If You Can Keep It

From the Western Standard (Canada)

By Adam T. Yoshida

Certain friends (and, naturally, enemies as well) of mine are eager for the “fall of the American Empire.” They chortle with glee at the present economic troubles of the United States. They delight in the basically declinist views of Senator Obama and imagine an end to American exceptionalism – an America that “rejoins the world” after the Bush years. Well, to borrow from George Bernard Shaw, they may be about to learn that there are two tragedies in this life – one is not getting your heart’s desire, the other is getting it.

Yes, America is down. Yes, the United States has troubles. But what my friends fail to understand is that the present situation is not at all analogous to the fall of the Roman Empire. (Indeed, of course, the fall of the Roman Empire was not even the end of all of that – Byzantium endured for another thousand years). The very real prospect with which we are faced is not the fall of the American Empire but rather of the American Republic.

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