America today is a society in denial.
The country's political, cultural and intellectual leadership -- both liberal and conservative -- denies social reality and ignores the historical record, and therefore inevitably betrays the interests of the people, leading America down a path that means ever greater anxiety and ever more rapid decline.
The leadership of both major parties, along with the mainstream media and the educational establishment, support and relentlessly promote an egalitarian-universalist ideology, an outlook of wishful thinking divorced from reality that refuses to acknowledge the most elementary truths of society, of heredity, and of history. In accord with our leaders' illusory principles and unrealistic policies, American society is rapidly becoming ever more confused, divided and disordered.
Whether Republican or Democrat, our political leaders lack candor, an informed view of history and the world, and a reality-based vision of the future.
Americans who call themselves conservatives, libertarians or "tea party" people have a simple explanation of why America has gone off track. The problem, they say, is that government is too big, and that it plays too large a role in public life. The solution to our problems, they say, is to reduce the size and role of government. That means, for example, no national health care program. They also say that the US must return to what they say are the principles and policies of the early American constitutional republic.
How valid is this view? How realistic is it?
