"Now, America's just another broke ex-superpower looking for a handout and wondering why."


I was trying to remember this quote for hours yesterday while watching The West Wing and pondering our current political climate.  Honestly, I think Max got it right.  Someday, we're going to be just like everyone else who ever tried to rule the world.  I don't know when.  I don't really want to speculate on how.  But almost every day something else happens to shore up the belief that we're living on borrowed time.  That we can only overstep our bounds but so much more.  

I don't want to talk politics or policy.  I don't want to delve into wars and the erosion of freedoms.  I don't want to lay out specific human rights violations or discuss crumbling economies.  Some things shouldn't be partisan.  Some things should be obviously wrong or obviously right.  

Everyone gets some things right and everyone gets some things wrong.  But really, we get a lot of things wrong.  Whether it's intentional, whether it's done with the best of intentions, whether it's done with indifference.  We get a lot of things wrong.  It's all these things we get wrong, that we keep getting wrong, that we repeatedly get wrong, that make me believe it's just a matter of time.

I've always been a realist, oftentimes a pessimist, sometimes even a fatalist.  But I'm also a bleeding heart romanticist.  I WANT to believe in my country.  I WANT to have hope that things can change.  I just haven't seen enough yet, not nearly enough.  But I still want to.  I'm still looking for it, looking for things that make me believe again.  And I'll keep trying, keep fighting my pessimism as long as there are still things that make me want to believe.  

But I'm still a fatalist about some things...