increasingly can do nothing step back from whatever allegiance bias you have for a moment and see the spectacle of the united states incapable of everything but nothing. it s a new thing in american history. so new it just crept up us on in the past few years. so shocking that most of us don t see it because we can t. pattern recognition is one of those gifts of man s intellect but it requires a prior pattern to work. never really seen the government in washington, d.c. capable of nothing before. and, yet, here we are. the list of things the federal government suddenly cannot do is nearly a list of things absolutely everyone, left and right, democrat and republican, expects a government to be able to do. the federal government cannot win a war. the federal government cannot secure its own seat of governance. the federal government cannot ensure domestic tranquilities. the federal government cannot guarantee law. the federal government cannot establish justice.