[colorcountry]

That response was reasoned and eloquent.

Our younger generations are so used to the government teat that I fear we are already on the irreversible decline. It frightens me to see some of the responses to this issue from those who call themselves FreeRebulicans (or Republicites whatever.)

When those, who call themselves conservative, don't grasp the simple concepts you've outlined, we're doomed - doomed I tell ya!

[Wallace T.]

Unfortunately, those Americans who have even an adolescent remembrance of the self-reliant America of before 1933 would have to be at least 90 years old. Virtually all native born Americans have grown up in a welfare state society and know no other. You are also correct with regard to some of the responses from self-styled conservatives, who would be more at home with Lyndon Johnson or Franklin Roosevelt than with Barry Goldwater or Robert Taft. They are conservative only with respect to liberalism, which continues to shift leftward, especially on social issues.

America has been fortunate to benefit from a series of technological advances that has increased per capita productivity and certain Presidents (Kennedy, Reagan, the younger Bush) who had at least some economic common sense and cut taxes (though not regulation or spending).

Otto Von Bismarck, the architect of German unification, once remarked that God protects fools, drunks, and the United States of America. I don't believe our fortune will last forever.