Is Our End in Our Beginning?

This is something I've thought about frequently since high school (40 years ago), something that rarely leaves my mind. Right now, with so much tumult in my country which appears (once again) to be teetering on the edge of a cliff, it never leaves my mind. The United States began with bloodshed, rebellion, and violence and for the past 40+ years I haven't been able to help thinking that's the only way it can end. Right now it looks like sooner rather than later, though I know we've been at or near this point before in my lifetime and we've brought ourselves back to sanity, but it never seems to last. I see people - admittedly, most often on Facebook, which caters to the lowest common denominator - calling for civil war, calling for violent response to BLM and to antifa (and refusing to believe people who try to educate them about what BLM is and what antifa means), calling for the overthrow of the government, insisting that if someone threatens them - with anything! - they'll shoot them. I'm talking about hypothetical threats on the Internet, not actual threats to life and property. Most of it seems to come from poorly educated white folks, men and women, but not all of it. I think that too many Americans cling far too tightly to the legacy of "rugged individualism" that stemmed from the country's initial rebellion, it's westward sweep that displaced so many native people, and that now feeds into the ignorance that's spreading a virulent disease because so many people are insisting that no one can tell them what to do and are refusing to use the brains God gave them.

I always think about Canada when I think about US history because Canada is a free and independent country that's as good as the USA and has a similar history and a culture that feels familiar enough to US citizens that they often don't see any difference. In other words, Canada got to the same place we did - but without the violence, rebellion, and bloodshed. Which isn't to say that there's never been violence in Canada or that Canada is perfect, because those are both false statements. But the English colonies there had the same king and overseas rule. I'll be honest and say that I don't know Canadian history at all well so I don't know if the Canadian colonies were ruled with the same amount of overstep (e.g. - taxation without representation, which was a very real issue) as the 13 colonies further south. But they didn't rebel and over the years, Canada has achieved independence and, as I said above, is as good a country as the United States. I never find myself thinking that Canada is going to end in war and rebellion and turmoil the way I do about my own country. I've suspected for decades that if I'd lived in the colonies in the 1700s, I'd have probably been a Tory, though who knows what I'd actually think in the actual situation.

Does it sound like I'm not optimistic about the future of the USA? That's true, I'm really not and have not been for many years. In the end, I don't think the country's going to end in my lifetime, but I wonder all the time what my great nieces and their generation are going to be living in. If we can get rid of that man in the White House in November, I'm sure I'll have a better outlook - but you know, I counted him out last time to such a degree that I went to bed before the counts were in on election night because I didn't believe my country in general could be quite that stupid. And it turns out it is. That's very disheartening.