because folks like you and I do nothing to hold their feet to the fire. Our congress is an elite club of Saudi-style "princes" who go in poor, get seduced and perverted by the process, benefit from investments in foreign-based production, and eventually retire or die rich without doing a goddam thing for Americans.

Any new entrant sailing in on a platform of promised reform is quickly stifled by 534 lethargic inmates.

We are left to fend for ourselves. Meanwhile, the rest of the government-based infrastructure is going to hell in a corrupt handbasket, bringing this nation down with it. Corrupt police who kill unarmed, defenseless citizens. A corrupt DOJ which refuses to uphold the law and prosecute illegal aliens, criminals who lie on federal gun purchase forms, corrupt police who kill innocent citizens, etc. An incompetent executive branch which has lost the peace in the Mid-East, sold our soul to China, Iran and North Korea, and refused to acknowledge the enemy that the rest of us know as radical Islamic terrorists.

Nobody wants to decline into old age, but given that aging is inevitable, I have to realize how lucky I am to have lived much of my life in the "Golden Age of America" prior to its impending collapse; I have enjoyed the best that America (and the rest of the world) has had to offer: Upbringing by a responsible caring family, raising a family in the same manner, excellent education without brainwashing bullshit, career, housing, cars, computers, clothing, food, travel, choices. I feel sorry for future generations ... but to be truthful, our generation has left them a cesspool of unsolvable problems. I hope they are smart enough to figure out new ways of survival, otherwise they are doomed to a repeat of the dark ages.

It is funny that some folks on this board think that I am a Republican. That is rather simplistic, naïve thinking on their part. For me, there is little-to-no difference between Republican and Democrat politicians. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between "liberals" and "conservatives", and liberal thinking and programs are major contributors to the decline of America ... they reward incompetence and lethargy, they create dependency which must be funded by those who pull their own weight, they dumb down education, they dilute the productivity of the nation, they create unsustainable debt, and they destroy family values.