Worried about a happy ending............

Fifty years of relative peace and prosperity in the West; and still my apprehension that the reckoning will come. For the starch required to defend a civilization — the clarity of mind and earnestness of purpose — has been washed away.

-From this David Warren post

Thinking about Warren's "starch", I am reminded for some reason of this Thomas Jefferson quote: "Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!".  

Ron Chernow (quoted here) wrote about America's strange national amnesia concerning its history.   By not knowing the many ugly parts of our history, we miss out on all overcoming, the change and growth of consciousness.  I'm betting there is a lot more starch.