We have gotten to a point in our society where people can pursue courses of action that we know, they know, that everyone knows are highly likely to end in disaster. But then, when the aforementioned tragedy inevitably occurs, there is a demand that the federal government "fix the problem."

"In the early decades of the Republic, equality meant equality before God; liberty meant the liberty to shape one's own life....A very different meaning of equality has emerged in the United States in recent decades -- equality of outcome. Everyone should have the same level of living or of income, should finish the race at the same time. Equality of outcome is in clear conflict with liberty. The attempt to promote it has been a major source of bigger and bigger government, and of government-imposed restrictions on our liberty."
-- Milton Friedman

People should remember that the history of the world is not that of great countries rising to prominence and then staying there eternally. To the contrary, the landscape of history is littered with nations and empires that became great, lost the spark that made them exceptional in the first place, and then dissolved or came to ruin.