"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." (Benjamin Franklin)
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government…a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” (Historian Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler, c. 250 years ago)
It will be interesting to see, 500 years from now, how the geography now occupied by the United States will be governed. Will there even be a place called the United States of America? There may be. Many nations disappear; some survive, but mutate into something else. None of them remains what they originally were.
For example, there are no longer any Babylonians or Assyrians on earth today, at least not by that name. Their descendants exist, but no nation/empire called “Babylon” or “Assyria.” Those empires are extinct.
However, many nations and empires evolve over time into something else. The ancient Persian Empire no longer survives, but modern Iran is its descendant. Iran is certainly different from the ancient Persian domain.
England has been around for a long time. Once it became a “nation,” it had an autocratic king, then it morphed into an empire with a prime minister, and now England is…whatever England is now. The same can be said for France, which also doesn’t resemble its early history.
The city of Rome lives, but it is obviously not the empire it was 2,000 years ago. The Greece of Pericles is gone, but Greece still endures. Egypt has been around for thousands of years, but obviously is not what it was in 2500 BC. China and Japan are just a few examples of countries that have “morphed” into something completely different from their early history. And, if we are honest, America is not even remotely close to the limited, virtuous, and frugal government that our Founders created and envisioned.
Most of these nations, such as Rome, Greece, Persia, and England, declined in size, wealth, and power. The great principles that made them what they were at the beginning are lost once the people get fat and lazy. And while said countries may not disappear, they certainly aren't what they were at their height.
The United States is currently transforming. Some of that is inevitable. As noted, we are definitely not what our Founding Fathers envisioned, viz., a virtuous, frugal, limited, constitutional republic based on Judeo-Christian principles. We’ve destroyed that country, and now we are in the process of trying to decide what we are and what we will become. And that's why I said it will be interesting to see what the United States, if it even exists, is like 500 years from now.
We are changing into something else. The Left wants to make America a radically different nation, and is having great success in doing so. Again, nations do change, and America is no exception. America may not even exist in 500 years, or it may have transformed into something that is totally unrecognizable to the people who founded it, or us. The Egypt that Jacob and Joseph dwelt in is much, much different from today’s Egypt. Thomas Jefferson would not recognize America today if he were to come back to life. And I’m talking government and morality, not industry and technology.
I won't even hazard a guess as to what the United States will be like in 2525. There's no way I could know, and no way any of us will know if my prediction would be correct. All I can tell you is that the United States has undergone, and is in the process of undergoing, transformation. And the question is, will it improve, will it be stronger, or will it decline and become like Greece, Rome, Egypt, England, and other nations that, at one point, were great and very powerful, but are now basically third-rate non-entities. My guess is that’s America’s future, too. Look what we are letting into the country and who we are putting in power.
All I can presently say is that the vast majority of American people, and that includes conservatives, have rejected the frugal, limited, virtuous Judeo-Christian country that America’s Founders began almost 250 years ago. We no longer have that country, and most Americans apparently don't want it. We’ll almost surely never get it back.
Most Americans, frankly, don't seem to know what they want, except to live as wantonly and pleasurably as they possibly can. Pleasure, not God, virtue, duty, and responsibility, is the raison d’être of most Americans now. No country can survive that, not as a free nation. Read again the two quotes at the beginning of this article. Now Americans want licentiousness, and they want a government that will provide it.
Our Founding Fathers gave America freedom, more freedom than any nation in history has ever had. But it was a freedom based on virtue, and most Americans today are not virtuous; they are promiscuous, they are licentious, and they want a “freedom” based on that. But freedom cannot exist based upon licentiousness (Franklin). We are following our “leaders,” and politicians only want one thing: power. Both parties crave that, not just Democrats.
The government never wants people to be virtuous and free; if people were virtuous, they wouldn’t need government. So, it’s in the government’s interest to encourage licentiousness among its people, and that is exactly what our government is doing today, contrary to the vision of our Founding Fathers.
But that’s what usually happens to every nation in history. What can we do about it? We can try to turn it around, but we won’t succeed. Virtue never conquers licentiousness, at least, not for long. Study history.
America 500 years from now? I have no clue. But I do know it won’t be the country our Founders established. And there’s not a bloody thing we can do about it.
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