Wow. All the disparities discussed here are true, however terrible, with one possible exception: I'm not so sure we (as in the West) have spirit on our side. There are so many signs of moral and intellectual exhaustion--remember that you are, after all, the DISSIDENT Frogman. (That spiritual exhaustion may show itself in the troubling birthrate declines. This is admittedly not only a Western problem, but it may have its own causes in the West, where people remain free to have as many kids as they like, unlike in other places that face similar problems.) I see all too many of my fellow American citizens, even ones who have sound inclinations, who have little or no understanding of what is good about what has been achieved in the West, no sense of the moral case to be made for their own culture (as opposed to the "don't mess with us, sucker" case that is stressed in the concluding paragraphs of your original post). Powerful empires have been taken down from the periphery before, God forbid. . .
Wow. All the disparities discussed here are true, however terrible, with one possible exception: I'm not so sure we (as in the West) have spirit on our side. There are so many signs of moral and intellectual exhaustion--remember that you are, after all, the DISSIDENT Frogman. (That spiritual exhaustion may show itself in the troubling birthrate declines. This is admittedly not only a Western problem, but it may have its own causes in the West, where people remain free to have as many kids as they like, unlike in other places that face similar problems.) I see all too many of my fellow American citizens, even ones who have sound inclinations, who have little or no understanding of what is good about what has been achieved in the West, no sense of the moral case to be made for their own culture (as opposed to the "don't mess with us, sucker" case that is stressed in the concluding paragraphs of your original post). Powerful empires have been taken down from the periphery before, God forbid. . .