the American fleet of World War I.
The Air Force and the Marine Corps are shrinking. Yet superb American forces
continue to ensure that the United States and its allies remain safe. Neither
Vladimir Putin’s Russia, nor the Communist Chinese hierarchy, nor the Iranian
theocrats are quite ready to take the on the U.S. military. All are rightly
worried that to do so would be suicidal.
America
is not saved by our elected officials, bureaucrats, celebrities, and partisan activists.
Instead, just a few million hardworking Americans in key areas — a natural
meritocracy of all races, classes, and backgrounds — ignore the daily hype and
chaos, remain innovative and productive, and dazzle the world.
The
silent few of a forgotten America have given the entire country an astonishing
standard of living that is quite inexplicable.
