It's hard to say it's the end of "the American era" when it's still the only place in the world founded on ideals of god-given individual freedom and liberty and continuously striving to enact those ideals in a generative way.

It's always shocked me how little my fellow Americans appreciate the massive benefits they've gained from global good will over decades. Having grown up British in Cold War Europe and in Asia, despite a small degree of anti Americanism everywhere the bulk of popular opinion was net positive and that was a major coup for America for its companies and for its foreign policy. Squandering that over the decades since the end of the Cold War has been a generational betrayal of epic proportions.

The president and the NSA are basically saying, don't worry, we're not running a dragnet data mining operation that covers everything and everyone and violates your most basic privacy rights, unless you happen not to be a US person.

We seem to be at a rather dangerous stage within that process of globalization if a profound sense of injustice and inequality spreads beyond a small group of radicalized fanatics right into the mainstream of many societies around the world.

There are many benefits to having some cultural commons, a language that everyone knows, some common ideas about what's right and wrong. I'd hate to see the world slide into the kind of void that followed the decline of the Roman Empire, or worse some kind of global apartheid state.

When the wall came down in Eastern Germany, we tuned into Knight Rider and MacGyver. The A-Team and the Power Rangers were on and life seemed to change for the better as the German East experienced American liberalism after decades of authoritarianist socialism.

I glorified America growing up and as a 11 year old. In 2000, I was more excited to see the Statue of Liberty the first time than for any Christmas before. Nothing came close to seeing the city of my childhood heroes (the Ghostbusters) and seeing WTC/Empire State when driving in from JFK.

But 9/11 happened and somehow America sold its soul. Not that Gulf War or Vietnam didn't happen, but it changed everything about the tiny bits of the amazing USA that I had always imagined. Post-9/11 I ended up living for nearly 6 years in the US and all the problems became apparent to me as a growing teenager. America was not nearly as great as propaganda made it out to be.

Back home in Europe, I never once worried about health. Going to the doc was normal and expected. Emergency procedures were performed without a second thought to cost. In the US, I was billed $800 for 3 stitches when I cut my thumb (deeply) and I got lucky because university ambulance transported me.

In Europe, in my hometown of around 1 million people, I got into problems with bullies and ran into thieves/thugs and it definitely sucked.

But in the US, I experienced muggings at gun point, one mass shooting (~13 dead), one fatal stabbing on campus, one robbery in my SO's home, arson in the house across my street and one meth lab explosion... it felt absolutely surreal (happened all in Binghamton, NY - not really a prime example of a blossoming economy, I know).

In classes, people were overtly concerned with political correctness and yelled at Middle Eastern history professors for using specific "offending" terms. Also, excluding God from the evolutions lecture was a highlight. Every single international student felt cringe and embarrassment when that Midwestern girl yelled at 300 people that evolution is just a theory and intelligent design ought to be taught with as much dedication and she feels offended.

Personally, America often felt like it was run by corrupt cronies who torpedoed education where ever possible. College is a for-profit business rather than an investment into the next generation of citizens. It felt so weird and I think the social cracks that were apparent 15 years ago are now leading to structural failure in society.

There are many smart and capable people in the US. Whether they did amazing stuff for their local hospital, took part in the Apollo program or engineered comms for Lockheed Martin. I met so many amazing folks. I hope that their rational influence can be stronger again.

Now I will go back and concern myself with Europe's own massive problems. I carry the US in my heart, as I lived there for half a decade. I hope that the country is in a local minimum right now and that the path out is already in view.

America is a failed state, the majority of Americans just don't know it yet. The founding mythos, and ideological bedrock of America has been replaced by something toxic and subversive. The ideological upheaval of the last few years has left behind a broken and confused country. One that will inevitably fracture into smaller parts, or devolve unequivocally into a mess like South Africa. If you go to the former USSR (for one example), you can see monuments to the country's tenacity in the face of absolute peril. Statues, monuments, and architecture which proudly memorialise their heroes, and their history. Meanwhile, delinquents in America have been tearing down any statue or monument with a European-sounding name. America will end up a country with no history, and no future.

  "How dare you! Look at your awful selves first, Americans / Europeans / Cowboys!"

We're constantly being accused of being xenophobic, racist, imperialist, etc. Our prideful "Western thought" is arrogant.

These accusals are a constant assault on our nationalistic sense of shared identity and worth. The idea that no matter where we came from, that this is a melting pot. One where we admire rugged individualism and freedoms, and have a sense that if we work smart and hard and try our luck enough times, we will succeed.

There's an endless barrage of voices telling us we're horrible. It's starting to seep into the youth and shape their worldview. Most of this is coming from the outside.

The thing is, we know that there are a lot of broken things. We're working on it. Democracy is a work in progress. To quote Snowden, it's "a direction". Every new year is better.

America was never going to have a monopoly on power. Globalism accelerated Asia's rise to our level within just a generation, and now we have to work much harder to stay at par. When we praise our system and decry others, know that we're not angry about this situation.

