What form will America take, after its destruction by the Right?

I am pushing 57, and I expect to see the end of the hegemony of the Right IN MY LIFETIME - but not soon. With the abdication by the Left and the coming dissolution of the Right, it remains to be seen what might replace them. It may be that America is simply too decadent and self-satisfied and will go the way of all superpowers: into being a non-entity on the world stage. I hope not. Have you ever wondered what it was like for a Roman citizen to observe the slow, insistent fall of Rome? I have. I now wonder if we are repeating that pattern. Again, I hope not. But there are many factors that aren't encouraging...

There IS such a thing as a "social contract" that each person makes - MUST make - if the world is to be civilized. A person straddles two realities: his/her individuality, and society's reality. Both make demands, and those demands must be honored and met, to some level, to make for a reasonably sane society.

The Right is filled with people who spit on any social contract, and the core of the Right is rife with opportunists who take advantage of that to kill civilization for their own aggrandizement, under many a false banner. For this to happen, and happen so often, the whole premise has to be rotten. I believe it IS.

I myself am an anarchist as much as anything else. I eschew heirarchies and institutions as being destructive of the individual. That does not make me one of them (the Right), though: Their's is a scam. Mine is taking responsibility for my own self-governing (I've been doing it since I was about 12), with sizable consideration for other individuals and small collections of people. Beyond 50 or so people, my hackles begin to rise...

I think that in the long term, the only sane society is one in which every individual must literally sign a contract with society, which entitles him/her to certain rights and responsibilities (which ones is up for debate). The giving of rights is the society's contribution to the contract; the taking of responsibilities, BY CONTRACT, is the individual's "earnest money". That makes it an agreement between the individual and the society as two equal parties to the contract and which binds the two. By making it a signing, it obtains the qualities of a ritual, and this is one area that I think a ritual is a good thing. I believe that part of that contract should include spelling out the consequences for breaches of the contract. In the case of the individual, that would be the loss of some of the rights previously granted. Again, particulars would be up for debate.

. . . . TD