Puberty is awkward even for a superpower

ushistory.org preserves Thomas Paine's prominent works. In The Crisis (1776), one particular remark quivers with applicability in an otherwise dated paragraph.

Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

Ain't youth great? Every clean slate whispers promises of greatness – having nothing to regret afforded America and her founders such hope! Two hundred and thirty years later, she's effected the very opposite situation.

Were her regrettable actions benevolent? Malevolent? Unforeseeable? Short-sighted? All of the above for the aggregate. Certainly, all were encumbered by ignorance. But action is for the courageous, and inaction the weak. (Or was it the wise?)

I regret that the gravest decisions must be the burden of so few.