The Broken Society by David Brooks NYT

The US is broken, and the only way to fix it is to become more communitarian. The new communitarian plan for restoring trust includes "setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises." Funding local thieves and scoundrels appears to be one of many nice ways to rebuild a more civil society. Brooks is obviously counting on the probability that most Americans don't know that local community associations already act as grant funnels for the most invasive and unconstitutional politics at the local level.

"Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up. " http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opinion/19brooks.html

Some of this reasoning sounds like it was lifted straight out of Cisernos' Broken Window Theory. Back in the 80s, "full blown fear" was defined as what happens in neighborhoods when people feel like nobody cares and nobody's in charge. The communitarian solution to American's full blown fear was to create a new federal police force called community oriented policing. Fifteen years later most Americans do not know they have a 100,000+ communitarian police force.

It's been 18 years since the USA adopted the communitarian suggestions in UN Local Agenda 21 at Rio, and most Americans still don't know what that is either. Every municipality on up in the USA has endorsed the goals of internationally monitored sustainable development. With all the global to local communitarian programs, policies and laws in effect in America today, is it accurate to define the US as libertarian? Doesn't that seem a bit off? Besides the fact that we've never once in our history as a nation had one libertarian president... what happened to the democrats and republicans in this big libertarian versus communitarian debate? They must all be unevolved libertarians or evolved communitarians. Did anyone tell them that yet

So, is Britian really that hospitable to communitarian politics or is it like in the US where the people don't have a clue that communitarian politics even exist?

Thanks to Consuelo for sending the link to http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/53742.html where this Brooks article is cited (and how I found it). Kind of telling that Bill Anderson completely ignored the term communitarianism in his blog post about communitarianism. He closes with,"I feel so much better now. Like all Neo-Cons, David Brooks knows what is best for us. Granted, I look at this drivel as something about as intelligent as a “Blond joke,” but there it is."

Drivel? Don't I wish.

So, did you hear the one about the blond, the brunette and the redhead marrooned together on a desert island? A bottle washed up on shore and when the 3 women opened it, a genie popped out. I dream of genie told them that normally, one person would get 3 wishes, but since there were 3 of them they'd each get one wish. So he asks the redhead what her wish is and she says, "I miss my husband" and *poof* she's gone back to her husband. He asks the brunette who says, "I miss my whole family" and *poof* she disappears back to her family. When he looks at the blond she whines, "I want my friends back!"