In 'Decline And Fall' Gibbon at one point remarked that to a common citizen at the time of the Roman Empire the rule of the worst emperors appeared as powerful and stable as those of the greatest. People couldnt see the slow decline of Roman power on a day to day basis. But all of a sudden the barbarians were at the gates. Everything that seemed so permanent turned out to be resting on foundations that had been undermined.

Its called 'Critical Mass'. The laws of physics can be applied to history. A compromised system can keep working on momentum for a while but a point arrives where it stops working. The Bastille falls, the Gothic mercenaries mutiny. The old certainties collapse, the old relationships are instantly redefined.

Now, the United States, the preeminent power in the world from the beginning of World War 2, in the hands of a ruling class that has become effete and ignorant and led by a president who is misguided and talentless, has declined to point where the order engendered by its former power and greatness is collapsing around it. Symptoms of that collapse echo in its own domestic affairs as the absurdities of the welfare state cause chaos and misery.

For eight years the leftists, in the name of opposing the hated US hegemony over the world, made, in their minds, common cause with the Islamic nihilists who sought the overthrow of the Pax Americana in the Middle East. Of course the Ivy League-educated were unaware of the savage nature of the Islamic mobs that have now been unleashed; it is the hallmark of an elite education that one not be judgmental of different cultures and realize that there is no objective good or evil when it comes to a conflict between belief systems. We think that strip clubs are constitutionally protected free speech, they think that six year old girls should have their clitorises removed with an exacto knife by the local witch woman so that they wont enjoy sex and become Jezebels. Its just a simple difference of opinion.

Unfortunately, in a Madrassa-based curriculum the accent is less on mutual understanding and conflict resolution and more on killing the verminous infidel. Now, as we watch the Middle East dissolve into flame and chaos, as our 'leaders' blurble on about 'the rise of democracy' and stand with their hands clasped deploring violence, we see the end of sixty years of US influence in the ME. We'll soon get to see what these people are like without the restraint of colonialism or imperialism or whatever the hell it was that we forced on them. I'll bet their natural proclivities arent towards 'democracy'. A brief glance at Arab history before the arrival of the brutal Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, which cowed them into submission for three centuries, is a tableau of murderous, unstable regimes; vendettas and blood feuds conducted through centuries; human rights not even dreamed of by the terrified serfs who lived hypnotized in an Islamic torpor until some maniac stirred them to mindless violence for a brief moment.

Who cares, anyway? Well...we should care a whole bunch. The same geniuses who dismantled our human intelligence capabilities, stood by grinning and winking while our national secrets were posted on the internet, and who ignored the true nature of our adversaries, at the same time these visionaries very vigorously pursued a policy of suppressing energy development in our own country. Coal, petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear power were all attacked by a bureaucracy that was going to use ample government subsidies to create a revolution in 'renewable' fuels. They were saving the planet. After spending tens of billions of dollars and sacrificing all domestic energy development for nearly three decades the production of energy overseas is increasingly in the hands of thugs whose negotiating and conflict resolution skills are minimal but who understand weakness when they see it. Persuading them to 'listen to reason' might be a bit tough. As Gibbon remarked, 'Persuasion is the tactic of the weak but the weak are rarely persuasive.'

Now our government, mortgaged to the hilt and hamstrung by commitments to subsidize everyone and everything, has resorted to the final poison pill that clueless socialists always resort to in the end...they're printing money. With no rise in economic activity this wave of luckybux has touched off an anemic suckers rally on Wall Street, a rally about to be bludgeoned into reality by soaring energy prices.

A black hole has opened and all the old realities are being sucked into its vast gravity field. Public employee unions, once sacrosanct, find themselves painted into a political corner. They are trying to hold on to a position that has ceased to exist. That their contracts are as worthless as any of the other flood of words issuing from the mouths of the Best And The Brightest is obvious to everyone. The situation has changed. They ignored the actuarial tables for decades...until critical mass arrived. Contract canceled.

What is money but a contract? The words of our ruling class are increasingly seen to be worthless; their economic statistics, their spitting on ancient alliances, the solvency of all their social engineering schemes, their budgets, the census they just took, their phony poll numbers, even the data from the weather agencies have become conflicting and politically biased. If your word is worthless then your contracts are worthless. If your word is worthless and your contracts are worthless then your money is worthless.

The Obama Implosion continues.