People don’t even know the meaning of liberty anymore it is so confused with entertainment and debauchery. We watch the thieves in proud plain sight and we do nothing to stop them as they rape and beat lady liberty into submission we do nothing when we should have their heads.
You are absolutely right on all those factors leading to the collapse of the Roman Empire. I read once that the taxes were so high, that many of the Roman citizens welcomed the barbarian invaders as a relief from high taxation.
It seems that we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.
A self-ping for a morning comment. I think your list is a good one. I’d add a couple - first, the shift in political emphasis, military resources, and especially revenues toward Constantinople after the split of the Empire, and second, as Gibbon proposed, the dramatic shift in talent from the secular government to the building of the Church. It’s a little difficult to understand just how radical a shift it was until you consider that Christianity had, in the same period, run like wildfire through the Goths, and that the very men taking over the Western Empire in 476 AD were Arian Christians. The notion of a barbarian taking over the monarchy was tempered by the realization that the barbarian was a Christian, not to mention the leader of an army that was as close to Roman as anything in the field at the time. The Emperor was, by then, in Ravenna anyway, not Rome. It may not have been as jarring a change as it might appear to us at this historical distance. IMHO, of course.
Of course, there have been some historiographical developments since Gibbon’s day. One thing he failed to consider was the agriculutural revolution that happened in the East, which lead to an explosion in wealth and population in the barbarian East, which could perhaps be likened to the economic rise of China....
Also, most of what you have just mentioned is more indicative of the collapse of the Republic, following which there was another 500 years of Empire, much of which was even more successful than the the Republican period.
America has yet to reach it’s ‘Principate’ phase if we’re making the analogy with Rome here. So is Obama a Marius, brothers Gracchi or a Julius Caesar, or maybe a combination?
Bookmark for later
We are not an empire ruled by an emperor. Such a comparison was more apt for the British. We are a republic. As such, comparisons to the Roman Republic are more apt. Why did the Roman Republic fall?
Good night all :-)
We let government schools teach our children and they are infected with poison, and we continuously reelect the same politicians. We see it coming and all we want is bread and circuses. I see no way to get these people out of our institutions.
You can either head for the hills and live off the land, or prepare for and engage in revolution; and without effective organization a revolution will be short lived.
I don't know what to do except teach my children well, defend my beliefs, and vote my conscience.
It seems as though all great nations end this way. How does one stop it?
7)Dark ages followed.
the rise of Christianity was one of the main reasons.
you also left out the other major reason: meddling by the military in politics. When the army started picking emperorers, it was over. There were emperors who tried to give some power back to the Senate but the Senate refuse.
All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
Welfare and ball games bttt
These are the same steps that caused the collapse of every great nation.
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
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45 posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:41:31 PM by Jim Robinson (Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jimrobfr)
#1. Christianity
However, it is said that according to history, Democratic forms of government do not last much over 200-225 years.
We are wll over that time period and the people have forgotten why we were founded/established in the beginning and now we are so politically correct we accept most anything ‘without a whimper’, indeed.
It is true in my view that we have gone over the precipice and are in a free fall ...It is possible we will catch hold on a ledge ... and we may not.
Amazing how the majority of folks are not paying attention and do not take an interest in the government. ‘Entertainment Tonight’ is more interesting and along with ‘American Idol’,’Desperate Housewives’, ‘CSI’s’, and such ilk ... who is watching CSPAN?
It has great programs being broadcast daily ... informing America regarding the ‘Health Care’ debacle,. Which will inform America people of the real bill requirements.
bttt