We also screwed up in two other respects. First, our voting system (aside from being a dysfunctional mess) allows the uninformed, greedy takers to negate the votes of the productive makers in society. So what’s the point of responsible citizens bothering to vote in a system which favors the people who want to raid the treasury and bend the rules to suit themselves?
Second, we have allowed government to expand to the point that it now regulates, controls, taxes and influences literally everything in society. We allowed the principles of federalism to die in exchange for government largesse and the notion that it will generally taking care of us if only we entrust our fate to them.
Third, the Founding Fathers took great pains to protect us from the inevitable abuses of power by big government. We ignored their warnings and now we are paying the price. We have mostly relinquished our rights to liberty, privacy and self-protection.
For these and other reasons the republic as we once knew it is gone. I no longer recognize the country I grew up in. It is a faded memory.
Like Winston Smith, our memories of a freer America grow dim, but we remember enough to know we are in big trouble.
Considering how big media/tech censorship and banned books, send all manner of American greatness down the Memory Hole, I wonder how many Americans born today will even have the opportunity to learn our wonderful history.