And....more.

 It feels good to look back and see that you were able to predict the future with at least a reasonable degree of accuracy, doesn't it? If that foretelling resulted in you buying Amazon stock at $4 or Apple at $20, you can justly feel that Nostradamus really wasn't all that, compared to your demonstrated precognitive abilities.

Of course, it's less fulfilling when what you foresaw was bad news, and you weren't only right, but grossly underestimated how quickly those bad things would happen. Foreseeing the iceberg an hour beforehand only works if you can turn the Titanic in that time, and we couldn't; or at least we didn't. 

"Once we roared like lions for liberty, and now we bleat like sheep for safety..." is a Norman Vincent Peale quote that seems particularly apt at this point in history, and it's ironic that the man who wrote 'The Power of Positive Thinking' should have so accurately captured the dire problems we find ourselves struggling with. And ultimately, I think this IS the fundamental issue in America; half of the country doesn't want to be told what to do, and the other half wants to tell them what to do.

Only it's not quite that simple, since the halves aren't clearly defined; there are 'conservatives' more than willing to use the apparatus of government to compel compliance with their beliefs, just as there are authoritarians on the left who want to force people to use words, particularly pronouns, that aren't based in objective reality, among other things. Essentially the fight for America is a fight between two (actually many, roughly divided into two) factions vying for access to the levers of power only to impose their will on the other side.

What few are saying is that the levers of power themselves are actually the root of the problem; the idea that compelling behavior, whether it be who can be called what, or what beliefs can be discussed publicly, or what people can do in their own homes, is fundamentally unAmerican. 

We are a country founded by those who left; we left authoritarian Britain, we've fled dictatorships around the world, we've fled societies that didn't offer opportunities, just to come here and prosper. We didn't build our greatness by dictating every aspect of people's lives, but by mostly getting out of their way and letting them get things done, but that's no longer the case. Want proof? The permits to open a restaurant in San Francisco run around $22,000; let that sink in. You're working to start a business, and before the government will 'allow' you to even begin, you need to hand over the price of new compact car. And the most damning part of all that? Outside of some quiet grumbling, there is no uproar; there is no rebellion. We've come to accept that the government is a drag upon every aspect of our financial lives, taxing our businesses, our wages, our savings, our purchases and even our deaths. The problem isn't really that the government is doing this; the problem is we're complacently allowing it.

"But what can you do? It's the way the rules are structured." Yes, yes it is; NOW. Keep voting for people who want control of your business, your lives and your future, and it will continue to be, and worse. Find the few people running for office who want to remove regulations, reduce the number of laws and reign in government power, and there just might-might-be a chance for a future that's more like what our founders envisioned; a country run by it's people, and to their benefit, not a nanny-state who believes it knows best what we should be doing, and controls us until we do it. 

Until we howl, rather than bleet, Americans will get the government they tolerate; and today, that seems more like a life with parental restrictions enabled by our government than real freedom.