MM#92--Whats America's Expiration Date?

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. So we talk a lot about reading books in these Mojo minutes. And in our last Mojo minute, we talked about why it's important to read history. So in today's Mojo minute, we're going to continue on that theme. So why read history? Last time, we said we read history. So we don't commit the same errors as our previous generations did. And that's very good and true. But we also can learn from our previous generations in relation to what happened across other cultures and under certain circumstances. For example, why has there been a trend among great empires and nation states that follow? A similar rise? And then precipitous fall? What trends or commonalities do they all have in common? And finally, does our own country does the United States of America have an expiration date? Now that's a great series of questions. 

And with those questions, let us turn to today's Mojo minute, or today's book review of Cal Thomas's important work, America's expiration date, the fall of empires and superpowers, and the future of the United States. And, as always, let's go to the first quote. In this book, I will explore the causes of the decline and fall of great empires and nation states of the past and examined on what we can learn that might ward off a similar fate for the United States. There is no guarantee that the US is any different from any other empire, or great nation of the past. But one thing is certain. If we do not cease behaving as citizens and those other empires behaved, our country will suffer the same fate they suffered. We can blame all sorts of causes and forces that are diminishing the greatness of America. But until we look inside our own hearts, the decline will continue until we finally reach our expiration date. I believe we can bequeath to our descendants a nation resembling the one that was handed to us by our forebears. But for that to happen, we must humbly and honestly address the moral decay that plagues us. And we must begin today if we want to celebrate a birthday, rather than grieve a funeral on July 4 2026, unquote. 

And again, that is Carl Thomas, in America's expiration date. Wow. July 4 2026, isn't that far off. And granted, America has come through some serious challenges in its past. So we are certainly prepared for going through some serious challenges in the future. And we can certainly recall America's bloodiest conflict, the Civil War, that was a serious challenge. And after which, certainly Jim Crow, the Jim Crow, south, were a quarter of the country barely participated in the health of the country. That was a serious challenge. And then we'd move on to World War One. Another serious challenge, and then the Dire Straits of World War Two where most thought this could be our end. And that's certainly a war with a lot of books that we need to talk about. That almost seems like it's being forgotten these days. Which is a shame. Then there were no easy periods with Korea and Vietnam, and notably our disastrous exit after a 20 year long fight in the Middle East and Afghanistan. But getting back to our book and cows question, does America have a expiration date? So with the help of Sir John glub cow says yes, it does have an expiration date and there are many trend lines. We should be aware of and also to keep watch over to see how these trends are happening. 

Let's go back to the book, quote, Sir John found patterns or stages in the rise and fall of great nations. He called them the age of pioneers, the Age of Conquest, the age of Commerce, the age of of affluence, the age of intellect, and finally the age of decadence. Now, not every nation experiences each of these stages, and sometimes the stages have blended into each other. With some nations, it is difficult to distinguish between the age of pioneers and in Conquest. But in general, each great nation or empire begins with some type of pioneer activity against territory through battle, and then settles into a remarkable commercial activity, which in turn, brings great wealth, and with it increased literacy and learning, all begin their final slide with a sense of shared morality and common virtue that are abandoned. In the following chapters, I'll take a closer look at some of the great nations of the past. To verify certain job Sir John's observations regarding the stages and to show parallels, then I will briefly look at each stage to show some parallels with our own nation, and how they point to what appears to be a decline of the United States and the West, and where we might end up if things are not quickly reversed. Now, you may notice that I will refer to some developments within these empires and nations that occurred beyond the 250 year window indicated by Sir John. In most cases, the entity in question does not simply disappear after 250 years. But it staggers on a much less dynamic and an influential state, the most important point, or rather, the important point is to understand that they never returned to their greatness. And I believe that is our fate unless we take the necessary steps to reverse an almost inevitable decline, unquote. 

Whoa, did you catch that last part, they never return to their greatness. That seems a dire warning to us in the United States. Now, the book does a great job of outlining other empires from the Persian Empire to the Roman moves on to the Byzantine, the Arab, the Spanish, the Ottoman, the British and the Russian Empires. And then it ends with the American Empire, which began in 1776. Now, the only thing I found disappointing with this analysis, is it didn't include the Greek nation, or the Greek nation states or the city states rather, and certainly didn't cover the Greek Empire, under Alexander the Great. 

Nevertheless, be sure to check out the book for more details. It is a fascinating read, and provokes many compelling questions. And cow makes the most important point and that's today's Mojo minute. nugget of wisdom is most empires have often collapsed because of three things, their weight of their financial debt, their moral rot, and military overextension. So how does that add up for America? Well, if we were a patient visiting a doctor for our health checkup, and what are those nation's health markers? Well, number one, do we have financial debt? We have incredible debt. And we have zero restraint for either party of slowing and reversing that huge amount of spending at the federal government level. It's extremely, not good. So the second point is our moral decay or a moral rot. I think we can all agree that our moral decay over the last 50 to 75 years has been enormous. And then how about our military overextension? Well, as we speak, we're sending troops into Europe. And we have large military bases around the world and we've had those bases for some 100 or 75 or 50 years or longer. 

So I'm past Mojo minutes, we've insisted that we have to not only ask the difficult questions of ourselves and our nation, and other nations, but we have to demand those answers. And they have to come in truth and with honesty If we just lie to ourselves, then this is all a futile exercise. 

So in today's Mojo minute, we must ask the difficult questions of our country in 2022. Has the American culture fallen into moral decay? Or moral rot? And is that acting like a cancer on our American citizenry? Are most of our American schools from K through 12? And in addition to most universities, just simple propaganda Mills for indoctrination? Are they not rooted in traditional American values? Do you think those traditional values make up a greater majority of the American people? Do you think they would wish those traditional values to be taught and connected from one generation to the next? And does our military overextension around the world provide some value? And if it does, and reasonable people could disagree? Where is that point where we are too overextended? And finally, I will end with a good question. A universal question that we should all have in front of us. And on the top of our mind, no matter how bad things get? Do we temper our skepticism with an unwavering hope? Never allowing it to fall into cynicism? And do we always find opportunities to lift up what is right? And good and true? And that last question comes from cow Thomas. 

So I appreciate him thank him for that great question. Things can always look bad, no matter what age we lived in, no matter what Empire we lived in, in the past, and it's still good for us human beings, to have an unwavering hope. Because it's never good to fall into cynicism. So here's to hoping and praying America doesn't decline and fall in 2026, which would actually be our 200 and 50th. Year. So since our humble beginnings, but to paraphrase our 35th US president, quote with history, the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the man we love, asking his blessing and His help. But knowing that here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on