Other countries are more appealing now as a result of this great averaging out of wealth and productivity. But the rapid increase in quality of life will taper off and begin to look just like America. We're not in decline - the world is catching up.

But even amongst equals, we Americans have a pretty good idea of the shape of the world we want. We want liberty, freedom of speech, and a subservient government. We want the opportunity to beat anyone. To not have our government stand in the way as a cabal. We want to swear at our leaders and draw funny caricatures of them without having to worry about our safety. We want to vote them in and out and investigate them when they do wrong. Because sometimes we think we know better, but even if not, it's what we think we deserve.

And before you raise Singapore on a pedestal above us, please realize that they kill people for minor drug possession [1]. I'm incredibly glad we don't emulate this model. It's not for us. (We do bad enough already...)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore...

But I will not be lied to, and I will not be coerced into a lifestyle not of my choosing, and I will not be intimidated. I deserve better. The United States has driven me to a life of constant fear, fear not based in delusion but in the severe mismanagement of its society. Daily I find myself at the mercy of its community, whose fear shake the seat of my soul: beliefs of technological domination, spying, etc. I will no longer provide free consultation, on doorsteps or coffeeshops; nor will I abide the complaints of American peoples.

Of this decaying society (U.S.), its peoples will manically accuse anarchism or even the grossest fictions, due to an untrained intellect. Of this decaying society (U.S.), its people must find someone to blame — at which point anarchism becomes indistinguishable from treason.

The United States has mismanaged not only its government; it has injected a venom against intimacy, intelligence, and true investigation. I cannot trust the United States to secure my freedom of intimacy, freedom of intelligence, nor can I trust its integrity or investigation.

I find it disrespectful to myself and undermining to my initiatives to qualify my identity with "U.S. Citizen."

In any event, most people who look at me assume I do not speak English. You cannot coerce someone into looking like an American, and a majority of Americans only look at me with abjection or fear since I have "wild" dreadlocks, which to them look unkept. In many cities, I am heckled on the street with terms like "nigger" and "faggot"; and in polite society, potential peers are taken aback at my personal history ("You can't REALLY be from there!") or even the mere fact that I am a trained philosopher and Web developer. In many ways I look like a "primitive" man largely on account of very matured dreadlocks, and this society is simply too naive, sexually repressed to allow for people who look like Russell Brand to walk the streets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ.

Every one of my days in public with you Americans reminds me of that interview. Even yesterday some square approached me to ask if rolling up one pant-leg was a "new fashion thing." I will not be trapped in a country of style-vultures-spies-after-our-personal-brands XOR complaint-ridden-poverty-stricken. I deserve better.

But now I'm physically reluctant to type out this fact, because it could conceivably jeopardize my next visa application.

The values and freedoms that people picture America stands for, and that it bases its claims to legitimacy on -freedom of thought and speech, democracy, for example- aren't values that America has any interest in upholding for people outside its own borders, instead it repeatedly shows contempt for them; and in the case of dozens of minorities (ethnic, religious, gender and sexual) it shows little interest in upholding these values and freedoms for its own citizens.

It's mind-numbing to me that Americans speaking to non-Americans who might begin to encounter reasons why American foreign policy in particular is littered with atrocities will now be even less exposed to that information of that because of the chilling effect of social media screening.

But we're finally seeing some real world events & consequences across the world that mirror our internal battle of values, seeing what heavily regressed shelted "anti-political" naivety & other declared antipathys & worse maledictions happening on the world stage look like, far & wide. It feels like there's a lot more examples of very ethnocentric, me & us thinking playing out on the world stage. Personally I find it scary but I think this system shock has a distinct potential to help the world reflect, to decide on stronger more pan-human values, in the face of these upswelling raging distinctionalisms.

In some ways I do worry, that isolationist & nationalistic programmes may see some sucess. But by & large, I feel that there's some pretty clear moral groundings staking it out, have been for a while, and seeing a lot more cases on the world stage, seeing more consequneces of what exclusivist policymaking really looks like is a painful painful painful lesson, but one that will illuminate & recalibrate us all, will help remind us & scare us our of some of our pervasive & monstrous behaviors.

I have some hope we can keep learning & watching, that the parallax view of other countries undergoing the sick battle for it's soul America has suffered & whether that & the law/system is for a very few or for a general public benefit-- I have hope.it carries the world towards caring & concerns. Tbings seem to decidedly be getting harder & worse. I feel like huddling closer has been a natural response, but ultimately has been tinged with cruelty & defeatism, and that we can start to recognize more how weak & scared & isolated responses- when we see them happening elsewhere- look bad, and dont help. I hope we can see the morality & logic of the situation better, seeing more of the world undergoe it's own self-crisis, it's anti-belief in structure & governance & trying, and find remewed vigor to work collectively for better. Just a hope, a small little one, but it feels so new to me to see this struggle playing out more widely.