How Nations Fail. Is America on a Path of Permanent Decline?
By Don Feder
Men, like nations, think they’re eternal. What man in his 20s or 30s doesn’t believe, at least subconsciously, that he’ll live forever?
In the springtime of youth, an endless summer beckons. As you pass 70, it’s harder to hide from reality.
Nations, too, have seasons. Imagine a Roman of the 2nd. Century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever.
Forever was about 500 years, give or take.
France was the thing in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim community.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British Empire. Now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 95-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline.
In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low, and its population is aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.
I was born in 1946, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. Thanks to the Greatest Generation, we won a World War fought over most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed.
It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity. We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism. We rebuilt our enemies and lavished foreign aid on much of the world.
We built skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. We conquered Polio and COVID. We explored the mysteries of the Universe and the wonders of DNA, the blueprint of life.
But where is the glory that once was Rome?
America has moved from a relatively free economy to socialism – which has worked so well nowhere in the world. We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year.
Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution.
The pathetic demented creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers. At the G-7 Summit, Dr. Jill had to lead him like a child.
In 1961, when we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is technically led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency.
We can’t defend our borders, history (including monuments to past greatness), or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds.
We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity. Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.
The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence correctly. Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago.
Crime rates soar, and we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets.
Our culture is certifiably insane. We have men who marry men. Men who think they’re women. People who fight racism seek to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.”
We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom while our birth rate dips lower year by year.
Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $28-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality.
Our “entertainment” is sadistic, nihilistic, and enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. Our music is nothing but noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.
Patriotism is called an insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified.
A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress.
We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation in which our leaders no longer believe.
How meekly most submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks and hand sanitizers) shows the death of the American spirit.
How do nations slip from greatness to obscurity?
- Fighting endless wars, they can’t or won’t win.
- Accumulating massive debt far beyond their ability to repay
- Refusing to guard their borders, allowing alien hordes to inundate their nation.
- Surrendering control of their cities to mob rule
- Allowing indoctrination of the young
- Moving from a republican form of government to an oligarchy
- Losing national identity
- Indulging indolence
- Abandoning faith and family – the bulwarks of social order.
In America, every one of these symptoms is unmistakable, indicating an advanced stage of the disease.
Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had?
I’m surrounded by ghosts urging me on—the Union soldiers who held Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, the battered bastards of Bastogne, those who served in the cold hell of Korea, the guys who went to the jungles of Southeast Asia and came home to be reviled or neglected.
This nation took in my immigrant grandparents, whose uniform my father and most of my uncles wore in the Second World War. I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.
During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk, and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.”
The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers, what will posterity say of us if we lose without a fight?
While the prognosis is far from good, only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.
Sent in by reader Skip via ( ronaldyatesbooks )
Look at photos of you in when you were about 10. Take note of the surroundings; the other people, their stance and facial expressions. Now look at the activities -- if the photo is outside there is a good chance you were on a bike, or playing with friends, or maybe at a picnic table. If it is an inside snapshot (those are best for candid examination) you might get a good look at household furnishings and obtain a sense of the rooms. There are often kitchen tables at supper, or a Christmas tree scene, or birthday cake; all parts of a family dynamic.
ReplyDeleteCompare that to what we see today. tubby kids with a future of heart failure and not a skinned knee or bruise in sight, 200-pound 20-year old women clinging to missing childhoods and staring at empty futures, single moms with a deeply-felt fear in their eyes, adult child males with no sense of purpose and no direction. Inside is worse; there is a central and very large display for indoctrination and distraction, smaller versions maintain the spell (no one is more than two feet from their electronic master. Ever). Nothing is personally connected and everything is insulated.
We are near the end. Perhaps a rebuild will be possible, but we cannot continue.
Hate to interrupt a good whine, but, back in the 60s, our leader was an adulterous fool, placed in the White House by methods similar to what we have today.
ReplyDeleteAnd Rome fell about 500 AD, after a run of 1300 years, so we're a long way from done.
Actually the Eastern Roman Empire fell in 1453
DeleteThat's a gross assumption to think if Rome lasted that long that we will. Not looking good.
DeleteI always enjoyed Don Feder's column when I (used to, years ago) buy the Boston Herald. He is exactly correct with his comments today.
ReplyDeleteHis quote "Even if the cause seems hopeless, do we not have an obligation to those who sacrificed so much to give us what we had?" should be the incentive we need.
Stick a fork in it.....
ReplyDeleteA massive amount of truth that will fall on deaf ears with half of America, they like their captivity despite the cell door being unlocked. And H/t to DanP above...Yes, had the best upbringing in the 60's & 70's and see technology being used as a control mechanism, crutch, and excuse by our younger group, with the full support of their parents.
ReplyDeleteTV as a babysitter accelerated the decline. Tree Mike
ReplyDeleteI'm a year younger than Mr. Feder. When I was a junior in high school (1963), my history teacher talked about where the USA was headed. His contention was that we had reached our peak and had already started down the long slop of decline. No one in the class believed him.
