Can't really add anything to this:
"The astonishing wealth of the West,
more widely distributed than in any other civilization, the abandonment
of religion as the foundation of morals and virtues, the transformation
of political freedom into self-centered license, and the commodification
of hedonism that makes available to everyman luxuries and behaviors
once reserved for a tiny elite, have made self-indulgence and the
present more important than self-sacrifice and the future."
"Declining
birthrates, a preference for spending on social welfare transfers rather
than on defense, and a willingness to beggar our children and
grandchildren with debt in order to finance these entitlements– all
bespeak a people whose wealth deludes them into thinking that they can
imprudently ignore the future and indefinitely afford these luxuries
that in fact insidiously weaken the foundations of our social and
political order. This process is more advanced in Europe than in the
U.S., but we in America have been steadily moving towards the same
mentality."
