A New Year in America: Will We Continue Down the Road to Decline?

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

Looking back over 2012, one could be forgiven for thinking that if America goes on at this rate, the nation must be ruined. But as Adam Smith replied to a young man who said those same words about British losses during the American Revolution, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” A mighty power will not collapse overnight, and the course of decline can always be halted by a renewal of patriotic vigor. But absent that, ruin will eventually come. As we look ahead to 2013, signs abound that we may be reaching the point where decline accelerates.

Indeed, the slow pace of national ruin is itself insidious, creating the illusion that the problems are not that great or can be solved later. The first cracks in the British Empire were starting to show even before World War I, but it wasn’t until about 1960 that the empire was gone and England had declined from a world power to a regional power at best. But for those like Churchill and Orwell with eyes to see, all the signs were there years earlier, many of them similar to the conditions in America today that point towards our own retreat from global dominance.