Fall of the Roman Empire

We are a good people. We are peace loving, congenial, generous and forgiving. We care more about others than ourselves. Our government, seen by some as having a dubious agenda, gives money, supplies and good will to numerous countries through out the world. Even though we are a democracy, our citizens do not have alot of control over what our government, a huge sprawling behemeth, does. There are so many things that we don't know. Saturated with Headline news and talking heads that spew a party line, a vaugue overview of what is really going on, we hve been reduced to armchair politics. We have placed out trust in our congressmen and Senators to do the right thing as our representatives. We are a soft people. Eased by the material sprawl that provides even the poorest americans with all the comforts of the first in first world countries. Video games, CNN, FoxNews, Reality TV have desenitised us to the realities of the politics of Europe, the wars of the Middle East & the History and future of Africa. Our dollar is depressed which is casing us economic hardship. America at this time should be a tourist attraction. Cheap for Europeans and Asians to visit the great light of Democracy. Soon we may only have our history to sell, much as other great Empires have sold their history in their twilight years to a young emerging America. The Shop keepers do not have a sense of Citizenship. They have only a menial understanding of our History and where we came from as a nation and the ideas that we are founded on. This knowledge is garnered by a small percentage of the nation, even fewer who are determined to keep the light burning in this age of encrouching darness. History is made, it seems, of nights and days, mornings and evenings. America is in a late afternoon nap, snoozing after having an afternoon love fest. We need to prepare for our "retirement" as the next countries rise up around us, not militarily but economically. We need to hedge our selves and our people as the evening grows upon us, and keep our lights of liberty, knowlege and freedom burning. We need to establish an infrastructure in Iraq: Banks that are secure, Post office, Civil Law courts. We need to encurage the same in the West bank to show that a civilised coutry is better than a Terror State. We need to clean up our college and University systems. Teach more science in High School. A mandatory civil rights course. Home Economics: Dry cleaning, patching, cooking and cleaning skills. Messy unorganised kids are messy unorganised adults. Kids associate Freedom with Messiness. Freedomcomes with responsability. Government does not control what we do to each other. Families teach moral responsability and a sense of history and tradition, even if it is secular. Communities are built on trust and commerce and trade with your neighbors. These are things that America needs to work on.