I will not comply.

You don't recover from this. And I don't just mean $17,000,000,000,000,000 in debt or perverse government corruption by what is in every sense of the phrase, a permanent "ruling class" (30-40 years in DC and you're supposed to maintain your connection to reality? Right). It's all that, true, but it is more. We now live in a country where the average person can name more members of the Kardashian family than liberties in the Bill of Rights. We are a nation of distraction. From devices to sports to movies, we want or bread and circus, not civil responsibility. Elections are now - unquestionably - identity politics. We elect whomever seems "cooler." We have successfully American idolized politics, and that's for the 50% who bother to vote.

Now my dear friend will argue (and has on many occasions) that we've gotten through worse as a nation. The Civil War with 600,000 dead, half the nation in ruin; the Great Depression; WWII, these are the familiar refrains offered to combat my pessimism. As of today I officially reject those examples, and I do so based on a simple question...  are we still those people? The Civil War generation, who buried their dead and turned right around and laid track and built great metal beasts into the mountains and hostile territories of the West. Are we them? How about the Greatest Generation, who literally saved the world and ruled the NIRA unconstitutional 9-0, are we as solid, as grounded, as those people?

Give me a break. We freak out if a cable dispute removes the Cartoon Network.

I'm not giving up on America. I'm simply noting our course direction - suicide. Need further proof? There were a hand full of congressman & senators, most notably represented in Ted Cruz, who filibustered while offering fiscal compromises. Men who want to balance the budget, who want to not spend more than we take in, and THEY are widely considered the extremists, even by the elders in their own party. Think about that - we are 17.4 Trillion dollars in debt and the ones considered MODERATES are insisting we raise our debt ceiling. THAT is the "sensible" position while those insisting we stop spending are called economic terrorists (literally, on msnbc). Allan Greyson (D) FL sent out a mailer after the (17% of) government shutdown ended. It read "tea party" across the front with a large burning cross serving as the lower case "t." Did his party excoriate him? No. Of course not. In 08' Obama himself repeatedly attacked Hillary's insistence that there be an individual mandate in any future healthcare law, saying quote "If that was the solution we could solve homelessness by mandating that everyone by a house." He even went on to say that if you install a fine for non compliance people whom can't afford healthcare will be worse off because they'd be stuck with a fine and still no insurance. But does the press call him on the fact that he refuses to negotiate on a one year delay of a mandate he once opposed? No. Of course not. The PoTUS actually stood before the American people yesterday and said the healthcare exchanges were still a good product, despite the foul ups with the website, and insisted there were still lots of way to enroll - mail in an application, in person, and over the phone. But did even ONE member of the press ask the most obvious question of all - "Doesn't the information still have to be entered into that same website, by someone?" No. Of course not. Yet Ted Cruz is a "wacko bird" according to John McCain, because he wants to delay it for a year. We are officially down the rabbit hole Alice.

Make no mistake, as men aligned with Tea Party ideology - formerly known as balancing your check book - we will not survive with our reputation intact. Not within this lifetime. Whether its standing in your church, in your town hall meeting, or standing for office, understand that WE are now the crazy ones once we speak up. You now have two national political organizations hell bent on destroying us and unless we can figure out how to get those indians to come over the hill one at a time, we damned sure better unite. And as one who detests platitudes, let me be specific - support Cruz and all those offering primary challenges within the GOP. That party either has to be fumigated or dismissed.

Can we do it? Lets put it this way - Luke had a much better shot at landing that one laser torpedo to destroy the Death Star, and we don't even have the Force. But WWII you'll cry, the Civil War you'll say, the colonial Revolution! We did all that! No. WE didn't. THEY did. Here's the problem - as a nation we simply have not cultivated and prized what made the generations before us "great." As for me, I'll still try, because what America was is worth restoring, and I'd like future historians to be able to say "well, at least they weren't ALL insane" before they turn the page. But as former and current casino men lets not kid ourselves, we're betting on a long shot. And "you WILL comply", is the house.