Ex-pat in the making

I used to laugh at the Streisand types who would threaten to move to Canada every time a Republican was about be elected.

Whatever policy quarrels existed, Americans have had it pretty good for most of my lifetime. Economic opportunity abounded, personal freedom felt largely unlimited, and the government more or less seemed to be there to build roads and provide defense.

How times have changed. The economy is a shambles with no end in sight, citizens are watched and harassed in the course of daily affairs, and the government has become a club for the power elite--answerable to no one and corrupt to the core. What did our disgust at Bush get us?

We might have expected Obama to provide a change (wasn't there something about that in the campaign slogan?), and if that meant taking the car Bush was driving and stepping harder on the gas, we got it. Can you imagine the wails of the Hope & Change crowd had Bush been at the wheel for the current round of debacles?

Obama makes me miss Bush almost as much as Bush made me miss Clinton. Ah, for the time when a president would downsize government, keep us out of war, and let us worry about silly things like football and college and the Dow Jones. Go ahead, get a BJ from a rugged-looking intern. You deserve it.

I'm telling you, and you're not going to like to hear this. America is not on top now, and will not be on top again. We are fat, dumb, and deluded. China and India are not. Absorb that. Be mobile. Learn a language. And prepare yourself for a time when things get desperate.

Check in with me in twenty years, amigos. Then we can sip a cerveza and talk about the old country.