What happens when an empire succeeds beyond it's own wildest dreams?
America spends 10 times more on it's military than the rest of the World combined. We won the Cold War, which was, perhaps, the greatest geopolitical struggle in modern times, virtually unaided. Today, we cannot pacify a forthrate rate power in an Islamic backwater.
We are such a magnanimous society, that the biggest problem among our poor, is chronic obesity but after two generations of "Great Society" social welfare programs, we can't pull the poor into the mainstream, even as millions of illegal immigrants stream into the country and assimilate into a prosperous life, against all the barriers erected against just that prospect. We made jobs and people went to work but they didn't accumulate wealth, they overspent and now we are the greatest debtor nation the World has ever seen.
The magnificent infrastructure that we built up over the last century continues to serve us well but is outdated and wearing out. There are no plans to expand and renovate it. When one of our greatest cities was destroyed by storm and flood, the best our leaders can come up with, is abandon it, and move to higher ground.
Our water is filthy, you can't drink from the most pristine mountain stream with out boiling or filtering it. Our forests are cut down. Landfills full of toxic sludge and plastic fester the landscape. We pump green house gases into the atmosphere at ever increasing rates, knowing the damage it does. There is so much CO2 in the air that it has acidified the oceans. We make no efforts to clean up after ourselves because it might alter our standard of living.
Our streets are pretty safe in America. Many areas, including some of our largest cities, have lower levels of violent crime than ever before but we warehouse a larger percentage of our population, for most of their adult lives, in prison, than any other country. Still, after 50 years as the highest law enforcement priority, the traffic in and use of, illicit narcotics, is unchecked. For all of our efforts to create a safe society, our women and children fall victim to sexual predation and assault as never before.
We have been the strongest, richest, most developed, most free society in the World for a century. We influenced world culture, politics and trade as surely as did the Greeks and Romans in their time. The 20th century was truly, the American century. Fueled by an endless stream of aspiring immigrants and a land of incomparable riches, we came to power swiftly. Will our fall be also as swift?
Like a prizefighter that dominates the ring for a period of time and defeats all challengers, there is no graceful way to step down. The fighter takes for granted the respect, riches and adulation as his due, even when age and dissipation take their toll and the victories become fewer and harder won. Do we, as a nation, choose to step down, into a respectable, if less exalted, position in the family of nations or do we stay in the ring, until we succumb to the endless punishment? Bleeding. Broken. Insensate.
Larry Holmes or Cassius Clay? We know who was the better fighter but who is better off today?
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