Last I heard, Arjay, around 5 million people apply to immigrate into the "fascist" USA every year.

How many were trying to get into your former homeland?

If you hate westerners so much, how come all you third worlders want to live with us?

LEGO your comparative liberty/wealth analysis will not stand up to analysis when we look at the current deterioration in the West.The real decay has yet to be realised.

When Israel attacks Iran for no good reason one third of the world's oil supply will be cut.Some say the US wants this so the price of oil will prop up their $.

Arjay,
There is nothing in the "contributions" of Lego, Ken H or Neutral that stand up to analysis. They are obviously impervious to rational thought or, heaven forbid, evidence, preferring instead to label all views with which they don't agree as "anti-American, Alice in Wonderland, left wing, or any epithet that stands in substitution for thought. Their nom de plumes appear regularly in the comment pages of OLO and their comments are always in the same vein.
It is too much to hope that they will go away, but you can always take the option of simply ignoring them. Life and time are too precious to try and engage their brains.

The US is in decline, there's no doubt about that, economically and politically. It is however a country that continues to take itself, and its responsibilities to the rest of the world, seriously. Sure, it makes mistakes. And it is an unfortunate fact of life that a nation that is losing its grip is going to make an increasing number of them.

That being said, what would make a far more interesting article would be an analysis of a post-US world. Obviously, it is fashionable among a particular set to rubbish America, piously and self-righteously, at every opportunity.

But have they thought through any alternatives?

Let's for a moment take a couple of "what-ifs" on board, and assess the situation when - to paraphrase a previous Pres. - we don't have the US to kick around any longer.

As a first "what-if", in deference to Arjay's presence on the thread, let's assume Ron Paul becomes the next US President. For a start, all US troops would be pulled back inside the US borders. That would shut up the moaners that the US is a bully. And as Paul puts it, "There's nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today... we could defend this country with a few good submarines."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101101555.html

Good luck with that.

That's Defense sorted. What about the economy? Paul will abolish the Fed, return the US to the gold standard, and cut taxes. Presumably he will also allow the Banking system to fail, as it inevitably would.

The US would rapidly become an international pariah, without a hope of exporting a single widget, thanks to the lack of capital and the massively increased costs of production. Its withdrawal from its overseas commitments would not only be extraordinarily expensive, but would - quite properly - make it the target of substantial economic repercussions. I suspect, for one, that Iran would be thrilled to be in a position to impose sanctions on America.

What a joyous day for Ahmadinejad that would be!

Such speculation/analysis would certainly make for a far more entertaining piece than this turgid offering.