How do civilizations collapse? Congressman Ken Buck explains in Drain the Swamp what lessons history has left for us:
- They spend too much. Budget crises have always been early warning signs of the collapse of an empire or regime, and the bigger the government, the harder it falls.
- Their people stop producing. Civilizations grow when their people are hard-working, self-sacrificing, and entrepreneurial — and they collapse when the become lazy and self-centered and dependent on the state.
- They become corrupt. As the power of the state grows, so does official corruption, which people are expected to overlook.
- They lose their why. Eventually, civilizations lose sight of why they came to exist in the first place — their identity, their purpose. When a nation loses its sense of shared identity, the end is near, because no one is all that interested in fighting or sacrificing for a cause or an identity long forgotten.
Sound familiar? Will we listen to our ancestors? Or will make the same mistakes?
And on 
Darrick Dean 