you cite the works of oswlad spangler, the decline of the west, the fall of the roman empire and quotet the beginning a bleak statement by henry kissinger about america's capacity to survive and prevail in this world, and i want to put it to you straight up somebody's obviously very thoughtful and spent a lot of time reading and deep thinking. do you think that america's decline in this world that you described is like that? america is inevitable, but given what you see today realistically, would you say we're on a downward slope? >> guest: no, definitely not. i'm not a declinist. i think we have to recognize there is a very strong strain of anticivilization, anti-international order that has gone back to the early modern age of our era, and i resulted it risso who says there's no legitimate government everywhere and we need an entirely new order, and i think that is is inside like a virus working inside the present civilization that we need to recognize, and recognizing that we can overcome it, and we almost seem to overcome it without consciously thinking so again and again and again