Postimperial immobility summoned a tragic echo of the age of imperial mobility. Where once prison inmates were forced to work, now they are forced to do nothing. Where once disease was a tool of empire, now drugs have become a means of self-oppression. Where once guns allowed men to tame a frontier, now they are instruments of self-annihilation. Postimperial immobility is not simply personal tragedy but the birth of tyranny.
