Joe,
See Post #3 here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1820459/posts
for the poster girl for precisely what you describe.
We ARE populated by millions of mindless myrmidons who are incapable of independent thought or action. NOLA was a textbook case.
America — the IDEA — is about over.
How sad that all those folks who died defending it for over 200 years died in vain.
As long as a number of people keep the dreams of the Founders alive through their beliefs and their actions. America the Idea is not dead.
Add to that the hundreds of thousands of young men and women who have served so admirably in the GWOT and it leads me to predict a resurgance of The Great Experiment.