I’m not saying that you, or any other American for that matter, deserves the horror of an economic catastrophe. I’m saying that the American values of “not giving a shit” that are cited in the article above may be what are responsible for it. It’s a theory of something called Decadence that Nietzsche talked about, and if citing a German philosopher’s name when making an argument makes me sound “pretentious” or like I’m overcompensating for lack of life experience… well, I guess I can’t help that.

Yes America may have been founded on non-conformity and acting out as individuals. Those are traits that help when you’re settling and constructing a country from scratch, but that doesn’t mean that they’re some kind of transcendent recipe for success.

Don’t you get this? It’s the same shit repeating itself. Did you know Islam, for its time, was actually ADVANCING the rights of women? It was only when its adherents started to think that it was the religion itself was the reason for its success, instead of a host of historical contingencies (power vacuum left by collapse of the Roman empire, petty-mindedness of European feudal system) that it began to fail. The Nazis performed like superhuman beings in battle until they actually started believing that nothing could stop them (Hitler telling his troops in fall 1942 not to give up any ground for more secure defensive positions); until they started believing their own bullshit.

Decadence. When the values that once made a culture great are now responsible for its own demise. “Not giving a shit” is what brought Americans to settle the West and win World Wars; it’s also what caused a group of businessmen at Enron to defraud thousands of shareholders of their lifesavings.

Listen, I think America is the greatest country in the world; or at least, it could be. I’m just sad to see how poorly they’ve handled their position of power and influence. But give me a break. America has run its course. A society that prides itself on non-conformity eventually must implode. If you really want to know what America will be like in 100 years, look at France: a country of phoney revolutionaries run by those with enough bullshit in their systems to lie their way to the top.

But you didn’t want to hear that, did you?

I was stating a basic line of modern thought; power is shifting from the fake niggers to the niggers for real. If you can honestly tell me that you do NOT know of one person who is banking on this to happen, waiting to exploit the increasing demise of traditional power, I can tell you that we live many many light years apart.

Keep reading those books, and please, let me know when you’ve learned how to understand the world by simply living in it. No need to keep compensating for that gaping lack of education. Honestly, you remind me of an old woman trying to stuff herself into a tight pair of jeans. And please, watch your fucking language. If you don’t intend to say that I deserve financial ruin, then make it clear that it’s not what you intend to say.

Now go take that bloody shine-box I stuffed down my throat and subsequently shit/puked on your head and feed it to your saucer-eyed family for dinner. Times are hard and they’re getting worse, motherfucker. Chow down.

Normally I wouldn’t bother responding to as poorly written and incoherent a message as you have left, but you did raise one issue marginally worth responding to.

Yes, the West does not have a monopoly on self-righteousness; we are, however, the only ones who seem incapable of realizing it. When George W. Bush invades Iraq for “Freedom,” he honestly believes he’s doing something that is universally good. The rest of the world sees it for what it is: a colonial acquisition. When China talks about the glories of the Middle Kingdom, it doesn’t try to fool itself into thinking it can convince other countries that its dominance is somehow a manifestation of universal human rights. This is the basic argument at work in Huntington’s “Clash of the Civilizations”.

My point about self-interest was not about “misery”, or whatever other poorly constructed argument you were trying to make, but rather about the decadence of American values, and what is being perceived as the ultimate failure of free markets, at least by those outside the scope of the Western media.

“But, you know, I’ve noticed that the bourgeoisie always enjoy turning me into “we” when the firing squad fires up and me into “them” when the cash is crisp and the PBR’s a poppin.”

And you have the gall to insult my writing? And to judge me as a “half-sacked college boy”? Who the FUCK do you think you are? Did you think that what you were writing was an insightful, critical comment? Because it wasn’t. It was trite Bullshit that provides a perfect example of why I despise my generation.

Now YOU go get your shine box, and ram it down your throat until you choke to death on your own blood so I never have to endure another one of your pathetic excuses for intelligence, you insignificant, idiotic piece of shit.

Ya, so true. Nothing turned mine on more than the smell of dank, musty mildew in cellar. Father had not the chance when I lured him down as teenager. Chained myself to walls, ya, I was into it. The kinder have same predilection for captivity and incest, must be genetic tendency for such.

When I was a kid and people would tell me to report if someone was touching me or to fight back if someone was trying to kidnap me I was like, “Doye.”

Now as an adult, when people tell me they were abused as a kid, I’m ask them if they were threatened with death if they told and none of them were. Most of them just kind of half experimented – half were embarrassed or cool with it. I know it sounds harsh, but people make victims of themselves.