The Futility of Hope

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

Almost everyone knows that something is terribly wrong. But the socialist looks at state-run capitalism, mistakes it for the "free market" and believes free marketeers are part of the "they" who are "winning." And free marketeers think the socialists, with their desires for more regulations and welfare, are on the side that's winning.

On a similar note, gay activists and the Religious Right see each other as a threat to civilization. The Right sees open immigration, mulitculturalism, and Islam as threats to our culture, and believe the Left is on the side that's winning because they've taken over the educational system. The Left thinks the Right is winning because of corporate greed and an expanding police state.

It seems to me, however, that over the past seven years we have had more of just about everything. More Politically Correct intolerance AND more religious intolerance. More problems (rightly or wrongly) attributed to "capitalism" AND more Big Government failures. More police-state surveillance AND more access to alternative viewpoints. More nation-destroying "multiculturalism" AND more goose-stepping "nationalism."

But, although the post-9-11 world may have taken everything to greater extremes, didn't we think many of the same things in the 1990's and 1980's? Do not many similar conflicts date back to the Founding? Or even to the Magna Charta and before?