"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son," said Dean Woermer said to the character Flounder in the movie "Animal House."

Flounder and America have much in common. Corpulent and smug in its self righteousness the USA -contrary to its own motto of "Don't tread on me" - does just that in disallowing other countries self-determination.

Creating a world in your image and congratulatory adulation with no reflection is something all empires do in their final stages of decay.

China, primarily, and others act as enablers to allow the United States to spend beyond our means concomitant with trade imbalances and our insufficient taxes to pay operating costs.

When the world stops buying our debt and abrogates the dollar as the main currency, the game will be up.

We are living on borrowed time in an unsustainable fashion. Morals we say we believe dictate the necessity to live more simply so others may simply live.

My country right or wrong; if right to keep it right, if wrong to set it right.

David Milam, Bloomington