William Lind’s “Militant Musings: From Nightmare 1995 to my Utopia 2050” (pdf)

First published in The Washington Post on Sunday, April 30, 1995

A snippet from near the beginning:

You see, some time around the middle of the 18th century we men of the West

struck Faust’s bargain with the Devil. We could do anything, say anything, think

anything, with one exception: Verweile doch, du bist so schoen (Stay, you are so

beautiful). We could not rest; we could not get it right and then keep it that way. Always

we must have novelty – that was the bargain.

It’s funny how clearly the American century is marked: 1865 to 1965. The first

Civil War made us one nation. After 1965 and another war, we disunited – deconstructed

– with equal speed into blacks, whites, Hispanics, womyn, gays, victims, oppressors, lefthanded

albinos, you name it. In three decades we covered the distance that had taken

Rome three centuries. As recently as the early 1960s – God, it’s hard to believe –

America was still the greatest nation on earth, the most powerful, the most productive,

the freest, a place of safe homes, dutiful children in good schools, strong families, and a

hot lunch for orphans. By the 1990s the place had the stench of a Third World country.

The cities were ravaged by punks, beggars and bums. Laws applied only to the lawabiding.

Schools had become daytime holding pens for illiterate young savages.

Television brought the decadence of Weimar Berlin into every home.

Didn’t anyone realize that when the culture goes it takes everything else with it?

Of course, some people knew. But going back to a culture that worked, to traditional

Western Judeo-Christian culture, meant breaking the Faustian bargain.