The days of the War on (some) Terror were over. The Middle Eastern "democracies" were beginning to stagnate under bureaucratic controls administered from faraway Washington. The stream of riches which had been pouring in from the Third World was slowing down. Domestic industry had almost ceased to exist. Government overhead was completely out-of-bounds.

Things went from bad to worse, and after two more generations the people of the US were not getting enough food to keep alive. Unpaid soldiers left the borders unguarded and ravished the countryside. Vast areas of fertile land were abandoned; the rural population flocked to the cities in search of food, just as a fisherman might seek dry land in a frantic effort to change his luck.

When people get into the habit of depending on some centralized authority to provide the things which they alone can produce, mob psychology always takes hold, and they flock to the cities.

The government could no longer get even a dribble of taxes from the states which had formerly filled the treasury to overflowing. Tax collectors tore down private homes and sold the materials to raise money. In some towns, they demolished more than half the dwellings.


The president, in sheer desperation, slashed official salaries - even those of Congress and the White House staff. Then he slashed them again, but even at the greatly reduced rates, he couldn't meet the payroll.


The day of reckoning was at hand. For too long, the people had been lulled into false complacency. For too long, they had been taught to expect some centralized authority to run their lives and provide for their needs. Human energy had ceased to function. The United States, as a great power, had ceased to exist.

- from The Mainspring of Human Progress, by Henry Grady Weaver, Time magazine "cover man" November 14th 1938. A few names were changed to protect the innocent.