Is There Historical Perspective Anymore?

This past weekend someone wrote into the local paper that the current economic and overall problems in America took ten years to get into and therefore, would not likely be resolved in the next few years. I find this kind of statement assinine. Mostly because our current situation started more than ten years ago.

If people will take the time to look back at history, especially focusing on the time prior to their birth (which is the basis for most people's perspective), they will see that we've had a slow decline into a society of entitlement and class envy. I don't know when it all started, but somewhere way back there we started to think there was something wrong with rich people. We (as a society) have promoted the idea that rich people somehow got rich by stealing from others. We then started re-defining rich. Now we seem to think if someone is making a salary far above our own, they're rich and somehow not deserving of the fruits of their labor. How arrogant is that?

People just don't pay attention to the truth and civil debates are rare. Proof of Americans not paying attention is that today our president said we need a $50billion infrastructure plan for roads and bridges. How many Americans remember roads, bridges and other "shovel-ready" projects were what the $787billion stimulus package was supposed to pay for?

As I'm beginning the last quarter of the book Atlas Shrugged, I cannot help but see the slow destruction of a once-great nation and wondering if enough of us have the will to fight back.