Over the past couple of years, I have read a lot of history re how leftist insurrections undermine and destroy democracies. I have studied, in the interest of balance, I suppose, the remarkably similar manner in which Hitler undermined the Weimar Republic and how Pol Pot subverted the previous government in Cambodia. I have also read over the years about the decline of Rome (Gibbons' Decline and Fall is one of my favorite books.) I have read about Mao's Cultural Revolution and Stalin's evil machinations. The sad conclusion of all this reading must be that we are well on the way to our end game as a nation, perhaps as a Western Culture. I do not at see that we have the stamina, the backbone, the moral rectitude, or the commitment to individual responsibility to reverse the trend. I'm an old bastard, likely not to see the worst of it, but if I were young, I would be very worried indeed, worried enough to do far more than wave asinine placards down at the strip mall hand in hand with old hippy geriatric burnouts and angry fat chicks who majored in sociology or women's studies.