Drain Circling

William Pfaff once appeared somewhat regularly on the L.A. Times op-ed page, & while he's still affiliated w/ Tribune Media Services, Inc. it's Jonah Goldberg who now regularly graces their pages while "Pfaff" is down the Times memory hole.

Here are the paragraphs most likely to irk the irksome.

Well, actually, the only people who can really say that are those who haven’t been to Europe or the major Asian states recently, where everything works beautifully, even if Europe’s debts are not paid off. The 200 mph trains that crisscross Europe not only run on time but give you money back if they are late. The hotels in Singapore, Tokyo and the Arabian Gulf surpass all rivals. Their national airlines provide unparalleled service, and even room enough to sit comfortably in economy.

Even the American government luxuriates abroad. Have you ever been an overnight guest in the visiting officers’ apartments of any major American military base abroad? (Not in a combat zone, to be sure!) I have. It’s like Air Force One. And you can bet that everything works, every luxury and comfort provided, every wish granted and whim gratified. What great fun for the little Obama girls! The rest of us usually fly economy.

[,...]

Second: mindless oversimplification plus ignorance, following from collapsing public education. The latter has a cause that it has not been politically acceptable to identify: the liberation of women. In the United States before the Second World War, teaching in public (or parochial) schools was virtually the only serious work open to university-educated women. They educated America. They now have other things to do, for which we give thanks. But the nation suffers the consequences.

Hmmm. Interesting theory. Also: H. Sapiens is just not that bright, no matter what the books claim about an "intelligent" species.

The outro:

But now Asia looms. We Americans thought we had settled Asia with The Bomb in 1945. Here it is again, but instead of being an Asia of ingenious and committed Japanese, or masses of peasants, it turns out to be modern China, which owns more of the United States than we like to think, manufactures or processes most of what we buy, purchases the raw materials of the world and builds aircraft carriers, which, since Japan’s carriers were all sunk, has been something that we believed only the United States could do.

Shaken by this new Asia, the Obama government has responded (and I would not dream of denigrating a matchless body of fighting men) by sending the Marines to Australia, where we can be sure their presence will give China’s strategists pause.

To end this article by being serious: Yes, the United States is in decline. The matter is serious for what it means to the character and future of the nation itself, rather than to its mere rank, reputation and power in the world. The United States is wasting its traditional values, selling its birthright, as did Esau, for a mess of pottage. As the readers of Genesis know, to do so is most imprudent.

Extra points for righteous Biblical condemnation.