Posted on 09/18/2024 8:55:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It is a common historical myth that Rome fell in 476 A.D. after Odoacer, King of the Goths, sacked the capital city and forced Romulus Augustus to abdicate his throne.
The historical reality is rather different. Over the course of nearly a century, Germanic tribes – fleeing everything from war, famine and tribal politics – moved, unimpeded, into Roman territory. And the Empire died not by traditional invasion but by unchecked mass migration.
During this period, Rome was ruled by a disaffected elite. Rather than send out a legion or two to kick some culus and take nomen, they decided it would be easier and cheaper to just wave them in and grant them citizenship. In return for citizenship and farmland, entire clans of Angles, Burgundians, Franks, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Visigoths agreed to serve in Rome’s military forces. The fact that this upended centuries of Roman law and practice regarding citizenship didn’t cause the upper echelons of Roman society to get their subligaculum in a bunch. They figured, now that the barbares were citizens, they’d just start acting like Romans.
That was overly optimistic thinking on the part of the Romans. Assimilation tends to occur when people enter a new culture, in small numbers, and experience social pressure to blend into their new communities. Assimilation tends to make it easier to get along in one’s newly adopted homeland because it eliminates barriers to economic success, like being unable to speak the local lingua franca.
But Rome admitted too many Germanic tribesmen, too quickly. Suddenly Rome’s elite found themselves trying to persuade guys with names like Giselric the Plunderer or Hairuwulf the Skull-Crusher to slap on a toga and eat stuffed grape leaves while daintily reclining on a Roman lounge chair. As you may have guessed, that didn’t work out so well.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself, “Gee, that sounds kind of like the U.S. today!” you may be onto something.
BTTT
We’re forgetting that the fall of Rome had a bright side: it lead to the dark ages. 1,000 years of no progress with 99% of the public living in complete poverty and no chance of upward mobility.
I googled: roman empire fall inflation
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Inflation in the Roman Empire occurred when there was too much money chasing too few goods. The inflation rate reached 15,000% between A.D. 200 and 300, after the Great Fire destroyed half of Rome in 64 AD.
The Roman emperors debased their coins with cheaper metals, such as copper, to help pay for the empire’s obligations. This increased the money supply and the government’s spending power, but also resulted in rising prices for goods and services. The quality of the coinage and faith in its value plummeted, and by the end of the 3rd century, any trade that was left was mostly local, using barter methods instead of any meaningful medium of exchange.
Many scholars list the unstoppable hyperinflation as one of the top economic causes of Rome’s fall.
Everybody was struggling to survive. Some say that climate change was the reason the Huns migrated west southwest and pushed out the Germanic Goth tribes, forcing them onto the western Roman Empire. It's the cooling periods, not the warming periods, in which climate change is a factor in mass atrocities.
Yes, but there weren’t any more mean tweets.
The zips are already inside the wire.
A short tour of the California State Assembly members can tell the story...
https://www.assembly.ca.gov/assemblymembers
The only problem for this gang of foreigners and aliens is that the rest of the world will not be convinced. Chairman Xi will not be worried about any resistance from a polyglot gang like this when he decides to bring the renegade Nationalists of Taiwan back into the fold. And he will be right; they will do nothing.
The rest of the world, including Bad Vlad and a host of other malign players, will see it the same way....and act accordingly. As they are actually doing right now.
This is the turning point here and now. A complete alien like Kamala Gopalan Harris in charge of the arsenal of the Fwee World, as she terms it?
Uh, no. That by itself is the greatest threat to not just our “fweedum”, but the entire planet.
We parallel Rome to a “T”.
Slaves became currency. Many Romans calculated their wealth in terms of how many slaves they held.
Rome had a large, disaffected, and surly population. Sound familiar?
I get the sarcasm in your post, but bear in mind that the 1000 years that gave rise to the cathedral, Dante, and the University was anything but dark.
The eastern Empire, with some bumps in the road, lasted almost another millennium; Constantinople finally fell to the Turks in 1453.
The thing that really killed the western Empire was "offshoring" their national defense. The more your army is made of up of paid foreign mercenaries, the more tempted they are to simply plunder their employer instead of waiting for a paltry payday.
These invaders have no devotion to America and its traditions. Consider the differences in my visits to two amusement parks last year and the national anthem playing at the park opening:
Silver Dollar City, Branson, Missouri - 95% traditional white American crowd. Everyone turned to face the flag, hand over heart, hats off, many people singing.
Six Flags near San Francisco - 80% of crowd was Hispanic/Muslim/Pakistani/Indian. I was one of only a few to turn and face the flag. People were talking and laughing during the anthem. I obviously stood out because a park employee saw me, shook my hand when I walked through the gate, and said “thank you.” The rest of the day at the park was like being in a foreign country.
Uh-boy.
So basically, socialism. A socialist oligarchy. Monarchies are basically socialist oligarchies where the inner party justifies itself deserving to rule by “royal bloodlines”.
Great analogy.
THOMAS JEFFERSON ON IMMIGRATION
Answering arguments to more rapidly increase the population of Virginia over the natural rate by increasing immigration from Europe.
“But are there no inconveniences to be thrown into the scale against the advantage expected from a multiplication of numbers by the importation of foreigners?
It is for the happiness of those united in society to harmonize as much as possible in matters which they must of necessity transact together.
Civil government being the sole object of forming societies, its administration must be conducted by common consent. Every species of government has its specific principles. Ours perhaps are more peculiar than those of any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, with others derived from natural right and natural reason.
To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.
Is it not safer to wait with patience 27 years and three months longer, for the attainment of any degree of population desired, or expected? May not our government be more homogeneous, more peaceable, more durable? Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.
This paragraph is worth highlighting.
“To these nothing can be more opposed than the maxims of absolute monarchies. Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.”
You rightly point out the debasement of money as the main cause of Rome’s destruction.
Money represents the structure of society - nearly every decision we make, arises from judgements about relative scarcity and value of things (prices) and our own resources. these are all measure by MONEY.
Exactly like the USA today - all other problems arose FROM that.
Almost no one talks about the long-term social, demographic and even religious/moral consequences of Government (and its cronies) being able to manipulate and debase money
ROME had legions on the Rhine for a reason. When those Legions disappeared Rome was invaded and fell.
Where are OUR legions on the Rio Grande?
Constantinople had legions in the East. When those legions were pushed back Constantinople lasted for a while, then fell to the moslems.
Where are OUR Legions on the Rio Grande?
Socialism, or its big brother communism, is even worse. It includes the illusion that the world can be a perfect place if government can just eliminate the bad elements in society, which happen to be anywhere from a quarter to half the population. Maybe more if there’s nothing to stop them. And then the rest live in total fear.
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