lingering agony of a exhausted country

However pure may be a social system, or a religion, in the commencement of its power, the possession of an undisputed ascendency lures all alike into excesses fatal consistency, to justice, and to truth. (James Fenimore Cooper).

It is difficult to conceive any more painful than of a great man condemned to watch the lingering agony of a exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of its vitality disappear one by one til nothing is left but coldness, darkness and corruption. (John Randolph).

That men are kept in perpetual childhood – that is spirit, they never become full human beings – seems no great loss to a generation of thinkers accustomed to compulsory schooling, compulsory insurance, compulsory military service, and even compulsory voting.  A world of uniform compulsion is death to variety and the life of the mind…   (Russell Kirk).   

Three thoughts after the Dallas, TX. ( protest ) massacre last night, 7/7/16.