The decline and fall of the American empire is not a new subject, nor was prescience required to see it coming. In my opinion, it began in earnest in the 1960’s with the death of personal responsibility and rise of victimology in all aspects of American life. Certainly, it accelerated with the election of a committed progressive in 2008 and the political and monetary responses to the financial crisis of 2009. The home page of my essayist web site (mentioned in my first blog post) included the following poetic lament.
America, I loved you.
I love you still.
I thank my god that I was born in your heartland
Soon after the war to end the war to end all wars,
At the dawn of the great prosperity of a vast middle class;
Before the noble cause of equality of opportunity
Was obscured by the lie of equal outcomes;
Before a creed of personal responsibility
Was forfeited to victimhood and government dependency;
Before the mission of public education to educate children
Was overtaken by the goal to provide jobs to marginal teachers and superfluous administrators; Before science was overtaken by superstition and politically expedient anthropogenic religion.
America, born to the battle cry of liberty and perfected under a constitution that is,
Still, the greatest display of political genius of all time,
But that could not anticipate the rise and tyranny of the career political class
That perfects the slight-of-hand of purchasing the votes of the citizenry with its own money
And cares not a whit for the inevitable consequences,
But only for the perquisites of the political elite.
What remains for me but to rant and rave
Against the fall of the republic and
Contemplate the realm of the spirit
Wherein lies the truth?
America, I grieve your passing as you choke on your own vomit from excessive indulgence purchased with the proceeds of the mortgage of your future.
America, I weep to see you abandon your post as guardian of freedom
To take up the job of gatekeeper to the path to the next Dark Age.
America, I loved you.
I love you still.
America, ask not for whom the tear falls.
It falls for thee.
