Arthur C. Brooks - Commentary On America's Culture War

Commentary On America's Culture War

Brooks believes America is locked in a culture war in which either America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise, limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces, or America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. Brooks states that while some have tried to dismiss the "tea party" demonstrations and the town hall protests as the work of extremists, ignorant backwoodsmen or agents of the health-care industry, this movement reveals much about the culture war that is underway, and it is not at all clear which side will prevail. Brooks submits that the rejection of her founding principles, in favor of redistributionist statism, will permanently lessen the wealth of The United States. However, the greatest danger is the abandonment of the pursuit of happiness, because only free enterprise brings happiness as a result of earned success.

Read more about this topic:  Arthur C. Brooks

Famous quotes containing the words commentary on, commentary, america, culture and/or war:

    Lonely people keep up a ceaseless flow of commentary on themselves.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    Lonely people keep up a ceaseless flow of commentary on themselves.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.
    James Baldwin (1924–1987)

    Education must, then, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.
    Jerome S. Bruner (20th century)

    The war is dreadful. It is the business of the artist to follow it home to the heart of the individual fighters—not to talk in armies and nations and numbers—but to track it home.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)