Time to De-Americanize?

“It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world.”

-- China

Our federal government is still in shutdown, and we are now fast approaching the deadline to raise the debt ceiling and maintain the full faith and credit of the United States. Few people are hurting our country as much as our supposedly super-patriotic Republicans.

Zero-Sum America

David Frum gives us a pointed overview of the political crisis in Washington over the shutdown and the debt ceiling.

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"Why are American politicians playing so rough? We have moved into an era of scarcity. Once it seemed possible to have the spending Democrats wanted, financed at the tax rates the Republicans wanted, while paying for sufficient national security and running bearable deficits. That sense of expansiveness is gone. The trade-offs between Obamacare and Medicare, between spending and taxes, suddenly seem acute, imminent, and zero sum. These disputes are not merely economic. As the United States becomes more ethnically diverse, debates over fiscal priorities inescapably become conflicts between ethnicities and cultures."

-- David Frum at The Daily Beast

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Celebrities and Stuff

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