Around the time I was born - an era equated by my youngest descendants with Medieval History, but actually the mid-1920s - Hollywood produced an epic entitled "The Vanishing American."

It depicted the plight of the Navajo nation, which had conquered the ancient cliff dwellers, only to be subjugated by our pale faced predecessors, for whom they were no match in determination and guile.

Thus, they and their Indian brethren forever lost control of their homeland, today retaining only a few casinos, modest reservations, fading traditions and occasional gigs in Western flicks.

It may seem a pessimistic comparison, but we here are being herded along a similar path by leaders with myopic visions, devious motivations and misplaced priorities.

I cite the fact that I've seen in my fourscore years a deterioration of national pride, a surrender of world dominance and a squandering of the most massive inheritance in the history of mankind.

We are now a debtor nation with international IOUs hell-and-gone beyond our ability to repay and promises (euphemistically billed as entitlements) to our citizenry which are pies in the skies of an economic Neverland.

In a hole hopelessly over our heads, we are resolutely deepening it and bequeathing little more than digging skill to our heirs.

Unable to provide enough jobs for our own citizens, we maintain borders no less porous than butterfly nets, openly inviting undocumented visitors (nee illegal aliens).

Unions, lobbyists and pressure groups have priced our products and producers out of the world market, piling up trade deficits which would make Jack's beanstalk look like a blade of crabgrass.

Our Social Security "system," originally designed as an actuarially sound retirement plan, is actually a busted piggy bank that should be drawn on solely by those demonstrably in need.

We are at the mercy of desert sheiks and other oil barons, while enormous sources of power (e.g., shale oil and nuclear energy are two that spring to mind) lie dormant.

Power politics and modern campaigning have given us, literally, the finest government that money can buy.

Patriotism has fallen into the same level of rarity as virgin brides and stirring sermons.

The dispensation of justice has less to do with what's right or wrong than with who can afford the more clever lawyer.

Customer service via telephone is routinely provided by marginally understandable Third Worlders with accents you couldn't cut through with a cutlass.

Fiscal irresponsibility, both individual and organizational, is too often "punished" by bailouts, earmarks and other governmental largesse, bankrolled by those who have acted prudently.

The United Nations is a snake pit of world losers, most of whom despise us, wherein we have earned the distinction of principal patsies.

Objective journalism is submerged in a cesspool of bigoted blather and partisan prattle in which only occasional whiffs of truth are discernable.

Our elected reprehensibles freely admit voting for legislation involving billions of our dollars which they haven't even read.

The top 1% of taxpayers, those much-maligned "rich folks," kick in 40% of federal income taxes, and the top 5% pay a whopping 70%, while nearly half of all U.S. households pay none.

Unelected "Czars," neither checked nor balanced, are a phenomenon which short-circuits the power structure of our government.

The "No Godniks," who would use the Constitution and other writings of our forefathers to abolish recognition of a higher power have obviously read few (if any) of them.

Under the guises of free speech, privacy rights and international Kumbaya, we are becoming victims of nations and ideologies which would have us relegated to footnotery in the annals of world history.

As a tenured denizen of Geezerland, I realize that many of these views are piddlings against the winds of current public opinion, given that very few of the people you'll see today had reached the presumed age of reason prior to World War II.

However, we of long tooth may be shrinking in number, but not in determination to preserve what we see as precious American values.

As a sop to those who regard the foregoing as calumnious calumny, I offer the following proposed revision - only slightly whimsical and cynical - of our Constitution's Preamble:

"We, the sheeple of the Disunited States, in order to deform a nearly perfect Union, redefine justice, encourage domestic hostility, weaken the national defence, promote majority welfare and steal the blessings of liberty from ourselves and our Posterity, do revise and emasculate the Constitution."

Vanquishing Americans are not yet extinct, but barbarians are storming our gates!