Replies

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.

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.

Diocletian DID try to split the Roman Empire with two Augustuses (himself and his co-ruler, can't remember the name) or is it Augusti? and two Caesars -- one of whom was Constantine. Each would rule one half of the Empire. Soemwhat similar to what the Hapsburgs tried to do by splitting to become the Austro-hungarian empire.