de Toqueville said that when America ceased to be good, it would cease to be great. He was writing that, when America was a slaveocracy … a nation ruled by an anti-monarchial … “noble” 1%; crooks, swindlers and liars; all intent on genocide as a way of life. i have often wondered if he had not the whit to perceive what he was saying — or if he, like so many “great thinkers” of that era (and others), were tweakers. America has NEVER been good — it’s “moral high ground”, “Higher Purpose”, and it’s “Great Expiriment” were buiklt on a foundation of murder, religious psychosis, and land-grabbing. Nothing for Public Goods could ever come from such a blood-thirsty, ignoble, immoral, and savage beginning. Just like children in a child-molest ethos-family; we have always had only our conjured up picture of what mom and dad SHOULD be like, to carry us through … there is no ending to what never was…. we, however, can change to fit our own made-up reality.