American Indulgences...

Read this to understand the choices facing us.

It really is pretty much that simple: America can choose to be a superpower or it can choose to be a welfare state, but not both. We're past the point where a President like Lyndon Baines Johnson could persuade Congress to finance both guns and butter: this is the starting point of the slow, dreary and inevitable breakdown of the US government's finances.

You can't have both. Or, more exactly, you can't have both forever without coming up empty. We're at this turning point, reached when US government debt reached 70% of GDP (a while ago) and put off by dealing with symptoms, rather than causes, over the last 30 years or so.

This will be the key debating point of the next presidential election: whether we pay for 30-year old to indulge in their sad sexual fantasies or whether we pay the price in weapons and blood to ensure that the US continues to be the beacon of reason and law in a world that only occasionally behaves.

It really is that simple. That we have come to this point is appalling enough in and of itself. Entitlements creep forward, slowly, insidiously, with the original good intentions - and this road to fiscal hell is paved very well indeed, thank you - perverted as they always will be by the very human desire to have something for nothing and your chicks for free. It's easy and convenient to be indulgent, especially when you have a political party dedicated to making sure that whatever turns you on will be tolerated, supported and no stern words said, all in exchange for supporting that party and casting your vote their way.

If the choice is between paying for the lifestyle of a diapered, infantile (by choice) 30-year old who cannot fathom why the government won't be paying for his choice of sexual perversion and lifestyle, or paying for the soldiers who stand in the line and keep us safe, there is no argument.

You can't have both. Not any longer.