History leaves no doubt that civilizations rise and fall, with the fall always beginning when rising ends.  The Classical era passed in under a millennium and a half; ours has already gone longer, but Reagan's Morning in America has become Obama's Closing Time.  Deindustrializing America is an endgame, and if the Obamacrats are saving the planet, it's not for underemployed Americans.

Judeo-Christianity provided the values and beliefs to structure our post-Classical era, culminating for government in the U.S. Declaration of Independence that rooted unalienable rights in man, authored by his Creator.  Those rights, in turn, rooted the legitimacy of the state in the consent of the governed and explicitly advertised the related rights of those governed to alter or replace that state at will.  None of that is acceptable to progressives, who know what is good for you and expect government to force it onto you whether or not you want it.  Their new era is to replace Judeo-Christian rule with a government whose constitution is itself and to which the Declaration of Independence doesn't apply.

The deliberate dismantling of the industrial economy and, with it, the American Dream isn't the sole indicator; the only proven system of mass wealth creation, Christian capitalism, is equally under government's wrecking ball.  Capitalism is entirely a product of the self-interest of free individuals; Christian capitalism limits the selfishness with Judeo-Christian morality but still rests on self-interest and individual freedom.  Today's crony capitalism is so intertwined with the state that it's more a semi-formal fascism; that's why it's unable to compete from the U.S.  Capitalists no longer make their own decisions; the state does too much of it for them, ending the system that enriched America.

Even more than capitalism, private property underlies both justice and economic success.  In America now, governments routinely confiscate private real estate via eminent domain to hand it to crony developers for their profit, while police confiscate private guns and cash on mere suspicion without due process of law, often arresting those trying to record their actions via cell phone.  Beyond that, not only Judeo-Christian property rights, but also the right to life is at risk: a November 8, 2010 news release from the Center for Constitutional Government reported a case it brought in Federal Court jointly with the ACLU under the headline "Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority To Kill Americans Outside Combat Zones."

The government argued that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans unilaterally determined by the executive branch to pose a threat per the release.  The case arose out of targeted drone killings aimed at American citizens allegedly helping the Taliban in Pakistan, but the authority being claimed could be used anywhere.

The American citizen famously bowed to no man.  He stood on his own, worked hard, feared God, enshrined his family, despised dependency, and was generous as well as ambitious.  Today's citizen is regulated by government and conditioned by public education toward despite and rejection of those values while his elected president bows to despots.  While still alive in parts of the body politic, the Judeo-Christian ethos no longer defines American leaders or voters.

These shifts in attitudes and economic practices have accumulated over years; they have not arrived overnight, nor have they produced the paradigm shift that underlies revolution.  Most still assume that we are living in the product of the Founders' planning, brought up to date with computers.  Two things are threatening that complacence: the ongoing economic failure and the public relations disaster created by the Democrats' handling of ObamaCare on top of the Stimulus.  Both president and Congress made fools of the voters while making incompetents of themselves in the voters' eyes as the price of what increasingly seem like Pyrrhic legislative victories.  Economic difficulty makes a particularly bad time to tempt voters to question their governors and a worse time to question their institutions.

Behind the recovery propaganda is the unpalatable fact that all but a few U.S. cities and states -- and many counties, too -- are insolvent, with debts and obligations far past any repayment by taxpayers struggling with their own declining living standards.  Local governments' pay and pensions are unsustainable; all but about three states are no better and can't meet their bills for schools and social services.  The feds are spending over a trillion dollars beyond their income every year.  Taxpayers are obligated beyond $200,000 per family by all that, without considering any family debt.  That tottering tower of runaway unreality will follow the old tower at Babel unless the governors cut drastically, shutting off much of the so-called safety net and repudiating decades of political promises.  So far, neither Democrats nor Republicans are facing up to that.

Kicking the can down the road is the current Washington phrase for ignoring this reality by papering it over with Fed fun money and borrowing.  It guarantees a more sudden and calamitous collapse when the can reaches the road's end.  Google Weimar Republic inflation for a quick view of one way it could go.  The other possibilities aren't a lot better.  In Weimar's case, it led to Adolf Hitler.  In all history, it has led to great instability and uncertainty and brought everything into question.

So we have two conditions that greased the skids under Greco-Roman civilization: too few holding to the legitimizing ethos plus a government that destroys the economy.  The tipping point -- a widespread, destabilizing event -- is hanging over us via the impending economic Götterdämmerung.  Thus do old paradigms die.

But one ingredient remains missing; old paradigms don't fully die until a new one is available.  The progressives busily burying Judeo-Christianity have none to offer; they are about regression, making do with less under an all-controlling and so wealth-destroying government.  They are ultimately nihilists with only Mao's belief: that power derives from the barrel of a gun.

It therefore seems likely that no matter how bad it gets, we will straggle on down the same decline we've been following, at least until a likely alternative shows itself.  And maybe there will be a Judeo-Christian revival.  It wouldn't be the first.  We seem to be reaching an end, but a new beginning isn't visible.