Freedom without cost.

“If you give a man something for free, you break his spirit”

Franklin D. Roosevelt said that, and FDR was a democrat.

Today in this country, and by “today” I mean both the literal as well as the broader use of the word, I would be willing to state that the vast majority of Americans [and the number is still growing], are no longer interested in the Super Power theory of world dominance. This is a natural occurrence, as we’ve seen throughout history in each empire that ruled – Greeks, Romans, Byzantine’s – the people became complacent, happy in their own world of family, food, and leisure. This complacency was eventually exploited by an outside agency that had none of those things, but wanted to try them for themselves. Greece fell from within when philosophies of leadership and direction changed, which led to internal wars, leaving the empire exposed and vulnerable. Rome fell because it became so vast it had to split into Eastern and Western regions, giving birth to the Byzantine dynasty, which eventually fell to the Crusades and crusaders. In recent history, the Soviet Union fell because they invested nearly 25% of their gross national product into their military, and when they saw in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s the United States – only using 4.2% of their GNP for military machinery and might – was indeed light years beyond the Soviets in technological advances – and had money to burn. The Soviets were broke, without an adequate military, and subsequently they had to release all their interests in Eastern Europe and the Balkan’s.

Apparently, we are now seeing the beginnings of this in our own country as well, as more than half our citizens are ready to embrace and welcome our descent from super power status. Indeed, the majority want to pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and wherever else we have troops, bring them home to where they [and us] are presumably safe, then throw the lounger back and vote on American Idol. Let the world be as the world is, as long as they leave us and our families alone. The world doesn’t need a super power, let alone the United States as that super power. The American Idol fans have been growing in number and voice since the 1960’s, and their time is now. They will succeed in their quest to withdraw every troop from every location, go back to their sofas, and start worrying about what “Friends – the Reunion” will be like on NBC next week.

And the world will be plunged into darkness.

It may take some time, but eventually, the “Survivor” fans will channel-surf over to MSNBC, and gasp in shock that Chicago, Kansas City, or Philadelphia were just blasted into the Netherlands by a suitcase nuke smuggled in by Ramsey Bin Al Fuckaduck. Cindy Sheehan, Keith Olberman’s MSNBC replacement because Olberman was considered too conservative, will be expressing her outrage that Al Fuckaduck had promised her during her 2007-2008 tour of the Middle East that he was an ally, not a foe. “He lied to us; he lied to me”, Sheehan will say in her nightly montage. Yes, he did. A lot of people did, as a matter of fact.

And right now, we’re lying to ourselves.

Indeed, the insurgents in the Sunni Triangle will not follow us back home. The Iranian’s will be too busy claiming Iraq as their own to worry about flying over here. The Taliban will once again rule Afghanistan, executing women in the soccer stadiums because these women had the audacity to stake a claim to equality, or at least some form of it. Hugo Chavez will be laughing his ass off as his Venezuelan troops march through a defenseless South America, and all the while we in the U.S. sit around praising our new-found separatist mentality, Al Qaeda will be lurking in their jungles and tents, planning for the nuclear annihilation of Seattle.

Pyongyang, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and several other world capitals will lose whatever slim respect we once had, and they will no doubt point out that Vietnam and Somalia were not aberrations, rather undeniable trends in our nation's outlook and policy decisions. Everyone will know we as a people do not have the stomach for war - justified or unjustified - and that weakness alone will leave us exposed like no other time in our history. Hollywood and the NY Times will be deliriously happy at our departure from combat, until of course, they see the residual effects of such an action.

Some out there will argue our insistence in fighting this thing from the beginning is the cause of all our current woes; completely dismissing the 1960's thru the end of the 1990's, when terrorists hijackings, bombings, and other mayhem were happening both on and off our shores, long before anyone even knew who George W. Bush was. And lastly, we have all but forgotten the lessons of 9-11, taking on a national consciousness not unlike the "Stockholm Syndrome", where the party entrapped takes sorrow upon the entrapp-er. Somehow we have managed to shift blame for the four September 2001 airliners upon ourselves, and in doing so we have empowered the very people who perpetrated the deed in the first place.

Greece, Rome, the USSR, and soon the United States as well. I wonder what they’ll call the next dynasty? Probably something like “The Mohammedan Empire”, I would think.

Better duck and cover everybody. "Free" freedom is damn near upon us.