Fragmented Society, Brooks Slides More Statist

The Fragmented Society - The New York Times:

David Brooks of the NY Times is a great example of what "The Party" (TP-D) believes a "conservative" should be. Every Friday he shows up in NPR for a little segment with EJ Dionne that is a great example of how NPR and the MSM cover "both sides". The left, and the far left. Brooks voted for BO, hates Trump, and found Cruze to be just as bad as Trump. Both the NY Times and NPR believe that he is a good representative of a "conservative" view.

I suspect that I'll have to read the "Fragmented Society" book that he is reviewing, I found the following observation interesting.

"I’m acknowledged in the book, but I learned something new on every page. Nonetheless, I’d say Levin’s emphasis on subsidiarity and local community is important but insufficient. We live within a golden chain, connecting self, family, village, nation and world. The bonds of that chain have to be repaired at every point, not just the local one. It’s not 1830. We Americans have a national consciousness."

I'd love to know "why 1830"? Maybe election of Andrew Jackson? Why not say 1860? (start of Civil War), or 1869, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, or some other watershed date. My guess is it was just Brooks way of saying "long ago".

I also found this factoid interesting.

For example, religious life has bifurcated. Church attendance has declined twice as fast among people without high school diplomas as among people with college degrees. With each additional year of education, the likelihood of attending religious services rises by 15 percent.

Not what the the MSM tries to convince us of is it? One would THINK that "more education = less religion", but that is not so. I was somewhat aware of this, I read "Coming Apart" which Brooks mentions in the column, but for some reason I failed to blog on it -- there are only a few HUNDRED books of which I'm guilty of that!

So, "we have a national consciousness"? What might that be? Is it represented by Trump, Hildebeast, or Bernie? Perhaps it is best revealed by the emperor's decree on bathrooms and locker rooms?  I readily agree that is not "1830", but if you started at the OTHER end, with the "individual", could not one expect many of our "modern" youth to compare tattoos and body piercings with some primitive of a thousand years ago or more? 

Our personal spiritual level is that of primitive pagans, we are gender confused, "marriage" is legal for undefined pairings ("bi-sexual marriage"?), village? There is no "chain", and there is no "national consciousness". We are broken -- things were much better in 1830.


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