Dear Future American

I am really no one special, just an average citizen with a blog.  I write to you from a complicated time period, but then again, aren't they all?  Lately I have been imagining what it is like for you with your liberty receding, your opportunities shrinking, your taxes rising, and the world growing ever darker.  I wonder if you resent us, the seemingly frivolous generations of Americans that paved the path for you.  If you do, I don't blame you.  Watching it unfold is kind of like to watching someone fall, the illusion of slow motion makes it seem as though you could try to help, but you know in reality you are powerless. 

The momentum is going forward on this bullet train to disaster and i don't see a way to reverse course.  I want you to know that I did what could to educate myself and those around me.  I was willing to sacrifice the comforts of being coddled by the state, and would willingly pay higher taxes if there was a plan for deep spending cuts that would put our country on a sound fiscal course.  It may seem crazy to you, but those people who ring the bell of alarm about the cliff we are going over, are often portrayed as evil, stupid, crazy or all of the above....they are vilified as greedy hoarders who don't care for the poor or the elderly.  Hyperbolic lies that solve nothing.  Sigh.....I'll get to the divisiveness later. 

Some Context: for most of my adult life, we have been a post 9/11 country.  I can only imagine what sort of distorted understanding of 9/11 Hollywood has painted for you, but you should know that 9/11 changed everything.  We awoke to a scary reality....faceless men in button down shirts can kill massive amounts of people with a $300 plane ticket.  Iconic marvels of American industry, architecture, finance, technology and defense can be targeted without a single shot fired in retaliation.  Piles of dead private citizens were the trophy that our enemies most treasured.  You probably had to be there.  I hope to God that you have never been there and the citizens of our country have not had to live through another day like that one.  But if that be the case, the price to secure that has been devastating both in financial treasure and human treasure.  Besides the fallen heroes, the most tragic and damaging loss is the unity of our people.  We live in a divisive time.  Our differences have put lava filled oceans between us.  The ability to solve problems has fallen victim to the partisan antipathy that has defined the last 10 years.  Both parties carry blame for fiscal irresponsibility.  Both.  I hope I'm voting for someone that will finally address the issue, but he's politician, so......

I am not prone to conspiracies, but sometimes I wonder if there is some sort of intent behind the seemingly suicidal deficit spending of the last 10 years.  How can this end well? How can anyone suppose that it will? If me, someone with at best a cursory understanding of economy, can see the dangers of this path, surely the brightest and best can.  Surely the Treasury, the Congress, the Senate and the President can.  Surely.  Right?   These are the things that worry me, that cause me wonder what kind of world you live in and how you must look back on the beautiful gift that my grandparent's (the greatest) generation left for us and how it was squandered away.

I hope I am wrong.  I hope that the country found a way to control the deficit, rebuild the middle class, Pay china off, strengthen the dollar, and secure the blessings that have met Americans during my lifetime, for you and your children.  I hope as you read this, we went to Mars, invented life-changing things, inspired people around the world to democratize, and I hope that you fly around in the latest Ford car powered by a renewable energy source Americans developed.  But if you live in a much different, darker world, I can only say, I'm sorry.  I wish I could have changed it.  


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