U.S. Will Collapse Like Greece, Bestselling Author Predicts

Brandon Sun, March 5, 2012 - David McConkey

With the U.S. election year underway, the state of our southern neighbor invites a closer look. One great way is to dip into Mark Steyn’s new bestselling book After America: Get Ready for Armageddon.

Steyn is a Canadian cultural critic and political pundit who now lives and works in the U.S. He is outrageous, controversial and funny; he even describes himself as a “frothing right-wing loon.”

His previous book, written in 2006, was America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. There, he warned of the decline of Europe – because of that continent’s ballooning debt, dropping birthrate, and increasing influence of Islam.

Now, in After America, Steyn points out that he has been proved right: the economic downturn has revealed the extent of Europe’s decay.

The current debt crisis in Greece is a harbinger of Europe’s future. Greece has been shown to be not only a society that doesn’t pay its bills, but also, in Steyn’s words, “lazy, feckless, squalid, corrupt, and vicious.”

Steyn contends that the U.S. is now following Greece and the rest of Europe on that downward spiral.

Certainly other commentators have noted that – with the rise of China – the U.S. will someday cease to be the world’s only superpower.

But Steyn goes much further. He says that the U.S. will not just mellow into a pleasant retirement from being leader of the world.

Instead, America will descend into “something closer to the Third World,” overwhelmed by “poverty, addiction, and crime.” Much of the U.S. will resemble “Latin America, corrupt and chaotic, broke and brutish – for all but a privileged few.”

And, we can expect disaster to arrive quite soon. “In ten years’ time, there will be no American Dream, any more than there’s a Greek or Portuguese Dream. In twenty, you’ll be living the American Nightmare . . .”

The crisis in the U.S., as in Europe, centres on the government’s exploding debt (which incidentally makes the U.S. dependent on China, its major foreign creditor.)

Also, as in Europe, problems in America go beyond the political to encompass the changing cultural landscape. The U.S. is becoming more Latin American, just as Europe is becoming more Islamic.

But, wait, isn’t this diversity of cultures a good thing? No, Steyn says: multiculturalism is deeply flawed. Celebrating different cultures glosses over the fact that there are good and bad cultural practices. And culturally today, the good is being replaced by the bad.

Steyn doesn’t hold back in his comments. He faults Islam for its links to terrorism, as well as for discouraging learning and free speech, for maltreating women, and for being generally socially dysfunctional.

Despite his broad-brush approach, Steyn misses much. For example, he criticizes the unsustainable debts of Big Government. But he virtually lets the Big Business half of the “military-industrial complex” off the hook.

Or, consider Steyn’s saying that drug violence and corruption will cause Mexico to dissolve “into a murderous narco-state.” The resulting flood of Mexican refugees will add to the millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S., which will be “the unmaking of America.”

Yet Steyn ignores the fact that it is the U.S. War on Drugs that has driven up the price of drugs, making criminal activity so lucrative.

Not to mention that Mexican drug gangs are armed with guns from the U.S. But Americans don’t like to be reminded that guns are sometimes bad. For many Americans, as they cling to both their Christian faith and their firearms, “gunliness” is next to godliness.

Speaking of God, Steyn laments the decline of Christianity and the accompanying rise of atheism.

But Steyn does not address an inherent contradiction. Why is a belief in the Christian God good, but a belief in the Islamic God bad? Isn’t it the same God? Furthermore, compared to Christianity, isn’t Islam a more modern description of that God?

Whatever the book’s weaknesses, After America is a thought-provoking wake-up call to Americans – as well as to Canadians. And despite the gloomy message, the book is a really entertaining read. Steyn infuses his writing with lots of humour, as well as interesting references from the Bible, history, novels, movies, and music.

Americans may discuss these issues during their current election. They may even deal effectively with their problems. But if the U.S. does descend into chaos, we Canadians will be among the world’s citizens who will be the first to be dragged down as well.

Get ready for Armageddon?

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