Are We Going the Way of Rome?

Mackinac Center for Public Policy ^ | 9/1/01 | Lawrence Reed

[Skywalk]

I don't believe that disease theory for a minute.

I've heard people attribute the fall of Angkor Wat to that and it makes as little sense there as it does with Rome. I recall great diseases wiping out a quarter to a third of human beings not just in Europe, but in Asia(Black Death killed about a 1/4 of East Asia's population too) and those civs surviving.

In fact, look at the fall of nearly every civilization or culture and it's rarely attributable to disease. An epidemic may be the last straw, but no way it's the main cause.

Rome fell from it's internal weaknesses, weaknesses I see here.

It goes without saying that the movie Gladiator uses Commodus as the embodiment of the welfare-lord Emperor and Maximus and Aurelius as the symbols of all that was right with Rome. That movie was so much more than a guy getting revenge and fighting in the arena.

[breakem]

My two cents. The question isn't how did it fall, but how did it last so long. The fall of Rome was inevitable. A city could not continue to govern such a large area. The growth of population in the east, north and west made it impossible for Rome to control these areas.

For a couple of humdred years, the Romans would win a battle and then hire the vanquished army to serve as the Roman army in that territory. This practice along with splitting the empire into thirds, made it inevitable that Rome would fall and that the seat of power would be elsewhere.

[Zipporah]

No we're not going the way of Rome (other than the decadence)we're going down a trail that IMO is without precedence, remember Kruschev when he said we would be destroyed. Not by the means most think.. it's a battle of propoganda. The truth cannot be spoken without fear of being muzzled.. branded. So we 'suffer' in silence out of fear. We are IMO in the midst of a slow and ever more hasty destruction of the US as we have known it. It is many fold and if we don't open our eyes and become brave and ignore those who try to muzzle the truth, then we will deserve what we get.

[Cboldt]

A city could not continue to govern such a large area.

And maybe it shouldn't. Human nature and all that "rot." IMO, society is stronger when individuals take on responsibility, instead of vesting it in human "governors."

[linton59]

I watched "I, Claudius" three different times on PBS at 8 year intervals. The first time I saw only the personal villanry, (poisonings, etc.) The second time, saw the political chicanery..that was during the Clinton Administration. The third time, I saw the obsession with pornography. :(

[highlander_UW]

No we're not going the way of Rome (other than the decadence)we're going down a trail that IMO is without precedence, remember Kruschev when he said we would be destroyed. Not by the means most think.. it's a battle of propaganda. The truth cannot be spoken without fear of being muzzled..

While I agree that there are forces that seek to muzzle truth, but that is missing the forest for the trees. Look at the message those forces wish to promote. National health care, a welfare state, tolerance at the cost of individuality and freedom of thought. Essentially, socialism, the same sort of problem that brought down Rome. It is no coincidence that all 9 of the 9 dwarfs want to raise taxes, and in particular upon the rich...and after there is no rich (with the exception of those in power) they'll need to resort to taxing the middle class. I believe we are in very real danger of just such a fate.

[LittleJoe]

It is more complicated than that

Not really. Those other complications came about after the Romans traded their freedom for the welfare state.

We're doing the same. The only question is: What will the dark ages be like this time around? Lotta high tech stuff now that will make warlord types very powerful!

[blam]

Heavenly Intervention?

Catastrophic Event Preceded Dark Ages - Scientist

"LONDON (Reuters) - Something catastrophic occurred on Earth 1,500 years ago that may have led to the Dark Ages and coincided with the end of the Roman Empire and the death of King Arthur, a Northern Ireland scientist said on Friday."

[packrat35]

I have been saying this for 10 years at least. I am amazed at how fast it has accelerated since then.

[breakem]

You can talk about character and values and the wrong type of christianity all you want. For my money they could not govern developing regions like Germany, England, Turkey,Spain and France, and most of central eastern Europe from Rome. I stated the military and political reasons why the empire fell. Simply, you cannot split the empire into three sections and say look we're still Rome. And hiring a bunch of Germans to be the Roman army in Germany is a sure sign things aren't going to work out.

It has become mythological to look at morals or american culture and say watch out, we'll be like Rome. But the structure of our government, our initiative, and freedom do not make us a good comparison. Nor is what really happened to Rome analogous to anything going on in the United States. Only useful to "the sky is falling" and uneducated types.

