In my youth I was a Science Fiction buff and couldn’t get enough of the likes of Asimov, Forward, Niven, Clarke and Heinlein but it wasn’t until recently that I came across a wonderful quote by Robert Heinlein that sums up the condition in the United States perfectly.
I have read some of Heinlein’s novels, “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls”, “The Number of the Beast” and “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” but I had missed the novel “Time Enough For Love” in which this quote originates:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
There is another acronym that Heinlein used in the novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” that is also relevant to the US electorate – TANSTAAFL which stands for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
Now we have 4 more years of the Obama/Reid regime, Obamacare is here to stay and the Takers are driving the Makers out of society so in a few years even Leftist will learn that TANSTAAFL.
cosmoscon 
There are many books and writings of learned men which reflect on the past and warn of the future. Up until now, most of these writings were viewed as theory, or philosophy, or even fiction.
The scary thing is, many of them should all be in a different category altogether: Current Events.
Speaking of such authors, I’ll add my own personal favorite, from Orwell’s ‘1984’:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”