Country stretches from sea to sea, and is rich with virtually all resources, from arable land to water sources to natural resources, necessary for self sufficiency. Of course, that country wasn’t fully baked until the last century, so two oceans shielding us from powerful foes during that time allowed us to evolve to this point.

Given those advantages, there still was no guarantee we’d evolve to be the oldest and most successful democracy ever. I think that required the stark realities of the late 18th century which funneled 13 squabbling little states and many more highly disparate “founders” towards compromise. Not because anyone wanted to compromise, but because it was an existential imperative. And amazingly, our constitution emerged from the epic effort to compromise. Hard to appreciate today what a long shot that was. The final document was wrangled together through arguments which sometimes turned violent, not from any pre-existing grand plan. Everyone had their own grand plan going in, and the final result looked like none of them.

Yet, it produced one of the most brilliant political documents ever. Our declining commitment to that, our dying national memory of the importance of it, is imo our greatest risk today. It’s how we’ll lose our country - no outsider could do it, but we could do it to ourselves.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 01/31/2024 10:54AM]