I don't know about Nero and Rome, and I don't play the fiddle, but I too have been busy doing things. The past decade has been an awakening for some of us, but the damage we allowed during the previous decades does not relieve us of the guilt we bear for our negligence.

The decline of The United States of America is no longer in its infancy. Barack Obama calls it the "fundamental transformation," but by whatever term you may prefer for the post hope and change lie, it is now a reality. Yes, it crept on us... but we were busy.

Some of the damage was done before my time, but my parents were busy then.

When FDR was dragging the nation through an extended depression recovery, my parents were busy raising children and praising the president for his handouts. They were busy, but in their defense the prevailing Socialist ruse seemed a logical solution to those in the depths of poverty. Because of the world war that followed that globally depressed economy, FDR and his social reforms were spared immediate accountability for his contribution to our current predicament.

My criticism of him is tempered by the probability that he held no guile for our great nation. Although his socialist agenda would ultimately contribute to the demise of our Constitutional Republic, I am not convinced that he knew that. He was probably unaware of the eventual dark consequences of his liberal social reform. Many of my generation and my parents' generation were just as oblivious, and besides, we were busy. I believe FDR did know that perpetual welfare would destroy America's work ethic, so perhaps his efforts were really meant to be temporary measures.

Earlier in the twentieth century, Marxists, fascists, communists, and all other variety of socialist were free to advertise their agenda without much in the way of repercussions. Fascism became a dirty word during and following WWII, but socialism in all its aspects was openly advanced. With the Cold War, Communism quickly became a dirty word and it became necessary for them to hide their agenda. Not that it mattered much -- because we were busy.

Barry Goldwater warned us about the consequences of socialism, but we were caught up in Camelot at the time. We were busy.

I was busy at the time of LBJ's Great Society, which wasn't socialist enough for the radical left. While they was making bombs and blowing people up, I was enjoying the new culture of free love and unaccountability. I was way too busy to adhere to the values taught me while growing up in a large blue-collar family in the 1960s.

In the 70s, Tricky Dick was crucified for corruption, but I was oblivious at the time because I was busy. You see, that was about the time I was discovering that free love and unaccountability wasn't free at all. I was busy trying to make a living and raise a family. If that involved supporting union leadership to keep my blue collar pay commensurate with the economic times, then that is what I did. After all, it was just a union, a brotherhood of workers, not a communist organization. So I was busy.

Slick Willie entertained us. He messed around on Hillary, but so what, he was cool. Anybody who blew a horn like that and smoked a little dope was one of the guys. "I didn't inhale", that was the greatest statement ever. We knew better because we had been there in the 60s as well. Maybe that behavior didn't adhere to the values we were taught in our youth, but those teachings were just not up with the times. A little indiscretion wasn't all that important. And besides, we were busy.

In the first decade of this century some of us were awakening to the realization of the consequences of thinking we were too busy to live the principles and values that were the standard when we were children. We were too busy to see what the decline of those values was doing to the future of our nation. Declining values forwarded by a liberal agenda were once openly proposed, then hidden when unpopular, but they did not go away. Now the declining moral values that we ignored, and even embraced to some extent, were coming home to roost.

I didn't vote for it in 2008 or 2012, but the nation did. Vice and corruption won the day in those elections because for decades we disregarded the warnings of the founding fathers. We were too busy.

For a country that was founded upon the values and principles that are necessary to provide liberty and freedom and justice, the only thing that can preserve that country is by adhering to those values and principles. The ill will that is held for our country by our current president is obvious, but hey, if you are too busy, don't worry about it.