Critical Mass

It takes a critical mass to keep a culture alive, I once heard someone say. Ishi was the last of his tribe and whole civilizations have come and gone. The tipping point comes when you lose your way or someone takes it away from you. George Washington, for all his faults, understood what torture was. Tecumsah killed his own warrior for torturing a white prisoner. Our Bill of Rights was written with an empire's abuses in mind. Once, these things were understood, and despite our faults, we were proud of who we tried to be. A people and its leaders not outraged by our abuse of others rights and bodies, and even of our own, has lost its critical mass and become everything its founders feared that we might become.