Watch Very Special Stossel Show with Nick Gillespie: Is America in Decline?
I'm happy to tell you that I'll be one of the featured guests on tonight's very episode of Stossel, which airs at 9 p.m. ET on Fox Business. The topic is, "Is America in Decline?" and I appear to be a lonely voice suggesting that our nation still has a potentially good couple of years left.
Go here for more schedule info.
From the writeup of the show:
For decades, people have been saying that America's best days are behind us.
On this week's show, Glenn Beck says our Republic won't make it to 2016.
John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., says that our country is vulnerable because President Obama has made our military weaker.
Pat Buchanan claims that America is committing "suicide" as the population becomes less white and European.
Vernon Hill, founder of Commerce Bank, says he had to go to England to start his newest venture, Metro Bank, because American regulators now micromanage. Ellis Henican argues that regulation is needed.
Reason's Nick Gillespie contends that American culture is not in decline. People read sensational stories like this, this, or this. But when you look at data for things like teen drug use and pregnancy, and violent crime, it suggests that American kids have become more responsible.
Read John Stossel's great Creators Syndicate column every Thursday right here at Reason.
I was asked to appear on the show partly because of my recent Reason.com article "5 Classic Teen Sex-and-Drug Freakouts: Rainbow Parties, Butt-Chugging, And So Much More (By Which We Mean Less)," which made the case that many (if not all) scare stories about "the kids these days" are phonier than a three-dollar bill. A snippet:
In 2007, the Sheriff's Office of Collier County, Florida perpetrated one of the most ridiculous frauds in the annals of police work when it reported that kids were getting turned on by a "new drug called 'Jenkem,'" which was made from fermented urine and feces. Sure, kids today are into do-it-yourself culture, but given that real drugs are reportedly easier to score than ever, who exactly would be into what the cops averred was known by slang terms such as "butthash" and "fruit from crack pipe"?
"Fruit from crack pipe" sounds like something you'd order for dessert at a Thai restaurant that earned a D grade from the health inspector, doesn't it?
And let me also point out that the paperback edition of Matt Welch and my The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America goes on sale June 26. The new edition features an update and foreword by us that discusses our experiences on tour last year and the rise (and apparent fall) of the Occupy Movement and much more.