DO WE HAVE TO REDISCOVER THE CORE VERITIES AB INITIO?

In "Five Ways America's Success is Ruining Our Culture," John Hawkins suggests it will come to that.  "The only thing worse than never achieving your dreams is to achieve all of them and then have no idea what to do next. That’s the dilemma Americans face today, even though most of us don’t realize it."

His column alludes to the great privilege the social justice warriors enjoy today, which is to say, the privilege of calling out microaggressions. "You can’t be Rosa Parks because we’ve already had a Rosa Parks. You can tell yourself that you would have been a Freedom Rider standing up for racial equality, but you can’t actually be a Freedom Rider. So, like Don Quixote, we have large numbers of people in one of the least patriarchal and racist countries on earth who create imaginary patriarchies, racist plagues and largely imaginary versions of enemies that they can fight so they can feel like heroes that they’ll never be."

He continues, contemplating the waging of war in an apologetic fashion.

We should win, but we should have lawyers to discuss the legalities of each strike before the troops in the field make it. We should win, but we should have rules of engagement that give our enemies huge advantages over our own troops because we’re afraid we’ll accidentally kill a civilian while targeting people that want to fly planes into our buildings. We’ve mentally accepted a world where we’re held to a standard no other nation on earth is expected to live up to even as we shrug our shoulders as our enemies break every rule of war.

I think that's an echo of Nagasaki Syndrome.

But fear not.  History rhymes.

Germany is supposed to be the economic powerhouse of Europe, its financial leader, and its trusted and responsible political center. Often it plays those roles superbly. But recently, it’s been cracking up—in a way that is hauntingly familiar to its European neighbors. On mass immigration, it is beginning to terrify the nearby nations of Eastern Europe. On Brexit, it bullies the British. On finance, it alienates the southern Europeans. On Russia, it irks the Baltic States and makes the Scandinavians uneasy by doing business with the Russian energy interests. And on all matters American, it increasingly seems incensed.

Those kids in Normandie better enjoy their sand-pails while they can.