“I see plainly that Western civilization, over my lifetime, has been a slow-sinking ship. The few who have known what is happening have worked desperately to seal the watertight doors, repair the fissures, pump out the flooded zones. It’s been a losing fight, though. The tilt of the decks is harder and harder to ignore. Last night, a major bulkhead gave way. Soon a funnel will topple over with a great crash and a shower of sparks. Yet still the band is playing, the people are dancing, the food coming up from the galley …. It’ll be over soon. We’ll be down in the cold, lightless depths of imperial despotism in which, after all, the great majority of human beings, throughout history, have always lived.” John Derbyshire on health-care reform [Corner/National Review]