[highlander_UW]

I found it mildly interesting that the article was written/posted 10 days before Sept 11th 2001. It appears that we have our barbarians at the gates.

[happydogdesign]

You are absolutely wrong. It is a fact that malaria"bad air" was endemic in much of the Western Empire, and took a heavy toll on the population, as it still does in much of the world today. Survivors are greatly weakened and susceptible to many other infections and ailments. Smallpox and many other diseases took a heavy toll on many civilizations, and many contemporary accounts of the plague of Justinian relate the devastation. Plague and famine were common partners, and given inefficient agricultural techniques, natural disasters, and climate changes, many cultures suffered declines, and were conquered or absorbed by others.

The facts are up until the last century, daily life was hard, short, and brutal for most of the world's population. Of course, those who use Gladiator and other Hollywood tripe as a basis for sanctimonious judgment of ancient cultures aren't going to be too interested in facts.

[Lady Eileen]

Bump and thanks for the post.

[SkyRat]

It is a fact that malaria"bad air" was endemic in much of the Western Empire

Source?

[RLK]

The reason Rome fell is the same reason the United States is falling to pieces.

No great nation or empire has survived the softness and excesses made possible by its sucesses.

America has seen its day and is on the decline, although we pride ourselves on still having a few bombs left to drop on undeveloped nations such as Iraq. Military victories, especially in a technological age against nontechnologized opponents, can occur while a nation is decaying internally.

[Travis McGee]

A democracy only lasts until 51% of the people figure out that they can vote themselves largesse from the public trough. We're about there, or perhaps beyond it.

[Mel Gibson]

The growing intrusiveness of government in America is not inevitable; it is not something beyond the control of the American people. It is, rather, the consequence of faulty ideas, which can change if only this message is carried forth by those who cherish liberty. Indeed, there are very promising indications that the intellectual battles these days are being won-often decisively won-by the friends of freedom and limited government, not by those who foolishly seek to put government in the driver's seat.

Wrong

Once excessive taxation is granted in a liberty-oriented society, the tax man must be "invested with extraordinary means of oppression, and then the country is ruined." To recapitulate, people in a state of liberty foolishly grant their government the right to levy heavy taxes, this in turn fosters evasion, and this in turn requires great punitive measures.

Direct taxes are the badge of slavery, and indirect taxes the badge of liberty. "Capitation [direct taxes on the individual] is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, because it has not direct a relation to the person" (Emphasis added)

Baron de Montesquieu in his The Spirit of Laws (1751) contained in the book For Good and Evil, The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization by Charles Adams (1993)

[The Duke]

A nation does not have to be on the road to ruin to suck.
Hey, but I guess I gotta be grateful, I don't live in
Britian, France or Canada! Now *THAT* would really suck!

[happydogdesign]

I would highly recommend Charles Panati's Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody, (along with just about any of his other books,) for a lot of fun facts and information that will give you much better perspective on how lucky we have it today. He has written a lot of books and articles on the origins of many things, and put together this collection of the rather ghastly demise of many people, beliefs, medical practices, and cultures. It is not for squeamish-especially the section on- well never mind- you'll know it when you see it.

[Skywalk]

" The facts are up until the last century, daily life was hard, short, and brutal for most of the world's population. Of course, those who use Gladiator and other Hollywood tripe as a basis for sanctimonious judgment of ancient cultures aren't going to be too interested in facts."

Wait a damn minute! Who is being sanctimonious? Who is using what as judgment here? You're using little-supported disease theory of civilizational decline, ignoring that nearly every culture, nation and civ has diminished and fallen because of factors that were definitely NOT microbial.

Who is ignoring the reality of human life until very recently? in fact, smartass, in that "tripe" I mentioned, Maximus says to Aurelius, "I have seen much of the rest of the world--it is brutal and cold and dark. Rome is the light!" And indeed it was, but that does not stop the natural developments of human nature and human social organizations and instincts from taking over.

If anything, because of its distinct greatness, Rome teaches us a lesson about what not to become, what not to embrace. I thought this was Free Republic, I thought the defense of the values that built this country is what we were about. You'd have me believe that the fall of the US will be brought about by malarai. Bah! Go to Bio Republic then.

You are still wrong, the malaria theory of the decline is not one with the majority of the scholars backing it, just as the SAME EXACT Theory for the fall of Angkor Wat is little-supported academically.

Some of us did study such things in school, ya know.