ReplyDeleteLook where are now, 18 months after Buydem's usurpation, when he was handed a thriving economy. Kind of reminds of a game I used to play called Lie, Cheat and Steal.
Nemo
Another thing. I read "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" over four months during the middle 00's. It's pretty dry reading, but was worth the effort. The parallels to what we are experiencing these days are simply astounding.
ReplyDeleteNemo
"We can’t defend our borders". We WON'T defend our borders. Big difference. Otherwise good article. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDelete"Ode to a Myth You Were Taught in School"
ReplyDeleteThis is a highlights-list of things we were taught from an early age, reinforced by propaganda from all sides.
Things-that-never-were and Things-that-could-have-been, rather than milchkühen for the arrangers.
There isn't a person alive that was truly free to live their life, the ones that come close are ridiculed or persecuted for daring to do so.
There's a chance some might get to do so, if they live through what comes next, but they won't do so alone, nor with the view of returning to "how things used to be"...
History is not how you were taught, voting is not the answer, and skills include working with the right people to accomplish realistic goals.
We have all heard it so many times in our life.
ReplyDelete"History repeats" . "History Rhymes" . We are in the fourth turning read the book written in 1997 today is 2022. The regurgitate a lot of roman history studies and older information but it still happens.
Mainly this will happen, but we have to be nearly starving because no on wants to join the j6 boys yet. You don't believe me read what the glowniggers did in Idaho this week did anyone fall for it. None of us wants to commit a small form of suicide yet.
"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of "Men who wanted to be left Alone".
They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love.
They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it.
They know, that the moment they fight back, the lives as they have lived them, are over.
The moment the "Men who wanted to be left Alone" are forced to fight back, it is a small form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. . . .
Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these "Men who wanted to be left Alone", fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at the Left's door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy . . . . but it will fall upon deaf ears".
You are spot on my friend. I got born into and involved in a low intensity version of just this reality here in Belfast. Born in ’69 and I’ve seen it all.
DeleteThrough it all America was a guiding light with its republic and constitution. We sang ‘we shall overcome’ for one man one vote because we didn’t have it then.
No one wants to be the first to say ‘f**k it – game on’ because there is no going back. It’s Pandora’s Box. But sometimes it needs to get opened. And for that reason we are now equal.
Not citizens because here in the Kneeling Kingdom we are ‘subjects’ of the lizard queen - but it’s a work in progress.
Your founding fathers risked it all. Many died or were financially ruined – as we did. They created the greatest experiment of human individual freedom in history. Not even the Greeks tried it.
‘Man up’ men. Stand on your feet or die on your knees. It’s your choice. I will also.
I see the trolls are here. Can't wait to spread all that FUD. Yeah, there are Conservatives who'd rather wallow in despair, but we've seen worse than this, or have you forgotten the Wilson Administration?
ReplyDeleteThe only Kingdom is God's Kingdom. Live your life accordingly.
ReplyDeleteAmen
Deletefree America is over. it's too far gone to return. the people in charge now are just dividing what's left. it's only a matter of time before America collapses worse than the old soviet union did. we live our lives doing the best we can trying to raise and support our families, but it's just a matter of time.
ReplyDeleteTrump was a populist like the Gracchi brothers. The elites didn't quite get to the point of killing him and throwing his body into the Tiber but we're close. Next would come a Marius or his nephew Caesar but I cannot think of a popular military leader of left or right out there. There was method to the madness of unwinnable wars, everyone hates a loser.
ReplyDeleteThe West is more like the Eastern Empire with its Byzantine political systems and high taxes and corruption. In the end no one wanted to fight for the elites and they were swept away by invaders.
It don't matter who the pres was, read Ray Dalio's "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order" if you know, you know.
ReplyDelete"People who ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ profit from racism seek to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil and others that they are perpetual victims."
ReplyDeletethere; fify. you're welcome
There is no "union" left and there hasn't been since 1860. To believe otherwise is simply to delude yourself. There are a small percentage of people in this country who actually understand freedom, want freedom, and want to be left alone. There is a huge number of folks from both political parties who simply worship government power and what it can get them, but pretend that they know what freedom and liberty are actually about. There is another small number who pull all the puppet strings and control pretty much everything. They are the same folks who have been pulling the strings in nearly every country for many centuries. They have worked to divide everyone in this country as much as humanly possible, and we can never go back together again. Peaceful separation is our only hope at this point. We are little more than 330,000,000 individuals being forced together by tyranny and violence (or the threat of violence). If we are all not allowed to separate, to go where we wish to be free, to establish free states that respect the individual liberties that were once proclaimed to be unalienable, there will be such massive bloodshed that what will be left will not be worth rejoicing over one bit. The Union was doomed ultimately by the Federalists like Adams, Washington, Madison, and others who wished for a powerful central government. What was left of freedom was destroyed by Lincoln and the new republican party. What has gone on since has been little more than tyranny packaged to look like "union." Time for it all to end. I suggest a complete dissolution of the federal government and letting the 50 sovereign states go their own way as a start. More breakups to create greater freedom should quickly follow.
ReplyDelete