I've seen it everywhere

And you probably have as well, but here's Charles Krauthammer's piece on "Decline is a Choice".

There is no free lunch. Social democracy and its attendant goods may be highly desirable, but they have their price--a price that will be exacted on the dollar, on our primacy in space, on missile defense, on energy security, and on our military capacities and future power projection.

But, of course, if one's foreign policy is to reject the very notion of international primacy in the first place, a domestic agenda that takes away the resources to maintain such primacy is perfectly complementary. Indeed, the two are synergistic. Renunciation of primacy abroad provides the added resources for more social goods at home. To put it in the language of the 1990s, the expanded domestic agenda is fed by a peace dividend--except that in the absence of peace, it is a retreat dividend.

And there's the rub. For the Europeans there really is a peace dividend, because we provide the peace. They can afford social democracy without the capacity to defend themselves because they can always depend on the United States.

So why not us as well? Because what for Europe is decadence--decline, in both comfort and relative safety--is for us mere denial. Europe can eat, drink, and be merry for America protects her. But for America it's different. If we choose the life of ease, who stands guard for us?

This is one of the things that turns my crank every time some idiot blathers on and on about how "Well, European Country X did this, so we should too!" Europe, with the exception of Great Britain, has reduced her military to nothing but a few foot brigades and some fancy flags. France was renting a tourist ferry to get troops to Bosnia in 1995. It takes an entire coalition of troops from multiple countries to equal the US troops in Afghanistan! Europe has been living under US protection for so long that they've taken their military apart and spent the money on their social programs, and they've been doing it for decades! So exactly WHO is going to do that for us? Hmmmmm? Every time there's some massive disaster, the USA is sending it's military to help recover and rebuild. America does more for the world than the world does for us, and I'm wondering just what's going to happen when we can no longer do anything due to our crippling debt and weak leadership.

Well, I guess we're going to find out rather soon, aren't we?