How is it that our government and hugely important private sector pieces of this country have come to the point where failure has become the norm? I'm having a very difficult time getting my head around the string of failures of this new century that have done more harm to this country and to Americans than at any time or for any reason in our history.

I'm unable to dismiss all the events that have befallen us as mere coincidence. The numbers and seriousness of these failures establishes a disturbing pattern. I'm hard pressed to identify a single thing as a source of the difficulties. In general terms I am inclined to point to government ineptitude but that doesn't seem entirely descriptive.

Our national intelligence aparatus failed to properly quantify the Iraq circumstance. Our national emergency service aparatus failed to properly respond to Katrina. Our public infrastructure is coming apart at the seams and literally falling down. Our financial system is in ruins. We are unable to factually address pressing environmental issues. Our educational system is unable to prepare our citizens for the increasingly competitive global marketplace of ideas. Our system of managed healthcare is anything but. Our major industries can't deliver products suited to present needs. Every time we need something we need to talk to someone in India who we can't even understand.

Nationally, as taxpayers and purchasers of goods and services we have poured trillions into all these things and what has been returned is mediocre at best.

We are all consumers of all of these things. I suspect it is time to absolutely refuse to accept crap products. From our government or from the private sector. Either don't buy anything or don't pay when crap is what is delivered. As long as we contimue to accept crap that is what we'll get. We have rights in this regard and it is time to assert those rights.