[arminiusreturns]

I appreciate the thoughtfulness and detail of your response very much. These are all things near and dear to my heart and it is very rough to feel, as you said, that we are in a very similar kind of spiral as the Roman and other empires have self-inflicted. I wish I knew what could be done but the whole system seems like a juggernaut unable to change in any significance, and hence hopeless and futile to resist, but alas, Plato rings in my ears: “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”