Hey, @johndoer123

I think you and Dave pretty much arrived at the point here. There really isn't any learning from our mistakes this time. This is pretty much it. We had our chance, and as a nation/civilization, intentionally or not, we've blown it. We've taken the one true shot at freedom the world has known and we've blown it. We taken the best government ever implemented by man and corrupted it, we've taken the best economy ever to be instilled by a people and treated it as a thing of naught, and we've pretty much alienated ourselves from most of the world in the process.

I'd like to think there's a way out of this, but I don't see it. I see WWIII. I'm not sure how we come out of that unscathed. This has been brewing for well over a hundred years, and it will come to a head. The US has already survived longer as it was originally constituted than any other nation on Earth, and since we've been doing our level best to tempt fate, instead of everything in our power to cherish, preserve and protect her, it's only a matter of time before we go the way of every other people.

It's really a tribute to the divine nature of this nation's founding and the resiliency of a free market economy that we've managed to make it this far.