The fiscal cliff and the "gun cliff" - the two big tasks US President Barack Obama faces in his second term - are not separate issues. The resolution of both will speak volumes about the true grit of American civilization.

The trouble with the United States is simple: Virtually all the problems it faces, from guns to taxes, are eminently solvable. But solving them requires a basic sense of right and wrong, and that is precisely what is in question.

As its "moral compass", the US relies on an ill-fated, mechanistic concept of splitting the difference. That may sound like pragmatism but is not given that one side regularly negotiates from cynical, extremist positions.