[icebraining]

Since we're quoting Franklin, this one is also relevant:

(...) I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

[crusso]

The USA has been like a successful startup. The first people in were the superstars who had vision and made things happen. The next arrivals were strong performers not scared of hard work who could at least understand the vision and keep the momentum going.

Eventually at any new successful company, the hangers-on arrive. The "work hard, play hard" mantra that drove the first generations gives way to just a "play hard" one. The benefits created by the original visionaries are siphoned off mercilessly by those who didn't create them, can't create anything new, and don't seem to care that they're so destructive. With the decline of the company and jerks in power, anyone worth a damn goes elsewhere to find a better environment or if they do stay they tend to work around the system to get their jobs done or just content themselves operating at 1/4 speed for a paycheck. As more good people leave because of frustration, a death spiral ensues since upper management clowns no longer have anyone who can problem solve.

We had a nice run. It's really too bad that we lost our way as a nation.

[brown9-2]

This is a poor analogy when you consider that people don't live for hundreds of years and thus there is no such thing as "hangers-on" arriving to a country.

It also ignores all of the things that the founders did that we find reprehensible today (slave-owning), along with how far this country has come racially and in regards to civil rights in the past 50 years.

It also ignores the fact that the size of the US economy has never been larger, and whatever "decline" you are referring to is purely subjective and mostly rosy retrospection.

I wonder what it is about the USA that has made this type of "our good run is over, oh well" sentiment popular for several generations. People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country.

[dragonwriter]

> People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country.

People have been making complaints like this for several thousand years, in pretty much every country. I suspect that its largely because people tend to see things in an overly optimistic way as children and progressively see more of the messy bits as they mature, and this creates a common impression (irrespective of the truth) that things are actually getting worse, and this is magnified by people trying to advance agendas by demogoguery centering around the idea of a past happier age created by exaggerating positive qualities and ignoring negative ones of the past.

[hobs]

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" (Hesiod, 8th century BC).

[crusso]

I love quotes from old dead societies that show us how worries that our society is degrading are unfounded.

[crusso]

no such thing as "hangers-on" arriving to a country

No analogy is exact. Otherwise, it would be called the exact same thing. It's the building and creation of the food stamp culture that is analogous to the hangers on of startups.

founders did that we find reprehensible today

No massive social welfare programs that bankrupt society == slavery. Sure.

US economy has never been larger

Revenue does not equal health of a company or of a country.

People have been making complaints like this for several hundred years in this country

I think it has more to do with people not having realized what they've lost of their freedoms and the core strengths of the country due to the slow but inexorable encroachment of tyranny in our everyday lives.