Cannabis

I am no longer sure of, he has to contend with an American public who thinks they don't have to pay the bills and can continue their party forever.

I don't think most folks realize the depth of the problem, or the absolute certainly of 400 million Americans who think they can spend their way into prosperity, people who would rather burn the country to the ground than fix it. They tossed Jimmy Carter in the trash for suggesting that we need to grow up and get ourselves in order, and people are, apparently, even less well-informed and more rabidly self-loathing today than they were then.

That, btw, is just the people going to work every day in their cars, the good ones. The ones who are torching the place while smiling and ordering lattes and voting liberally. They provide the arms, and legs, and eyes for our opponents, the few evil bastards who we like to pretend are the real problem.

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
Steven Biko

Regardless of who is elected, about 200 million people need to adopt the frame of mind that they need to invest in order to build the country, not for any personal gain. Like people building dams, or going to war for other's. That is how we built a great country, whether it was on the bones of the indigenous people we murdered, or the slaves we prospered from for nothing, or all the ignorant minimum-wage workers today who give up their lives and their children's futures to serve french fries and make others wealthy, instead of giving up their lives for freedom as we used to ask.

But to make that workable we need a government that is on the side of the people, something that has been rare throughout our history, and certainly hasn't really been seen (without an accompanying spin) for at least 40+ years. In my opinion since about 1920 or so, but my standards are higher.

We may have now built a system in which anyone who gives of themselves today for this country today is a fool. Which doesn't mean time to quit, but certainly to rethink just doing the same old things.