“Capitalism is dead in the US . . . The US was not destroyed by the Russians, the Chinese or even the militant Islamists. They did it to themselves . . . The $104 trillion debt is beyond any possible means of repayment. The only way out will be to monetize the debt by hyperinflation . . . I’m now watching the final days from 8,000 miles away . . . In November 2008, half of the US electorate put a loaded ballot in their mouth and pulled the trigger . . .”An email to John Derbyshire. (HT: TakiMag)

Imagine you’re a lucky enough man to make an NFL roster. You’ve suited up to play The Baltimore Ravens. The QB just tossed you a safety-valve pass and it’s in your hands. You look down field and see Ray Lewis approaching…Approaching is the wrong adjective. Perhaps looming, careening, impending and generally behaving like he’s not too confused about whose ass he intends to kick. Do you say “So what? I’ve got AFLAC.”

The scenario I just posited above is ridiculous for most of my loyal passel of constant readers. It’s not so ridiculous for the people leading our nation into this enveloping Sahara dust storm of an economic cycle. Like my fictitious 3rd Down Back in paragraph #1, our nation’s political leadership has beaten remarkable odds to achieve a position of stature, renown and good fortune. Like the player described above they have both an opportunity and a problem.

Regrettably, like that player I discussed above, they’ve pretty mush shrugged and said “So what?” Not in those words, not that dismissively in public and certainly, not as idiotically as Tony Hayward. But the entire reaction of our current leadership to our national problems suggest a group of people who care nothing about solving this set of potentially detrimental difficulties afflicting the people they purport to care about and lead.

The evidence is legion that our government could truly care less what happens to people’s lives. It begins with the entire fiasco of our immigration policy. Ten percent of the able-bodied workforce seeking a job can’t land one. 13 Million Illegal Aliens are currently in the US. Many have been there for years, and everyone knows well that they are taking employment away from American citizens by contracting to do that work for a wage lower than what Americans are legally allowed to negotiate on the legally sanctioned economy.

But fear not, Good People. Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, has just the fix for this ongoing problem. John Derbyshire describes how the US Department of Labor is here to help us below.

The U.S. Department of Labor has a new program called We Can Help. In a promotional video on the department’s website our current Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, assures us that “every worker in America has a right to be paid fairly, whether documented or not.” Her department will hire 250 new field investigators to make sure that standards are enforced. (HT: TakiMag)

On top of that, we get the legal immigration fiasco. If there were ever a time when an intelligent nation would at least think about taking care of its own first it is now. But no, we bring in 1 million more a year with guaranteed jobs. Derbyshire describes this detestable state of affairs below.

With unemployment nudging ten percent, we’re accepting the now-normal million-plus a year legal immigrants for permanent settlement. We are also taking in the usual 65,000 “regular cap” H-1B visas for “specialty occupations.” An example of an H-1B visa holder would be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, sponsored by Elizabeth Arden to do “a low-level accounting job.” (HT:TakiMag)

Our domestic economic program offers no further evidence that America’s leadership actually, you know, cares about Americans. In housing, we have done nothing to effectively reestablish normal market balance in the residential real estate markets. We have instead focused on sticking policy pins into Keynesian Voodoo Dolls.

Our tax credit for new home purchases did nothing but expend money the US Treasury did not have on moving consumption forward to create the appearance of robust economic health. The money spigot has run dry, the tax credit has gone “bye-bye” and the results of this now rival the most painful Tequila Sunrise.

And with the tax credits thrown like hush-puppies to one of Pavlov’s dogs, people are just stupid (in the minds of the experts like Vincent Fernando at Business Insider) and won’t buy anything. Vince, the people are not stupid. They are bunkering. They bank that money the way a soldier fills sandbags and fortifies his fighting position when motivated by mortal fear.

So why doesn’t our leadership see what Joe Snuffy sees? They see it. They, unlike Joe Snuffy, just don’t have any reason to care. An intellectually dominant Peggy Noonan column I still blog almost 6 years after it was written explains why.

I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they’re living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they’re going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley’s off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, “I got mine, you get yours.” (HT: Wall Street Journal)

Thus, my initial analogy between our political leaders and the running back about to be crunched by Ray Lewis stands invalid. Our leaders are like Boy Owner Daniel Snyder of The Washington Redskins. They sit in the luxury box above all consequence while we, the gladiators get crushed into the sodden turf far below. They watch us with the detached unconcern that a four-year old boy might show towards a nest of agitated pismires that he just stirred up with a stick. They conduct a grand Poli-Sci experiment with our very existences.

Thus, the elections of 2010 and 2012 are about reconnection. If the leadership won’t meet us at the town hall, we will not send them back to Congress. If they cannot be bothered with authoring a budget, they must be permanently banished from any legislative body with access to a serious treasury. If they cannot protect and, when necessary, seal our borders, they are morally unfit hold dominion within them.

To make America great again, we must connect our political leadership to the consequences of their feckless and solipsistic decisions the way a moron retard gets feedback from sticking his fork in an electrical outlet. Let them hear us or let them burn. If we fail to connect political leadership to the adverse consequences of their conspicuous failures, John Derbyshire will be proven as right as he is pessimistic. ”So: Heads between knees, arms over heads, hold that position. Pray if you’re inclined to. Brace for impact!”

Cross-Posted At: THE MINORITY REPORT