Actually the government has been reading email for quite some time. The bill currently in congress gives them more power to do so with out consent. Loom at the recent articles in the main stream media about the FBI and the IRS for starters. Then look at the complex being built in Nevada for information storage, calls and internet activity.

Those that give away their freedoms for safety and security, deserve neither and in the end will have neither.

I believe it to be in decline. I do appreciate your analogy with the industrial revolution, however, the US has declined in most social and economic metrics, save perhaps the military. We run, along with most of Europe, deficits that we can not continue to run. We continue to give away our wealth to China, who by the way has stopped trading in US dollars with other countries. The wealth in our country has stagnated for the middle and lower tiers of our citizens. If I recall correctly, 70 percent of our economy is driven services. We make nothing can sustain the debt we have.
Perhaps we have not hit bottom, but we are in decline and moving and moving faster towards that end every day.

This could be quite a good topic if it were not for the bickering in the post.

I do agree with the posts about family values, 2 incomes competing for the head of the household and children's affection. The decline of the USA is upon us. At least the country we once had. It now takes 2 people working to obtain what our parents had all the while allowing others to raise our children and teaching them their values not ours. If you punish your children you are a monster in the eyes of most communities.
So yes the decline of western civilization can be attributed the decline of the family unit.World war 2 was the start of the decline.