Self-Reflection at the Twilight of U.S. Empire

There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
American influence abroad, as defined by the power and status of the U.S. empire, has been in consistent decline for nearly two decades now. Indeed, when the history books are written it'll be clear that the dotcom boom and bust at the end of the 20th century marked the peak of U.S. imperial strength. Shortly after that bubble burst our nation was faced with the brutal and traumatizing 9/11 attacks, and the overreaction to this event unleashed a mass insanity across the American public from which we have never recovered.
Specifically, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were ruthlessly and immediately exploited by degenerate power hungry charlatans in D.C. and elsewhere to fear-monger an entire country to give up liberty in exchange for a promise of safety. With that devilish bargain our society committed cultural suicide.
As is so often the case with such terrible events, the worst of the worst took charge within our government and began to define the cultural narrative in fascistic terms. These sociopathic war mongers saw the terror attack as an excuse to advance their twisted imperial ambitions abroad, while also earning a fortune pursuing unconstitutional surveillance "opportunities" at home. This Owellian death spiral has been ongoing for over sixteen years now, and doesn't skip a beat irrespective of who sits in the Oval office. It's an unaccountable, corrupt and nefarious beast consisting of government, intelligence agencies, mega corporations and Wall Street. This is late-stage U.S. Empire, and it'll consume everything it can in its path before coming to its inevitable end.
The American people have been fed endless lies for a very long time, and while people are starting to wake up, too many continue to fall for the same old deranged partisan nonsense. Obama was supposed to save us from Bush, then Trump was supposed to save us from Obama. Half the country now prays for some yet to be determined Presidential savior like Oprah to come rescue them in 2020. This is the definition of insanity.
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