Dependencies, Domestic and Foreign

With all the carping about our numerous failings, faults, and mistakes, few critics of America ever focus on the destructive effects of our almost universally praised well intentioned policies.

Coming back to bite us now is our having provided a shield for the Western European countries devastated by World War II. We helped them rebuild their industrial bases and economies. Our military protection against an aggressive and expansionist Soviet Union was part and parcel of this assistance. It spared Europeans the necessity and expenses of providing for their own defenses.

The unfortunate unintended consequence of our having done this is that its beneficiaries got used to the free ride. In the six plus decades since Hitler's defeat, Western Europe has rebuilt its industrial base and become an economic power. However, none of the nations that make up Western Europe ever reassumed responsibility for its own defense. They participated in NATO but their participation, militarily and economically, was nominal -- just enough to give them a significant role in formulating policies, strategies, and decision making.

They all were content to let the U.S. continue to bear a disproportionate share of the defensive burdens. Doing so, they lost their traditional martial virtues and the will to defend themselves, their cultures, their values, or anything and everything else. They became what has been referred to, not unfairly, as a collection of weasels. At the same time, they came to resent their dependence on the U.S. In turn, that resentment led them to criticize and undermine any and every action taken by the U.S. to extend to others or defend western civilization.

Now the Russian bear has risen again and the weasels are all atwitter, dithering, temporizing. They again appear to be hoping to be the last to be eaten by the beast and that words will appease, satisfy, and soothe it. Unable to rouse themselves to take any meaningful action, they give every indication of reacting to Russian aggression in the same way their predecessors reacted to Hitler's.

At home, our affirmative action efforts provide a parallel to what has transpired in Western Europe. Dismantling and eliminating laws that permitted racial discrimination and those that prevented full participation by blacks in the nation's life and its political processes, and economy obviously was the right and moral thing to do. Had we stopped there, black citizens would have had the same opportunity that America afforded to those who made up the waves of immigrants that came to our shores -- the opportunity through individual struggle and effort to succeed, to gain a role and place in the American society commensurate with what they were able to achieve.

Instead, with a multitude of very expensive programs we attempted to foster the advancement of the previously disadvantaged racial minority.
What these efforts actually did was a disservice to our black citizens and the country. It conveyed to those citizens that they were incapable of achieving on their own the same successes that had been achieved by others, that being victims they needed and deserved the government's help.

Does anyone seriously doubt that doing this created a long lasting -- and quite possibly permanent -- dependency, an angry, resentful, and violence prone underclass of parasitic victims constantly demanding more? Attention to what those who are seen as leaders of the so-called black community -- race hustlers such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- should dispel any doubts about this. If this isn't enough, one need only look at the contrast between those who waited for rescue from flooding in New Orleans with those took care of themselves and one another in the far more widespread upper Midwest floods.

Individuals and societies reach great heights and earn self esteem and respect from others through self sufficiency, taking and discharging responsibilities, and pulling at least their own weight in endeavors undertaken jointly with others.

On the other hand there is a lesson in the foregoing that we all should learn and apply: dependency is enervating and destructive for everyone -- for all parties -- involved in it -- those who create, support, and permit it as well as those who accept and become reliant on it.