AR wrote frequently concerning the goals of the evironmentalists. That is, their desire to take humanity back to pre-industrial revolution times. Personnally, I beleive they are attempting to right-size the population of the earth. Destroying our modes of transportation is one step on the way. The method - choke off all sources of energy. Hence high gas prices and engine destroying ethanol. To them their plan is working.

It is not a problem in picking the wrong altar of sacrifice. Sacrificing for the nation and the Constitution is no more moral or less immoral. Your "leftists and globalists" are unselfishly attempting to achieve the goals of other people for the good of those other people.

Selfishness is the name of the virtue promoted here. It challenges the moral philosophy of the past 2500 years. The word never again to be erased is EGO.

If you need a terminus ante quem, look to THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT of 1887 which cartelized the railroads. Under the ICC, a line could not open up and ever could not haul new kinds of freight without permission from their competitors in mediation with the ICC. The "Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule" was only a parody of an existing condition. It applied to trains then to barges and then to freight forwarders then to trucks (1935).

But really, no "original sin" happened. It was the CONTRADICTIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION (discussed on this board), not one sad moment of sin and error.

(And I did not mean to single out the Bushes elder or younger, but only to say that it was not President Obama who invented this mess. As you noted, it has been a long time coming...)

America's decline didn't begin with W. It began in 1890 with the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Ever since then, government has been growing and individual rights have been shrinking. Governments in America (all of them) are now the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I'm not sure we have the strength or the will to get them out.

It is easy to blame President Obama. He had nothing to do with it. Unlike the Presidents Bush who brought power with them, Barack Obama is only a figurehead for others. And the Presidents Bush were as much responsible for this as anyone and everyone else. The mortgage bailouts, the GM and Chrysler buy-outs, the wars, all of that goes back before 2008. It only continues today; and the acceleration is inevitable.

However, the outcomes are not universally consistent. Come to Austin! If you read the actual laws, Texas is as bad as "Taxachusetts" with interventions and controls and massive failed subsidies to pet businesses. But Austin has something, a sense of entrepreneurship within the culture of the town. Every town has beggars standing at the freeway medians. Here, when it is 100 degrees, they sell bottles of water. At that low level of subsistence, others walk the apartment complexes picking up aluminum cans which they sell for scrap. No sitting in the welfare office for them. It ain't much, but it is all about freedom and opportunity. Then, there are Dell, AMD, Google, eBay, HP, ... all the companies that pulled out of Ann Arbor (and maybe out of your town, too), are doing business here. And we have start-ups all across the board, not just in "computers." We have music here, big time: South by Southwest, and Austin City Limits Live. And now biotech: over 200 firms, mostly small, are listed by the Chamber of Commerce. You can find THREE different life sciences social groups here via Meetup.

I could go on all day....

Its been coming for a long time. The populace and the representatives they elected to power loathe the platform this country was founded on. In government we have leftist and globalists, each greedily seeking to satisfy their own interests without regard for the nation and the Constitution that they swore oath to protect and defend. People seldom have more than a 15 second attention span and politicians feed them their 10 second sound bytes for speeches. The country is going to hell in a hand basket and too many are eagerly helping carry the load. It makes me sick.