Criticism of neo-conservative Mona Charen’s assumptions on President Obama’s planned political direction for the USA.

Dead End

By Mona Charen

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/dead_end.html

This is a criticism of the above neocon's editorial. This editorial represents a perfect example of how extremist views(left or right), in this case ‘right’, always proves themselves to be over-simplifications of reality. Extremist views are products of ideologues, and, ideologues and pragmatism are opposite poles that consistently repel each, and hardly meet in any dominant party, much less competing parties. Let's focus on her main assumption in this editorial, and it is as follows:

“President Obama has made it abundantly clear that he intends to hustle this country into European nanny state socialism if he can (and just as fast as he can).”

Let’s start by breaking down her statement, that implies a 'dead end' for this country. That part, “European nanny state socialism”, is implied to be the 'dead end' for this country. Why? Because as a neo-conservative ideologue, anything but “rampant, unchecked, laissez-faire capitalism”, is evil, since it would entail more government. Well let’s look at the United Nations Human Development Index, and see where 8 years of unchecked Republican governance has placed USA among those evil European nanny socialist states. Now remember, human development encompasses life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, and GDP per capita, and that last one is what Republicans promote most (“It’s all about the money.”).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

Iceland 0.968 (▬) Norway 0.968 (▬) Canada 0.967 (▲ 1) Australia 0.965 (▼ 1) Ireland 0.960 (▬) Netherlands 0.958 (▲ 3) Sweden 0.958 (▼ 1) Japan 0.956 (▬) Luxembourg 0.956 (▲ 9) Switzerland 0.955 (▼ 3)

France 0.955 (▼ 1) Finland 0.954 (▼ 1) Denmark 0.952 (▲ 1) Austria 0.951 (▲ 1) United States 0.950 (▼ 3) Spain 0.949 (▼ 3) Belgium 0.948 (▼ 1) Greece 0.947 (▲ 6) Italy 0.945 (▲ 1) New Zealand 0.944 (▼ 1)

So we can easily see that those European nanny socialistic states are all ahead of USA, when it comes to making money, as well as, promoting the well-being of their populace. This means that the neo-conservative’s assumption that those European nanny socialistic states are a 'dead end', is pure bunk. And most of these so called European nanny socialistic states are actually a fusion of capitalistic and socialistic states, not some over-simplified, demonized version, that neo-conservatives want you to believe.

Although this is the 2008 index, USA has been consistently below those Euro-nanny states, for decades. So if we have proven that the European nanny socialistic states are not a 'dead end', and they are not completely socialistic, and are highly productive, and competitive economies, then what are we to conclude of the neocon Mona Charen’s statement? We can conclude that neocons favor extremist views over pragmatic views (idealism over pragmatism); that European nanny states increase health, standard of living(high GDP), and education levels of their populace, thereby making them highly competitive in the world market (human dev. Index measurements); that USA will always benefit in the long run, by promoting the well-being of its populace over the repetitive, unrelenting, short-term greed of 2% of the populace. So in the end we have proven, even if Obama were to lead us down that nanny state road, it would not be a 'dead end', nor would it be contrary to what this country needs, like improving our capacity to compete, through better and expanded education, better and expanded healthcare, and promoting a balance of capitalistic growth and human development, that are both sustainable. In the end, to finally answer the question of whether we are heading towards a 'dead end', the question of whether it is best to invest in American citizens, or to invest in pure market mechanisms, or is it best to invest in both, and, make them both sustainable? I view America as one huge family, and I know that the last choice, will bear better, stronger fruit, and for longer periods than any one of the other two choices alone.

The following puts the nail in the coffin of Mona Charen's supposition that aspects of a Euro-style government/economy are evil, when the recent World's Top 50 Safest Banks of 2009 from Global Finance website barely has five US banks listed, two of which are specialty banks that do not do consumer loans - Bank of NY Mellon and Northern Trust Corp, and three received government bailout money - JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and US Bancorp, thereby guaranteeing their safety. So technically there aren't any legitimately safe-by-there-own-doing consumer-lending US banks in the top 50. Unfortunately, despite the bailout money, some of these banks continue to snub their noses at the US taxpayer, by behaving as follows: OOPS 1 , OOPS 2 . Since after last years financial meltdown, the top 50 Safest Banks in the World are predominantly in those evil socialistic Euro-economies, it just seems Mona Charen's argument is cynical and worthless thereby dangerous and misleading.