Posted on 04/10/2011 1:29:58 PM PDT by 0beron
Editor: They've done quite a job on the Catholic Church already.
Does anyone remember when Richard Nixon discussed one of the redeeming features of the Soviet Union as being its antipathy of homosexuals when he was talking in his office about Archie Bunker, said exactly the same thing? [Warning, fowl language, blasphemy] At first he starts demurring, saying he has no moral objections to homosexuality, then goes on to say that the immorality actually destroys societies. It's also interesting that Nixon's off-color comments are made much of when figures like Gandhi and Voltaire get away with it. Of course, apologists for Richard Nixon won't defend what Nixon was saying, they'll just argue that times, and morals, have changed, and if you know anything about principles, it's an indefensible position to take, but anyway.
Of course, never mind Richard Nixon, despite the fact that he's correct. Let another voice speak by way of a message from Bminormass on 'www.fisheaters.com", who said in his book, "Life is Worth Living" on P. 260, where he quotes the sociologist, Dr. Sorokin, who said:
(Excerpt) Read more at eponymousflower.blogspot.com ...
The only thing I care about is destroying Marxism and promoting Catholicism.
How about some Stones? Wild Horses comes to mind. Wildfire is all right too. You will have to go with your muse, I guess.
Anything you sing will sound beautiful, I’m sure. Looking forward to hearing it in your lovely, dulcet voice and your own inimitable style.
Re: 1 Rome had plenty of strong leadership, sometimes too strong.
Re: 2 Sure, when the central government fell because it could no longer levy sufficient troops or depend on its governors because they couldn't be trusted to act with the interests of the State, it became disunited. I think part of it is the familiar problem of the people no l longer trusting their leadership.
But how do you suppose they got to the stage that there was a crisis in confidence about the leadership, and the inability to levy troops in sufficient numbers? Again, part of the problem is that their birthrate was so low, they had to depend on foreigners and mercenaries to man their armies. Even their Generals, like Stilicho, were Germans or foreign nationals.
I'll submit to you that the low birthrate was partly a result urbanization and the public dole, but primarily the moral decline of the civilization as a whole. Roman Society no longer had that firm agrarian Latin peasant with a religious piety for the land and a patriotic fervour for Rome and her institutions, he had left the lands and gone into the cities because the agricultural production was done primarily by slave labor, while the numerous foreign wars fought by the Empire displaced him too. Also, many Romans settled in far-flung areas to the East and West, forming the basis of the Latin Civilization which survived the Roman Empire in time. So, the old Roman Legions were no more because the immorality of Roman society led to the decay of family life, the displacement of Romans from their traditions. And since the family had deteriorated, you no longer had a stable place for Roman citizens to be born, no virtuous young women to be suitable brides for virtuous young men to be the building blocks of the State as a whole; sounds familiar.
if you take the city of Roma, then no -- gays were more rampant a few centuries earlier -- read about Elagabulus the Roman emperor in 218 AD who had a blonde slace named Hierocles (Gallic probably from modern day Turkey) whom he called his husband, He was described as having been "delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the Queen of Hierocles" and was said to have offered vast sums of money to the physician who could equip him with female genitalia (Cassius)
This guy did lead to the decline before Domitian, but this was in 218-222 AD, 200+ years before the city fell to Roman-trained, Alaric in 410 and then Odoacer, a Roman cultured Germanic defeated Romulus Augustus in 476 AD. This was not due to homosexuality.
She even sat in a couple of times with that notorious band “HammerFrog”.
The Romaioi had the same problems that the Empire in the West had, although Orthodoxy in the East as in the West served as a stabilizing factor, but as in the Latin West, the Orthodox East had problems maintaining any kind of stable source of manpower loyal to the State. Part of the problem was too much centralization and high taxes, debasing the coinage, but all of that is ancillary to the moral, and there are many accounts of the immorality of the Romaik Empire told even by Monks and Bishops, threatening of a deluge. Indeed, when the city fell in 1453, most of the troops manning the walls were Italian and German mercenaries.
Rome the city had no strong leadership from the death of Constantine -- the Western Emperors were uniformally weak. Rome the Empire (Constantinople based) had wark emperors from the death of Theodosius I in 395 AD until the rise of Justinian.
Sure, when the central government fell because it could no longer levy sufficient troops or depend on its governors because they couldn't be trusted to act with the interests of the State, it became disunited.
Not completely correct -- the disunity was caused by various generals all declaring themselves to be concurrent Imperators.
But how do you suppose they got to the stage that there was a crisis in confidence about the leadership, and the inability to levy troops in sufficient numbers? --> because of two reasons:
Again, part of the problem is that their birthrate was so low, they had to depend on foreigners and mercenaries to man their armies. Even their Generals, like Stilicho, were Germans or foreign nationals. -- the birthrate was not "so low" -- don't forget that the Romans spread over Dacia, to Britannia and their blood is to be found in all of these places. The "foreign nationals" you call were Roman citizens, Roma did not care for your birth ethnicity. They even had a Semitic Emperor and probably a black/Berber (confused information on that) one too. It did not matter, they were Roman
primarily the moral decline of the civilization as a whole -- no proof of that at all after the Empire adopted Christianity. If anything, morals improved and were better in 410 compared to that under Elagabulus
. Roman Society no longer had that firm agrarian Latin peasant with a religious piety for the land and a patriotic fervour for Rome and her institutions, he had left the lands and gone into the cities because the agricultural production was done primarily by slave labor, while the numerous foreign wars fought by the Empire displaced him too. -- incorrect, the Latin peasant was still around, he also had farms in gallia, aquitania, belgia and Dacia and iberia. The foreign wars fought by the Empire did not displace him in any way as the wars were initially fought outside the boundaries of the empire and when won, the land was given to legionnaries to settle down and make roman in culture -- which they did
And since the family had deteriorated, you no longer had a stable place for Roman citizens to be born, no virtuous young women to be suitable brides for virtuous young men to be the building blocks of the State as a whole; sounds familiar. nice take from Gibbons, but not factual. As I said, morals actually improved in the 300s compared to the 200s.
I’m sorry but your analyses and comparison of Eastern and Western Empires is incorrect. The centralization and high taxes were not the root causes of the fall, they were the problems of the 200s century not the 300s.
She must have been the highlight of those evenings.
Allegra, you make my day when you sing, truly! ;-)
Oh Allegra! Please sing us a song! One full of emotion! Please! We await your great talent!
Then why not quit excerpting your own words and post the full content at Free Republic.
Would that not get more of your words read by more people? Why limit it only to those that continue on to your blog?
Centralization and high taxes were not root causes. The collapse of morality was. I never said that. They were certainly significant. Actually, decentralization was a becoming a significant problem in the 300s after Constantine. You wrote that you believe that morals were improving in the fourth and fifth century. What evidence do you have have for this?
I’ll be reading this. I like the Cato Institute for starters, but the first couple of sentences caught my attention.
It’s one thing I alluded to above with regard to State Socialism in the Roman Empire. It as certainly a factor and seems to belie what you’re saying when you say centralization and taxation wasn’t a problem in the 300s. The Reforms of Diocletian for example, attempting to stop inflation not only by freezing prices, but occupations as well:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cjv14n2-7.html
Maybe his blog gets a lot more daily page views than Free Republic.
snort...
snort..
BWAAAHAAAHHAAAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAAAA!
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