I’d say it was the American Civil War that finally forged the United States into a nation. Before the war, it was common for a man to feel a far higher loyalty to his state than to the larger nation. After the war, such regionalism went into a swift decline. Some of it is still around today, but it’s a pale ghost compared to such sentiments before the war.
Anyway, to answer the OP: When the federal government can no longer maintain effective control over large parts of the county, and when Anglo-American culture is no longer the dominant culture, then America will pretty much be a thing of the past.
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
Before the [ US Civil War ], it was common for a man to feel a far higher loyalty to his state than to the larger nation. After the war, such regionalism went into a swift decline. Some of it is still around today, but it’s a pale ghost compared to such sentiments before the war.
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You hear this theory often, and sure, it’s a plausible one.
I’ll also argue though that the rise of technologies for rapid transportation and communication have been eroding those regional differences and loyalties all along, starting before the Civil War. They seem to be eroding national differences as well. In the long run this might be what “destroys” the United States as such, along with every other country on earth. We’ll just all mush together into the same global monoculture, with a sprinkling of local customs enduring here and there.
You disagree?
Here are a few facts:
-we now import far more than we export-the trade deficit is huge and growing
-many key industries are now foreign owned
-the ruling class does not allow its sons and daughters to serve in the military (that is for “the little people”
-the national government ignores the people-instead, it caters to the lobbyists (access to key house and senate members is on a cash basis)-big labor, big bsiness, big finance get instant access
Plus, most of the executive branch and cabinet do not regard themselves as “American Citizens” at all…people like Obama, Geithner, Clinton, Holder see themselves as “world citizens”-who would be just as happy living in Zurich or London. They see themselves as an enlightened elite, who are to lead the USA out of old fashioned nationalism
I would define it as the total physical destruction of the American land surface, such that the sea bed where America used to be is indistinguishable - on average - from the sea bed in the west Atlantic and the east Pacific. Such that there would be no way to tell where America used to be.
But it’s not enough to destroy the land. America is as much an idea as it is a physical entity, and as long as that idea remains, there is a possibility that America could be rebuilt. So I would extend my process to include the total extermination of all American citizens either living abroad, or on holiday. And everybody who has met or spent time with them.
And just to be sure, the process would have to include the total extermination of all living creatures on the planet’s surface, and in the atmosphere and underneath the surface. That includes microbes. Not even the penguins and polar bears at the poles will be spared. Total sterilisation of the ecosphere.
I’m toying with the notion of building a new continent where America used to be, but in a completely different shape - thus obliterating whatever cosmic memory there might be of America. It would have a whole new set of people with a perverse new culture based around the worship of fire, and the accumulation of leaves. They will speak the language of cuckoos.
This is the approach taken by the chaps in Nineteen-Eighty-Four, who set out to obliterate the memory of the past by replacing it with a new set of ideas, rather than by replacing it with nothing. Seeds grow to become trees where there is nothing; they become weak, stunted saplings when trees are already present.
I will contemplate this some more. When I have come up with my final answer I will inform God, and he will communicate my findings to you.
The chance for upper mobility is getting weaker and weaker. College costs have gone up so much, few will be able to attend in the future. Those who graduate now ,are graduating with a college mortgage hanging around their necks.
The ability for the lower class to accumulate wealth is dropping badly.
There will be an unemployment problem as long as we can imagine, into the future. wages are dropping and will continue to do so .
The concentration of the wealth into the hands of the few is going on unabated. America is changing into a plutocracy with business becoming oligarchic.
As long as we accept the myth that the wealthy and powerful are good people who will share the wealth, we will be picked clean by them. They will do the right thing when they are compelled to.