Saying too much

Saying Too Much:

I saw that Althouse slammed the BBC's Justin Webb, for which she was approvingly linked by InstaPundit and The Corner (at least, I assume that "BBC Bashing" indicates approval).

Y'all should have read to the end of the piece. Of course a British socialist thinks that America's lack of a welfare state is a problem. Of course he believes we need a revolution to institute a more socialist form of government.

But he also does understand America, as it turns out.

My children attend the same school that Charles Wheeler's daughter Shereen graced in the early 1970s.

In the last few weeks my e-mail inbox has been filled with earnest messages from fellow parents about places we can give money to victims of Katrina, drop off teddy bears we no longer want, dispatch clothes for which we have grown too fat and so on.

Many are giving their time as well as their money

No e-mail in those days of course, but I bet Charles got parchment scrolls, or whatever they used then, with lists of good causes to which he could contribute.

Charity is part of the warp and weft of American life and it is telling that Hurricane Katrina has encouraged an outpouring of giving on a scale never seen before.

Americans are cross with the government and disappointed with the response from Washington, but they have not sat on their hands and waited for the government to sort itself out. Much the opposite.

Americans have given with unbridled enthusiasm and generosity.

Is that not something governments do?

Americans do not think so and never will.

This is unquestionably a source of strength and spine in troubled times, but boy does it put a dampener on revolution.

Charity ameliorates it, softens blows, pours oil on troubled waters. It does not lead to social change.

Inequality is a part of American life and so is self reliance. Nothing I have seen in the last few weeks alters that.

American government is a mess. American bureaucracy and red tape is a national shame. American political clout around the world has been reduced by the Katrina fiasco.

But in Biloxi three weeks ago I watched a man with a chainsaw and two handguns beginning the process of rebuilding his house.

He will be joined by others after this weekend's devastation. They represent an America that Charles Wheeler would recognise instantly, and even now after the flood, is little changed.
American government is a mess, and the red tape and bureaucracy are a shame -- just look at the Julie Myers political appointment we've been railing about for a week, or really just take a close look at any bureaucracy in the government. I don't know about American political clout being reduced. I don't think political clout really has much to do with how people want to see you. It has to do with how they can't help but deal with you. By that score America isn't going anywhere: neither the UK nor the EU nor ASEAN nor the OIC can really afford to do without us, and though they won't admit it, they all know it.

Still, the important and notable thing about the article is not that the fellow said that "the real question, to put it baldly, is whether there is going to be a revolution."

The real thing to note is that he answered his question: No, there won't be. When he looked hard and honestly at America, what he saw was no mob of discontents fomenting violence. He saw a nation spurring itself to ever greater acts of charity and goodwill. He saw a people who would not and did not ask their government to fix things for them. He saw a man with a chainsaw and two handguns, who had put up his house once before and was going to do it again.

That's the America I want people to see. I've got no problem with this author. Whatever I may think of his politics, and whatever he thinks of mine, I respect the fact that he has eyes that are not blind.

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