By Richard Miller
Author, “In Words and Deeds: Battle Speeches in History”

“Are America’s Greatest Days Ahead or Behind?”

The question is standard fare, featured in every stump speech in every presidential election in the modern era. And woe betide the politician who dares answer, “Behind us.” After all, Americans usually prefer sunny guys for president.

But in the midst of our current financial disaster, we as citizens need to honestly answer this question for ourselves: if by “greatest days” we mean an American dream that resembles the fantasies of a feckless buyer of scratch tickets, a place of three car garages, a flat screen television in every room and a human right to 10% appreciation in one’s home value and stock portfolio, then yes, America’s “greatest days” are, for a long time to come, likely behind us.

Anyone telling you that American capitalism is an economic system is dead wrong. American capitalism is only the economic face of a value system of morals and ethics, traditionally underpinned by religion. It became possible because it stressed the importance of deferring gratification, connected personal savings to well-being, stigmatized excessive debt, shamed bankruptcy and demanded self- and industrial discipline as a personal and civic virtue.

Undercut these values and the final result is Lehman Brothers and AIG, the twisted faces of Representative Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd, of Fannie and Freddie pursuing give-a-way socialism with a capitalist face, and at last, a value vacuum so large that the Treasury Department is welcomed with applause (and votes) as it mounts a bloodless economic coup d’etat for which the American middle classes will be paying for generations.

But before pointing any fingers, we would be wise to take a good long look in the mirror. After all, it was we the people who voted for any politician who promised easy jobs and credit, tax cuts regardless of the economic situation, and endless prosperity. It was we the people who converted what used to be called a “home” into the Church of Perpetual Refinancings, who used plastic to buy what we couldn’t pay for and then used more plastic to pay it off. In these and a thousand other ways, we’ve enabled the Barney Franks and the other snake oil salesmen who told us what we wanted to hear in exchange for the power and perks of their offices. The people could tumble this rotten edifice any time at the ballot box, but based on the “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” nature of some questions at last night’s debate, it’s not likely that we will.

However, for those Americans who believe that their country’s greatest days involved the establishment of constitutional government, the ending of slavery, surviving the Great Depression, the defeat of fascism and Soviet Communism, and the success of racial integration and gender equality, hope for America remains. After all, the generations that accomplished these Herculean tasks enjoyed a standard of living so far below our own as to represent an ongoing embarrassment to us for having so much and accomplishing so little.

So here’s my answer to the question about America’s greatest days: if the objective is to win the Global War on Terror, cure cancer, end oil dependence on decadent Middle Eastern sheiks and crazed South American caudillos, mount a Manhattan Project for alternative energy, and try to make this country an engine of production rather than consumption, our best days may lie ahead.

But if, after gazing in that mirror, you’re still obsessed with that third car garage, you might as well stick fork in your face, because you–and the country–are done. And whoever votes for McBama because of some lie that you won’t have to pay taxes or mortgage payments or that health care will be “free” then you deserve to be done.