Are We Going the Way of Rome?

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

[freedumb2003]

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."

Hillary Clinton was born

[Skywalk]

I disagree somewhat.

I don't think most are saying the US will fall in the same way as Rome, and be dissolved into a new grouping of polities or cultures, but to say that it will be reduced in stature, that what made it American will pass is not doomsaying.

I have no problem looking towards Rome as an example because they are certainly a more comparable model than, say, the Eastern civilizations. I mean, I don't see what lessons we can glean from the dissolution of the Mauryans or the Cham kingdom.

[happydogdesign]

Malaria and the Fall of Rome
By Andrew Thompson

[highlander_UW]

Hillary Clinton was born

I think she had something to do with the "bad air" theory being proposed as well.

[happydogdesign]

One word-DECAFFIENATED

[breakem]

The lessons of Rome are don't split the country into three parts and don't try to control distant territories using local warriors as your surrogate army.

The moral and personal responsibility issues are just an excuse for those who want us to be vigilent and are only tangential issues in the fall of Rome. The military, territorial, and European demographics issues are so immense that everything else is insignificant.

Some people in the US need to keep us on the alert for decay. Hard to fault their motivation, just their sense of history.

If you need a historical analogy, why not use the british empire of France or the Dutch. Or better yet the Soviet Union. We certainly don't want to be like them.

[freedumb2003]

I think she had something to do with the "bad air" theory being proposed as well.

Double whammy. Actually, I mis-spoke. I think that is when Hitlery sliced her way out of the incubus.

[neverdem]

Our current emperor is pretty generous, especially for a cheapskate, miserly pubbie.

I think there was a porn flick called "She can't say no".

He can't say no.

[Porterville]

Um, Rome was an Empire that wanted everything... the USA is a country that everybody wants to be.... see the difference???

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

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

evidence: we allow barbarians from the south to come and wipe our decadent arses, with the ultimate consequence that they will be the future of this geography, long after we've frittered ourselves into oblivion.

[Skywalk]

And you don't feel that the shift in the Roman military from Romans(and Italians) to locals and "Romanized" barbarians is a reflection of a cultural sea-change?

[sport]

Faster and Faster!

[Skywalk]

I'm sorry if I came off as harsh, but I posted the words that made me upset.

If you want to disagree, I'm cool with that, especially because I think I'm right on this one.

But saying I'm not interested in facts, 'tripe', etc sounded like dismissal rather than rebuttal.

[RLK]

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

-------------------

I don't have books in front of me, but it is a fact of nedical history that plagues would regular pass through Europe and hit 20% of the population, even as it did elsewhere. It also equally affected adversaries of great empires. As I recall, one of out own continental congresses was moved or called off due to the fever. As a student of history I have visited graveyards to see people planted in wave of disease.

Having said that, nations don't fall because of plagues. There are other primary reasons.

[highlander_UW]

Um, Rome was an Empire that wanted everything... the USA is a country that everybody wants to be.... see the difference???

Certainly, however, if the author is correct, Rome taxed and welfared itself into poverty while undermining hard work and personal responsibility at the same time. Slice it anyway you like, but the U.S. is in very real danger of following just that model. No doubt there were an array of contributing factors as well, but this alone could place our nation into a compromised situation...if we're not there already.

[JmyBryan]

There are many reasons, but disease can certainly be primarily responsible.

[Travis McGee]

He also can't fire dirtbags or holdover renegades. This consistantly undercuts him.

[breakem]

It's a reflection of the demographics of developing territories. There were population explosions in Europe during those centuries. How long do you think the Romans could govern a territory in 400 the same way they during Augustus.

So it's your theory that if the Romans were morally squared away and accepted individual responsibility, they would have continued to be able to control Europe and Asia Minor? And how long would that have gone on you suppose?

Let's just take one territory as an example. Germany. The Romans and Germans played a tug of war for centuries. Sometimes the Romans would move into German lands and sometimes they would push the Romans back across the river. How long do you think the Romans could afford to put 1/2 to 1/3 of it's military on the German frontier and contiue to hold the rest of the empire in place?

[Skywalk]

Rome was more than an Empire, don't you think? Even if they had failed in maintaining control of North Africa, Southern Europe and Asia Minor, there was still a possibility that a distinctly Roman and VIBRANT polity could have survived.

I don't look at the fall of Rome as an inevitability due to demographics, though certainly the fall of the LARGE Roman empire was attributable to such factors(and others)

you really think the change in society that resulted from the bread and circus mentality had nothing to do with how Rome was subdivided and fell?

[qam1]

The lessons of Rome are don't split the country into three parts

Not really, Considering after the split the Eastern Byzantine Empire lasted another 1100 years which is a pretty good run by any standards.

But I can see the USA breaking in 3.

The Left Coast
The "Red" States
Northeast

Of course The Left Coast will quickly go to the Mexicans the way SW France and Iberia went to the Visigoths after the split and the Northeast will fall apart like the Western empire with NYC becoming a decaying sewer hole just like the city of Rome at the end (though Bloomberg might turn it into that before our split)

The Red states should do fine.