And Again

As I write this the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is closed on an emergency basis due to a suspension cable snapping. The bridge was built in the 1930s as a WPA project and was recently repaired, so there is considerable concern that this may presage a tremendous problem with the structural safety of the bridge.

There is something sad about this, and a little unfamiliar. There was a time when an incident like this would not have provoked responses like "Can we afford to fix it?" or "Do we have the skills and knowledge to fix it?" or even "Can we we get someone to do a good job?" We have learned both to take our infrastructure for granted, and to have very little confidence in the plant itself and the ability of our people to maintain and grow it.

The infrastructure nationally has been neglected; we have spent our money on other things. But we have build lots of bridges in other counties since the Bay Bridge was built. We have spent a great deal of treasure, blood, energy and intellect to ensure the economic and political well-being of other countries. We don't even notice our self-neglect anymore. It just seems someone long ago wrote in stone that America must always place the needs of other countries over those of America and Americans. It is as if that is our job. Today a total of 8 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan; what is that, a detail? How many bridges could we have built with what we did not need to spend in Afghanistan?

We cannot be good to anyone else until we are good to ourselves first. And it is too easy to make mistakes -- lethal and shameful mistakes -- in someone else's country.

We are skipping around in the world on borrowed money, at this point. The day will come, and sooner rather than later, when that money runs out.

It is time to come home and stay home. America and the world need a vacation from each other.