Very good points slowhand520. I agree.
However it seems shallow, at best, to lump us all into a "blame them group".
Those who lead have been dividing us into smaller and smaller groups, all at each others throats for a piece of the pie, for so long now. And we follow, blindly. To the extent, that we have almost all, willingly, become some type of "hypenated-American" with the "me, me, me" mentality.
Please, in your endeavor to fix "blame" elsewhere, don't forget the multiple hundreds of thousands of "Boomers" who served this nation in honor and selflessness, leaving 55,000 of our brothers and sisters lying dead on the field of battle for the Ideal of America, when most of the American "parent" generation sat on the sidelines in quiet dumbness and then watched as we came home to be spit upon and reviled in many unthinkable ways.
We must all shoulder a portion of the responsibility for where we are today. Until we do, we are doomed as a culture and the "Republic" along with us.