Decadent governments often spawn a decadent citizenry. […] when you wallow in self-centered, self-absorbed imperial exceptionalism, everyone on the planet has the overarching duty of loyalty to your own government, and you think everyone is under the auspices of American rule. There are multiple common threads here: the cavalier call for people’s deaths, the demand for ultimate punishments without a shred of due process, the belief that the U.S. is entitled to do whatever it wants anywhere in the world without the slightest constraints, a wholesale rejection of basic Western liberties such as due process and a free press, the desire for the President to act as unconstrained monarch, and a bloodthirsty frenzy that has led all of them to cheerlead for brutal, criminal wars of aggression for a full decade without getting anywhere near the violence they cheer on, etc. Full article.