[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.