Chicago Boyz Archive

I recently had a very enjoyable conversation with Jim Lakely of the Heartland Instituteabout America 3.0.

This conversation is available as a podcast on YouTube here. The same podcast is available in two parts on the Heartland site, part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.

Heartland’s summary of part I:

Many people on the right believe America is on a downward slope into who-knows-where. They see no signs of improvement and think the future is dire. But not Michael Lotus!
 
He and co-author James C. Bennett wrote a book titled, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century. The book explores the possibility of a new era in America. The new era — they call it America 3.0 — is one that is less centralized ( less “top down”), and where we operate on more of an individual scale and become ever more productive.
 
In this podcast, Lotus discusses the previous two American eras — 1.0 and 2.0. America 1.0 is the time from the founding of the nation until just before the Industrial Revolution, which then takes us into America 2.0. Lotus says we are now at the tail-end of 2.0, in a kind of stagnant “transitional period.”
 
Why are Lotus and Bennett so hopeful? Well, they think that technology develops autonomously, regardless of the government obstacles in place (which cause it to slow down, but never cease improving). Furthermore, Lotus says that we have underlying cultural foundations that are unique — such as the nuclear family — that make us more resistant to the institution of socialism.
 
Even the host, Jim Lakely — Director of Communications at The Heartland Institute — began to transform his pessimistic attitude by the end of his conversation with Lotus!

Heartland’s summary of part II:

With all of the government debt, and the looming liabilities like Social Security, how is it possible that in thirty-some years America will be getting better?
 
Michael Lotus offers up his answer in Part II of the Heartland Daily Podcast about his new book titled, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century.
 
Lotus is confident that as technology develops, it will provide ways for us to lower the cost of living and liberate the economy. What if we could use a 3D printer to print and assemble a house in four days?
 
Everything is transforming right before our eyes; the geopolitical landscape, education, and societal values, among others.
 
Jim Lakely, Director of Communication at The Heartland Institute, asks Lotus about the geopolitical future of the United States. They discuss the fact that our founders meant for the U.S. to be much less centralized than it is, and how — in such a large country — it’s important for different parts of the country to live as they please, with smaller units of government.
 
Lakely and Lotus also discuss education. Lotus believes that government is the “boulder” holding us back and he says if we move that boulder, the world would “drop its jaw” at what we could accomplish. It seems that in this part, Lotus has lifted Lakely’s pessimism … at least for now.

Big thanks to Jim Lakely for this podcast!

The long awaited book by Daniel Hannan, entitled Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.

My copy arrived last week, and I am more than eager to read it.

The Amazon page for the book is here.

The blurb for the book says:

British politician Daniel Hannan’s Inventing Freedom is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.
 
According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.
 
By the tenth century, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival.
 
Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. Inventing Freedom is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.

Mr. Hannan’s argument sounds terribly convincing! In fact, it is much the same argument that we make in America 3.0.

We previously post about the wonderful review of America 3.0 which Mr. Hannan wrote. As he noted, we draw on many of the same sources:

Here is a powerful and persuasive book. I confess to using the phrase “powerful and persuasive” in the sense that most bloggers do, to mean “agrees with me”. The authors have drawn on the same sources that I most frequently turn to: the brilliant Cambridge historian and anthropologist Alan Macfarlane; Oxford’s James Campbell, the supreme authority on late Anglo-Saxon England; David Hackett Fischer and Kevin Phillips, whose histories of the United States contextualise the great republic within the Anglosphere continuum. They have returned, too, to the foremost Victorians, notably Stubbs, Freeman and Maitland, who fell out of fashion during the twentieth century, but whose truths will endure when more recent interpretations have been found wanting. I think I also detect Macaulay’s elegant spoor, though he isn’t cited directly. And, of course, they pay due reverence to America’s founders, above all Jefferson whose words were unfailingly wise, even if his deeds didn’t always match them.

One further influence on Mr. Hannan, cited in his book, is my coauthor James C. Bennett. Jim popularized the term “Anglosphere,” which first appeared in Neal Stephenson’s science fiction novel The Diamond Age.

Jim’s 2004 book The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century is essential reading.

Read The Anglosphere Challenge after you have finished America 3.0 and Inventing Freedom!

I will be speaking about America 3.0 on November 20, 2013 at a meeting of the Chicago Tea Party.

The meeting is at the Ugly Step Sister Art Gallery, 1750 S. Union Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60616 at 7:00 p.m.

The Chicago Tea Party announcement reads as follows:

Our second speaker will be long-time Chicago Tea Party member Mike Lotus. Mike will speak about his new book, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century-Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come. America 3.0 explains why the post-industrial, networked, decentralized society we are going to build does not need Big Government anymore. America 3.0 explains that the current crisis we are going through is not the end of America, but a transition period. What is ending is the 20th Century welfare state. America 3.0 explains why technology and our underlying culture are going to help us make a successful transition to a free and prosperous future. Mike will speak about the critical importance of the Tea Party in the fundamental political changes that we are going to have to make. These are indeed revolutionary times. Whether we like it or not, we are part of a new founding generation. Be strong, it’s going to be hard. Be happy, it’s going to be great.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to my friends in the Chicago Tea Party.

Remember the three Tea Party principles: Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, Free Markets.

That’s what it’s all about.

Our distinguished FIRST speaker will be Doug Truax:

Doug Truax is a candidate for United States Senate, running in the Republican Primary in March 2014 and then taking on Dick Durbin in November 2014. He’s 43, he’s been married to Nicole for 21 years, they have three teen-agers, and live in Downers Grove in Dupage County.
 
Doug went to West Point, was active duty Army for six years, he attended Ranger and Airborne school, was a platoon leader and aide to a general, and then left the Army as a Captain.
 
He then went on to executive management at one of the country’s largest commercial insurance brokerage and consulting firms. After over 10 years in Corporate America, Doug went out on his own. He co-founded and is Managing Partner of a very successful employee benefit brokerage and consulting firm that helps companies control their medical insurance costs.
 
He knows and understands Obamacare and knows what we need to do to fix the Healthcare System in this country.
 
He’s been Chairman of the Board of Almost Home Kids in Naperville and Chicago and is Vice Chairman of the Board at CareNet of Dupage, a crisis pregnancy center.

I look forward to hearing Doug speak about his plans to capture the nomination, defeat Dick Durbin then take on the monster on the Potomac!