Our Way of Life in America Requires Participation and Cooperation

When people stop participating, neighborhoods go to hell, innovation goes to some other shore, (people with big screen TV's move out of California.... :)) and the contributors are simply outweighed and overwhelmed by the takers.

People stop worrying about paying loans back.

This has been the major movement in America the last decade or two, driven by community organizers, organizations with names like ACORN and others, and it's really picking up steam in my opinion.

I read a news article couple years back. Someone at a Kmart was offered a 4,000 instant credit card through an error in Kmart's credit system. She called her friends who called their friends with the message that 'KMart was giving free money away".
Opportunists went to other KMarts and acquired credit applications to sell to the hordes that showed up to get their free 4,000 instant credit. Not a one of them had the slightest intention of paying back a cent. Violence ensued in the KMart parking lot and afterwards earrings, still attached to ear parts, were found in the parking lot where they fought over remaining credit application forms.

True.

That image came to me as the mortgage meltdown came to pass, and I could hear people screaming in my imagination that "Countrywide is Giving Free Houses Away" thousands or perhaps millions of times across the American landscape. Encouraged by the Democrats I add, such as Bubba Clinton threatening to sue Fannie and Freddie if they didn't provide loans to under-qualified borrowers.

We're screwed folks. There isn't enough participation left. The rest of us will buckle under the load and that will be that.

Anyway, along this line is a truly excellent offering from Bill Whittle of Eject Eject Eject Here that he wrote not too long after the Katrina disaster called Tribes. It is well worth a read.