On historical hindsight, you will notice that all great empires have eventually ended. As citizens of the greatest empire ever contained within the space-time continuum, that should spark a fear in our souls. What if, G-d forbid, America is to go down along with its mighty peers, to be nothing more than a boring highlight in history books in decades to come?

I am not alone in my hideous assumptions. Greenpeace may attribute the collapse of the Free World (and the planet) to environmental problems; Pat Buchanan blames immigration. Both opinions may be true, but I will now draw light on another. America's luxuriant culture is sweeping its people away in a wave of destructive excess, leaving it debateable whether or not America's future generations will be physically and intellectually fit to maintain this wonderful country.

Let us look at the development of a given child. By the time he or she enters first grade, over 5,000 hours of decadent television has been programmed into his or her developing mind. The parents of this child will have spent half of their presumably meager food budget on greasy fast food nosherai; He or she is guaranteed to have visited the local McDonald's at least once within the past month.

This child rarely sees his or her father. Dad is a workaholic, engaged in his job 49 hours per week, probably off limits due to custody issues, with mom putting in 42 hours per week to keep up with workplace demands.

By the time his or her teen years will roll around, this child will have surrendered 16,000 precious hours of intellectual activity to the decadence of television. Only 12,000 hours would have been spent in school to make up for that lost stimulus. You can bet that he or she will be binge-drinking at least once a month, probably to swallow the stress of college preparation.

Frighteningly, this is the average American child.

Let us examine the influences of each of these forces that govern the child's life. The excessive TV watching and fast food consumption are known contributors to the development of learning disabilities in children. They also contribute to all sorts of ugly behavioral problems. With a steady diet of these two evils wreaking havoc on the child's young mind, it would be one thing had abundant parental guidance been present to lovingly smooth out his or her kinks. But yet, that is nearly absent as well, in this era of turbo work days-and turbo love lives.

The evidence continues to mount. Statistics show that there is a direct relationship between parental presence and childhood character. I can remember grade school, where the dorm kids were the aggressors and the "home kids" were mannerly and docile. I use this experience as an extra vindication of what science has already proven. It has also been proven that excessive TV wreaks more havoc on the developing mind than simply distorting its learning abilities. Educational psychologist Jane M. Healy, an opponent gluttonous TV consumption, scientifically testifies that TV not only stifles the development of creativity, reflection, and imagination in children, but impairs concentration and nearly all linguistic faculties.

This standard American system of upbringing will eventually yield the predictable result of more stupid and unhealthy people for a shrinking minority of incompetents to care for. To those of you fortunate enough to sit beyond comprehension of this, this means more government, more social programs, less innovation, less opportunity, and less Democracy as the intelligent minority will torpedos the pitiful majority. Hence, tyranny will result, and couple with the callous lifestyle of an increasingly dumb populace to bring America to its final collapse.

To stymie this horrible potential development, as many American as possible should do something resembling the following: toss some meat, carrots, onions, and celery (pardon the cooking lesson) into a pot full of water. Let this boil on low for an hour and a half to 2 hours. No stirring or supervision is necessary. When the soup is ready, store it in the fridge and heat it up for supper. It is a healthy and gratifying alternative to the swarm of chemically enhanced junk you and/or your children would be receiving at the local McDonald's. Remember to pack some hard-boiled eggs in case you get hungry in the middle of the day. That should keep you off fries for a while (the average American consumes 28 pounds of them per year). When the need comes to shake off a workday's stress, keep the remote where it is and take your kids for a ride. If you don't have any, help out the single mother next door. These are examples of activities that provide much-needed relief from today's destructive lifestyles.

Although it has proven itself to be the world's best system, Capitalism is not above math, and we are not above science. If we continue to engage in behavior that is scientifically proven to be destructive, we will eventually be punished by the laws of science. By then, the free market may no longer exist to protect us. So if you want America to be outdone by its socialist but healthier European counterparts, get on with your lifestyle and ignore me.

Copyright 2002 by Esther Hartstein. Not to be reproduced in any fashion, in whole or in part, without written consent from the author. All rights reserved.