Originally Posted by PhilosopherWarrior

The United States..
that is, the nation-state, is a combine that of course will be effected by passing years.
The rise and fall of any civilization is greatly influenced by the resources available. The USA had some great advantages ( notably a continent undepleted by 12 centuries of dense occupation ) but the dynamism of the new world was accompanied by a culture that embraced the freedom to
"sink or swim".
The American culture is the epitome of a conceptual difference
that confronting and overcoming the adversities of a wilderness make.
Necessity is the mother of invention; and this is not merely a farmers almanac cliche'
it is a way of taming the frontier. This iconoclastic way of life, while able to benefit from all of europes academic superiority really did look at the world a new way.
that is a unique genesis and our culture made a unique compact with its government. The reexamination of man and society made a nation based on an ideal consonant with a philosophy. ( it was not a perfect concept nor without inherited contradictions, nonetheless)
That Idealism has been an unquantifiable resource for our nation because it expresses itself in each citizen striving for his ( or her) own excellence.
The creativity and intellectual perseverence that INVENTS, creates, and otherwise produces an improvement. It is still the optimism and curiousity within us.. even if we are no longer garage inventors and greasemonkey physicists.

It is the culture that is being corroded. It is not merely the maturation of our territories and population. It is the calcification and unappreciation
of our society that will dissolve us.