TIME magazine, the rag that declared “YOU” the person of the year in 2007, has made a similar hyperbolic declaration in its most recent cover story. It is entitled, “The ‘00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell.”

To make their case, TIME trots out the same sad story we’ve all heard before: the 2000 presidential election, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina, the financial crisis, Bernie Madoff, Guantanamo Bay. All this qualifies this decade as the “worst.”

Pardon my cynicism, but mightn’t this have a wee bit to do with TIME’s dwindling readership?

Was this decade really the worst?

Worse than the ‘60s, when race riots ran rampant, promiscuous sex and unlimited drug use became accepted and Vietnam eroded our national confidence?

Worse than the ‘40s, when World War II ravaged all of Europe, where roughly 60 million soldiers and civilians perished, 12 million died in Nazi death camps, an atomic bomb nearly destroyed an entire country, and death, as Joseph Stalin said, became a statistic?

Worse than the ‘30s, when the developed world went through the worst economic crisis it had ever seen, where unemployment in America reached 25 percent and people the world over suffered?

Worse than the 1860s, when brother fought against brother and father fought against son in the Civil War, resulting in the death of more than 600,000 Americans?

Me thinks TIME needs to slow down a bit.

The piece gives four reasons for this decade’s crappiness.

Neglect: “Our inward-looking culture didn’t heed the warning signs from around the world ”” and from within our country ”” that Islamic terrorism was heading for our shores.”

Greed: “Our absolute faith in the markets, fed by Wall Street, combined with the declawing of our regulators to undermine our financial system.”

Self-Interest: “The auto industry disintegrated while management and labor tangoes from one bad contract to the next, ignoring their customers and their competition, aided and abetted by their respective politicians.”

Deferral of responsibility: “Our power grid needs an upgrade and our bridges are falling down because we have not mustered the political and popular willpower to fix them.”

Let’s eradicate sin to make the next decade a better one! Come on everyone, let’s all chip in!

This smacks of the same utopian fantasies that tyrants have always used to fool the people.

The world will never be perfect. People make mistakes. Man is sinful. This will never change. Saying neglect, greed, self-interest and deferral of responsibility caused the awful things that happened this decade is akin to saying that a man cheated on his wife because he lusted after the other woman. Gee, thanks for that info Sherlock Holmes!

Our problems won’t be solved if we “avoid the easy outs of deferral and neglect,” as the piece says (as if we ever could). Lamenting scandals like Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme will result in nothing so long as the U.S. Federal Government remains the largest Ponzi scheme ever conceived by man.

Pointing out that we are still “the leaders in technological innovation” does nothing so long as the products we innovate are produced elsewhere and globalism is looked at as the golden calf. Saying we “must lead in maintaining order and crafting peace” around the world only ignores the reasons we have trouble internationally in the first place.

TIME is saying goodbye, but if we listen to them we may be saying hello.