I am glad I have more hope in America than you guys. You must live each day in abject terror. I think things are not as they should be, but when are they ever?
I believe more in my country than that.
I have seen real broken countries. They don't look like ours.
That being said, I am definitely preparing for disaster, but not because I don't believe in my country. Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.
I had a lot of confidence. It got shaken a lot during Katrina when we saw a major US city decline to 3rd world country status in < a week. We are a LOT closer to chaos than any of us like to think.
It is not something I look at and cheer for, or look forward to in any way. My family has been part of this nation since close to it's inception. I take a LOT of pride in this country and it breaks my heart to think about its decline.
However, if you remember the USSR and its death. It was an economic death. The nation could not support its bureaucracy, and I see the some of the same things that occurred there happening here. Even some of the stuff which affected the Roman Empire and its decline.
Infrastructure is in dire need and extremely high capacity. Our use of water, not sustainable. Our power grid, overtaxed and ripe for collapse, about a week after it goes down nationwide,(imagine a solar storm, terrorist attack or another failure like the one in the NE), things will start to get bad. The government cannot rapidly restore a nationwide failure. Bridges are decaying all over without repair or plans to replace. In major cities water lines, sewer lines are way beyond designed lifetime.
Our economy, in shambles and even in the best of times not sustainable. States are beginning to drop now. Cali, NY, and Ill are only the first, it is gonna get a lot worse in the next couple years the feds cannot bail these folks out.
Defense:We cannot and will not protect our own borders. We literally have militants coming across the southern border and killing citizens and nothing being done about it. Our forces are overtaxed and stretched thin fighting 2 wars.
I would feel maybe some confidence if anything was being done to address any of these problems. However, nothing is being done. None of these problems are being seriously addressed and the government appears happy to go same ol' same ol' and the road that leads down is going to wipe the nation out.
Can we fix it? I think so, I think we are a powerful enough nation and our people (especially our people) could address these through sheer force of will. Will we though? I do not think so. I think we will die a death of complacency, by the time any action is taken, it will be too late. Do others see it? heck yeah, People see it and are ticked, they yell out to the government to fix it and are labelled crackpots, ********, misinformed, etc. Marginalizing your population is the single biggest mistake they can make in this country. People get madder and madder and when they perceive that there is nothing non-violent than can be done...well we will see more folks like the fellas they just grabbed up north. Sooner or later they will get unlucky and one of these radicals will do some damage.