Huffington Post
January 28, 2013
It is often said that to get a glimpse of our future we should study the lessons of the past. Or we can observe the fate of those marching a few steps ahead of us down a road we seem determined to travel. Take Greece. Long hailed as the birthplace of democracy, it is now a poster child for excessive government spending, bloated public sector unions, unfunded entitlements, and stultifying regulations. What happens when the politicians frantically trying to stave off economic collapse finally run out of other people's money?
The hapless Greeks have managed to keep themselves off the front pages for a few months as they burn through their latest cash infusion, courtesy of the German taxpayer. This is no mean feat considering the dire state of the country's economy and the ever-present threat of a Greek debt implosion that could light the fuse for the unwinding of the euro, the opening act of what would surely become a worldwide economic catastrophe.
But the simmering cauldron that is the Greek body politic has not stopped boiling. Widespread misery and despair are breeding lawlessness and violence. The sense that the country is falling apart is emboldening fringe political parties on both left and right to spew apocalyptic rhetoric, as they inexorably move to fill the vacuum left by Greece's discredited and collapsing center.
Read through the stories appearing everyday in the Greek press (which you might only find buried on the back pages of American newspapers) and you will undoubtedly ask yourself: "How long will these proud people put up with such degradation?"
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