Empires have always been the result of the deluded, self-righteous machinations of a very few psychotics who managed to insinuate themselves into the power structure of any given culture...Mostly under the guise of religious mandate; and/or some lunacy of 'birthright"; and, almost without fail, the primacy of "destiny". (We muisn't forget the modern iteration of such crap: Public mandate - This one piles it so high you can't even see it.)

   As for their butts, when have the purveyors of any of this crap ever really gotten their "butts" in a sling? As best I can tell, hostorically speaking, the "public" has always taken it in the shorts. [Did anyone you know get the U.S. into the financial mess that it is in? Do you know anyone who, outside of the low-life money changers in Congress, industry, and the "money market", who signed off on the illegal national debt?]

   Let's let the "destined few" pay for the nation's wealth that THEY squandered, fight and die in the Money/Power Wars they start, and get real jobs doing some- thing they can screw up without destroying innocent lives and the world.

   Remember this (though somewhat glib, it works for me): If the opposite of "pro" is con, then it follows that the opposite of "progress is "Congress".

   None of us will remember any of this when we are dead; but, we are all present at the end of reason, integrity, freedom, and civilization. This is the new Common Era - peopled and run by the most COMMON of men and women.