Lots of gracious congratulations coming to Barack Obama from conservative commentators/pundits, including this one. And this.

But, heck, you can’t please everyone.

As ever, Mark Steyn nails it:

I think we are near a point at which America joins the rest of the west as a center-left society — that’s to say, a society whose assumptions about the role of government and the size of the state are far closer to Continental social democracies than to the Founding Fathers.

In a grim media-cultural environment, the temptation for American conservatism is to be seduced into becoming one of those ever so mildly right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-center parties they have in Europe.

Most Europeans might well say, "phew, thank goodness for that".

The problem Europe looks away from is that Europe is unsustainable.

Europe is draining down its historical capital. Having invented much of the thinking behind wealth creation down the centuries, it is running its own collected business in an irresponsible, childish way, somehow hoping for something to turn up as its demographic and other forms of decline accelerate.

The whole point about the USA is – or has been – that it looks at some Deep Issues differently. And that the tension between the American and European visions of democratic governance keeps everyone in ‘the West’ on their toes.

Some people argue that the victory of this ersatz-Europeanism in America is a good thing as it brings forward the day – albeit maybe a decade or two down the line – when government as currently configured seizes up:

… in the long run this has a far far better chance of leading to the rebirth of a genuine pro-liberty, pro-market political culture that the gradual incremental surrender of recent times made impossible.

Maybe.

Or perhaps we get instead just indefinite post-democratic decadence and decay, as the sprawling structures of welfarist government get too big to do anything useful, but are more than big enough to resist meaningful reform/abolition however ghastly the mess?

As the world acclaims President-elect Obama let’s recall the powerful words of Cory the Well Driller:

You see, Mr. Obama, I’m the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I’m the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I’m the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn’t want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself.

… You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career…

What’s worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves…

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it.

Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states…

You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government.

What’s remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn’t need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life…

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate.

If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline.

He’s right. If we invest less and less in Optimistic Success and more and more in Pessimistic Dependency, down we go.

Both sooner. And later.