The Sun Has Set

Today marks a new era...how cliche.
However, I do believe that the perception of the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers is no longer the vision being pursued by our leadership in this Late Great America. Now before you contradict me and go into some diatribe equating our current president with the likes of men such as Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln; Please allow me the privilege of knowing the most current book on American history you have read, high school textbooks being exempt.
My position in writing this essay is not to determine which vision is better, rather to state that they are different. Very different. I will not take the time to elaborate on the particular details at this time, instead I will endeavor to challenge you to reflect on the totality of the 2 Very Different Visions.
Therefore you will gain an understanding in what is meant by "The Sun Has Set." I was enjoying a great discussion with several friends the other day regarding our current political situation facing this Nation and while we were challenging one another and strengthening our comraderie, one of our friends had to adjust his seating due to the fact that he was being blinded by The Setting Sun. I mused how appropriate it was that we enjoy this Vision on the eve of this inauguration.
As a student of history, I am able to appreciate the Rise and Fall of Nations and the cycles that ebb and flow. History does not lie and God is not mocked. We may argue about our views and clamour for our version of "The Truth." But that which has happened has happened and that which God promisede will happen. This one thing I am sure of.
In 1787 at a Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was waiting to sign a document that would hold the fate and destiny of our nation. As he stood, his eyes fell upon a carving on the back of George Washington's chair, a carving of half a sun. He stared thoughtfully at it for a minute, then proclaimed words that would be remembered forever, "I have often looked at that picture behind the president without being able to tell whether it was a rising or setting sun. Now at length I have the happiness to know that it is indeed a rising, not a setting sun."
200 years later, if Mr. Franklin was asked about this chair, would he reply, that the sun is rising or would he ackowledge that the sun is setting? I believe this answer can be found in several revealing statements made shortly thereafter.
1. Outside Independence Hall when
the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended,
Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin,
"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded,
"A republic, if you can keep it."
2. "When the people find they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic."

What say you?