Feeling down?

Read George Lightbourn's piece in the latest Wisconsin Interest. An excerpt:

We find ourselves at a rather odd place in our history. Measured against nearly any standard—compared to other countries or compared to earlier times in our own history—we are indeed a fortunate people. Yet we cannot bring ourselves to be happy. We have become a gloomy crowd with a melancholia that makes us suckers for populist leaders. You see, populists depend on gloom, for they cannot peddle their message of hope and change to the contented.

However, we cannot escape our true lineage, a strong, sure line that traces its way through the Greatest Generation on back to the Ellis Island immigrants who built the foundation for today’s America. Those Americans understood adversity much better than wealth or entitlement...

No, those people would marvel at the state of health care and would go slack jawed when they discovered that no fewer than 68% of households own their own homes. They would beam with pride upon learning of the generosity of their offspring...

So let us leave it to others to stand, stoop shouldered, looking at the floor with cap in hand. We will leave them to their gloom as they allow themselves to become victims of political pandering. That is simply not us.