Rod Dreher has an interesting column in the October 2, 2005 Dallas Morning News. He is critical of both Republicans and Democrats. Among his comments:
More broadly, Katrina reveals that conservatism and liberalism, as presently constituted, are unable to deal effectively with this country's deepest problems. I sense that our long national prosperity and ease have not only frayed the fabric of civil society but also have lulled us all into a false sense of security and invulnerabilty--that because things have gone so well for so long, we can live like this forever.
What do the parties offer us? Flattering half-truths and lies, especially the idea that if we just elect them and keep those evil Others out of power, we can go on living exactly as we choose and defy gravity indefinitely.
Both parties are captive to a bipartisan ideology of consumerist individualism, which basically says that self-fulfillment and maximized personal choice are the greatest good. And we, the people, enable them because we, too, shrink from the idea that we might be asked to sacrifice for the greater good or even our own good. We don't demand real leadership from our leaders because they all promise, in their respective ways, to lest us spoiled children keep raiding the cookie jar.
He recommends a book by Lee Clarke, Worst Cases: Terrorism and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination. Clarke argues that the American public is living under the illusion that government can help us control inevitable mass catastrophes because bureaucracies are by their very nature inefficient responders.
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