Ian,

A bit more optimism here, i don't see Western Culture decaying, i do see it changing, as it always has.

Western Civilization didn't decay once we stopped burning witches, learned that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, that that universe was not supported on the back of an enormous turtle, or the earth 4000 years old and created in 7 solar days. Hell, we even survived the abandonment of Greek and Latin classes.

I am old enough to get a bit nostalgic for the world i grew up in but remember that this world was itself being a cause for nostalgia for those of age considerably more than mine.

Re: empires. I don't get nostalgic for the post-WWII days when 1/2 the world was sweeping the embers of war away just to scramble to feed their young and rebuild the infra-structures real and social.

I am glad that today new countries emerge to share as equals in this wonderful but complicated world. Yes, there are cultural collisions that will be tough to work out but work them out we will (optimism again).

From 5000 feet i suspect these collisions will pit concepts of personal dignity and human rights (preached as concept in the "west" with a practice component of some real imperfection)and cultures of collectivism which preach the sub-dominance of the individual for the benefit of a greater society (usually dominated by paternalism).

Also as a specie we will need to learn to not preach manditory adherence to fairy tales at the service end of a weapon.

As to Bingo!

Craig, with respect, i think it's unfair to image environmentalist as some easily characterized homogeneous group. This happens on both sides where the KKK, Karl Rove, Jerry Fallwell, and Dwight Eisenhower are referenced as homogeneous.

I'm old enough to remember when asking folks not to litter was communism. When asking the question "where ya gonna' store that stuff" was communism, even in the last two presidential elections we heard patriotism equated with unquestioning compliance to what ever the boss was being told to do by his handlers.

As with all ideas, i would propose you declare your end goal, describe the metric by which it would be evaluated, and declare the expected time for the milestone achievement. If authorized by democratic process then upon each milestone the evaluation by the proposed metric would be used to either, authorize the next step, tweak the proposition, or abandon the practice.

Not a perfect way but laws without "sunset provisioning" are always dangerous and often non-responsive.

regards,
p