The Bells of a New Year
The end of a year is a reminder that nothing is permanent — not a year, not a life, not an empire. Everything changes. Everything ends.
And so America's dominance as the world power — militarily, economically, culturally — will also end. The cause of our fall might be a devastating war, a relentless onslaught of Katrina-like natural disasters, an unknown and uncontrollable disease. Or possibly we might become so fearful of our enemies, real or imaginary, that we systematically dismantle our free and democratic society, layer by layer, until there is nothing left, because we destroyed it in order to save it.
No one can say how the end of American dominance will come. Only that it is inevitable.
We ought to keep that uncomfortable fact in mind before we act with our usual "me-first" arrogance. The world is fed up with America's assumed moral superiority while we stubbornly refuse to be a good world citizen — We demand special treatment by the International Criminal Court, we ignore the Kyoto protocols, we express our utter contempt for the United Nations by sending John Bolton there as our ambassador. Friendly countries who disagree with us are villainized. The unfortunate citizens of unfriendly countries are subject to punishing sanctions or are bombed back to the stone age.
If we don't have the character to do the right thing for the right reasons, we should at least consider doing it for our usual self-serving reasons. In other words, when we are on our way down, how do we want the up-and-coming nations (China, for example) to treat us?
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Or at least, learn.
