just an observation...

     I confess that it sometimes seems to me that many who live here would just as soon US society finally collapse. It's as if these people can't wait for the next financial crisis, or a massive oil spill, or some geophysical calamity created by a confluence of widespread fracking and the reactivation of long-forgotten fault-lines. We just can't punish ourselves enough you see for all the evil we have unleashed. If only we had remained aloof and neutral, this idyllic world would have advanced to ever greater tolerance and peace, but no, we had to go and wreak havoc with our imperial ambitions and our obsession with oil. For this, and many other failures, our doom is certain, and certainly at hand. It cannot come swiftly enough for these confident yet casual observers, for all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well when all Americans wear hair shirts and eke out livings as latter day Hobbits (nasty little bastards with their blood and soil *sense of place*). Then, once we have purged ourselves of the guilt of having existed in a terrible history which we did not create, we can rest easy in the New Kingdom. It's a nightmare whose consummation is devoutly desired by many.