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If the United States is becoming Japan, why, exactly, is that a fate to be avoided at all costs? Why is a long-term future of social stability, affluence and effective day-to-day governance where most citizens have good educations, decent healthcare, adequate housing and nourishment, and do not go about their days fearful about their personal security something to fret over? For the entire recorded (and probably unrecorded) history of humanity, such a scenario would not have been a fate to fear but a utopia.