There have been any number of 'Empires' that lasted centuries. Americans have, as is usual with home team bravado, taken great pride in the 1776 - 2008 American Empire. But it's beginning to look like we're going to be starting our own British-like slide into former title-holder status. America will for quite a number of years to come still get a good seat at restaurants, just not the best seat. For many of us it's going to be hard to take.
What may have helped make us great (truly a very subjective finding) was our productivity. Just look what productivity is doing for China and India/SE Asia now.
There are probably a myriad of explanations about what made us great, but all of them pretty much ignore an essential part of our humanity: how dumb some of us are. The thing is, I think I'm preaching to the choir here. Would you have shot the last carrier pigeon? Would you have forced the Cherokee to self-migrate from Georgia to Oklahoma? Would you have killed a Black man who wolf-whistled at a pretty White girl? Would you have voted for Prohibition? A person could go on and on listing the mistakes America/Americans have made. You gotta love greed...
But even among 'good' people (another example of subjectivity running amok) we have our differences. For instance, I am not a fan of universal health care. My reasons for being against it include the likelihood that it will keep people alive who are better off dead.
Some of you are ardently Green. I happen to be ... what color are gas fumes?
And at this stage of our empire's decline, a huge segment of the vocal public is all caught up in the notion that we can vote our way through it, that the way we vote in November can change all of this! But what about the possibility that 'government' isn't the answer? What if government is the problem?
A bit of internet borrowing and massaging of data indicates that there are roughly 30 million employees/contractors/grant-takers/troops who live off of taxes. This is for all levels of American government. We're a nation of roughly 300 million. So every tenth person gets paid from taxes. When you factor in the unemployed, the disabled, children and old/retired people, what percentage of working Americans gets paid from taxes? Whatever the figure, it's too big. And no, I didn't count welfare recipients as people who live off taxes; I probably should have! This is a large part of the reason that the Social Security Ponzi Administration is dialed in for bankruptcy.
The one certainty that I can cling to is that at this point our inertia is way too big for any vote to effect it. We're totally going to get to where we're headed.
It's my belief (hope?) that the best way out of America's 2nd Great Depression is for anarchists to unite and save us all. But it's not going to be very pretty.
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I'll tell you what made America so great: Idaho potatoes.
Sure you might say that it was the indelible spirit of entrepreneurs, inventors, and heck, the everydaymen of the nation, but I'll stick with the potatoes.
With a nation fast retreating from a meat n' potatoes diet, you see all sorts of dilution of the good ol' American spunk. People are giving up their gas guzzling cars, metrosexuals are prolific, and women are left with the right to vote. Entirely contrary to traditional values.
The only way to save the nation is of course by bringing back the spud. Make it sexy. Lay down a brick of beef beside it. With the rapid release of sugars from the good old Idahoan, followed closely by a wallop of power packed proteins, America will be on top of the world again.
Also, bring back the lashings.
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