International Man: TV, movies, popular culture, government schools, and many factors mold the minds of today's kids.

Unfortunately, these institutions are rotten to the core.

What are parents and children up against today?

Doug Casey: It's very serious. Once upon a time, going to school and watching a movie or a TV program wouldn't endanger your kid's moral character, but now they do. And I ask myself: Where did the rot start, when did it begin?

There's an old saying: Tough times breed strong men; strong men result in good times; good times result in weak men, and so forth. I'm afraid that pretty much describes what's happened with the US.

We're following the path of all great empires in the past. After Athens became rich and prosperous, they fomented the Peloponnesian War, which resulted in their collapse. It happened to the Roman Republic, which fell away from its founding virtues, transformed into an empire, and became dissipated and soft. It's happened to Europe after it became rich and prosperous. Its conquest of scores of colonies has come back to bite it.

When civilizations become rich and arrogant, they lose their moral foundations. They become hypocritical and corrupt. They don't want to admit it; the elites may not even recognize it. But a spiritual cancer becomes pervasive, and they seem to suffer a loss of self-confidence. Perversely, as the foundations of society collapse, its superstructure, the government, grows and becomes more important. The society becomes bureaucratized. That transfers risk and responsibility away from individuals and traditional institutions, placing them onto the State.

This has happened to America. Once upon a time, America really was different from and better than any other country in history. Why? Because it was only country explicitly founded on the principles of individual liberty, economic and social freedom. That's all being washed away now. The reality has been replaced by worthless State operatives crowing the "America is the exceptional country" as a justification for crimes.