Posted on 02/23/2013 5:04:58 AM PST by IbJensen
It took Rome a lot longer.
“….the Roman government appeared everyday less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. The taxes were multiplied with the public distress; economy was neglected in proportion as it became necessary…. If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.” — Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
In New York City and Philadelphia “flashmobs” rob and vandalize newsstands and stores. This is a national phenomenon. In Chicago, the police department now won’t immediately respond to 911 calls if they involve post-burglaries, petty, or non-violent crimes. They’re too busy dealing with the daily carnage that is the nation’s highest murder rate, one that bested the number of military fatalities recorded in Afghanistan in 2012. When crazy people shoot up movie theaters and elementary school classrooms, we’re told it’s the gun’s fault. On a lighter note, the Wall Street Journal recently informed us that the demands of hip-hop fashion dictates that boys insist — despite the protestations of Mom, Dad, and school administrators — on wearing shorts to school in bitter winter weather. The girls prefer flip flops as their toes turn blue while waiting for the school bus. “Things fall apart; The centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (William Butler Yeats).
The schools are an administrative and intellectual wreck, and kids not knowing how to even dress themselves is a good metaphor for their current state.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The schools are wonderful and the kids are still polite.
People carry, some open, most don't display as it's not a big deal either way, since they are able to protect themselves.
Thugs meet quick ends out here, maybe not every time, but enough to know it happens most of the time.
It's a tough land, and it will eat you alive and keep your bones, but it's beautiful and it's God's country.
Maybe we're a last bastion.
Maybe we're an example for hope and to hold on. I choose hope and hold on."
My perspective is based on two precepts, one of disruptions and the other stability:
- First at both National and State levels economic chaos (spending and print money) and social decline (laws no longer enforced and social norms reversed) are making governance impractical.
- Second - People who are part of the older social order of yesteryear, keeping faith or supporting the laws and working are spread across the Nation in just enough numbers to keep a tenuous balance for the present.
The problem for America is that as those with New Social values conquer those who support stability, those who are stable decline in numbers. This lack of stable people who can be defined as those follow laws without being forced to comply; defined as those who work in self-supporting jobs; as those who care about each other, etc. are diminishing rapidly and while not lacking in population numbers at present, they are being marginalized at the ballot box and ridiculed in the media to as to brand them extreme.
The tipping point is at hand now. A few more years of liberal social revolution which rejects anything stable/conservative which now equates to Extreme has blinded those who seek to overturn the Country from a nation that once worked like a well oiled engine both socially and economically into a government directed social and economic enterprise.
The Government now must cannibalize those who still support the old economic model in order to support the new economic social model. Those who fail to produce enough to support themselves or support laws they find objectionable will force their chosen political parties to demand more wealth distribution. This is always done via a strong leaders mandate, oftentimes by executive order in our Nation, by passing laws or failing to enforce laws, and finally by literally putting all resources under government control.
The gun control issue is one that puts law abiding Americans into direct conflict with the current Government. The only people who actually support a gun control to take away firearms are those politicians who supporting the 50% part of America that is destroying the economic model in favor of a social economic model. They know that at the final tipping point, a government cannot use force to take the last bit of privately owned property or resources without a fight, and that if necessary there may be an economic breakdown completely whereby the Government must confiscate all wealth in order that those in power and those who support it survive until those who oppose them socially and politically are diminished, finished and destroyed completely.
It is time to let you ponder the many ways our Nation is be torn asunder and to figure out how to successfully survive this transition. Stocking up on Medicines, food/water and other necessities to get through a few months would be wise; It would be wise that immediately upon a Government-made disaster those who are conservative immediately without hesitation move to destroy those who be grasshoppers at the expense of the ants. Hunkering down will not do as at that tipping point those who seek to destroy are the weakest for only a fleeting moment.
I try to think of where to go, but only Russia comes to mind...... No f’in diversity wanted or needed.
Both. But unfortunately the base motivations are the same: Get all we can from government, avoid working as much as possible and don't you dare tell me that what I'm doing is wrong.
My only question is whether Obama is our first Caesar or our last. Will he be dictator for life, or the finishing touches of a once great civilization.
My compliments on making me look up a word meaning. It fits.
As for the contents of the article, the author nailed it. Some here added to it and the accumulation of observations is informative.
I agree with one comment about the effect of the coarsing of our society. Another commenter added our education system finds students who do not even know how to dress themselves. The latter comment is a personal rant of mine.
I used to point to the removal of school dress codes to the beginning of society losing its grip because it was the visual manifestation of the change from an orderly leader based institution to that of mob rule.
Face it, it is not possible to save the entire USA, but through secession we could save a huge chunk of it.
I can see a different parallel, one with some very ironic twists to it. And though it didn’t happen in the western Roman Empire, it happened in the eastern Roman Empire (which still considered itself the Roman Empire), whose capital was Constantinople.
Much of the irony is based on literal colors assigned to political factions: blue, green, red, and white. In America today, blue would be Democrats, green would be far left radical environmentalist Democrats, red would be Republicans, and white, conservative Republicans.
In Constantinople, these colors existed as well, both as political factions, and as sports teams. There was bitter competition between the two great factions, the blues and the reds, with the greens in loose alliance with the blues, and the whites aligned with, but mostly sidelined by the reds.
The blues were dominant, and were favored by the Emperor, Justinian I, who was a capable administrator but not a tremendous leader. He had a very strong wife, however, in the Empress Theodora I, who had been born a commoner and knew the hard side of life.
The problems began after a major sporting event, when several blue leaders murdered some reds, and were arrested and sentenced to death. The blues and greens rioted, some of the worst riots ever known, and much of the city was burned. Terrible devastation. These were the “Nika” riots.
What began as a protest soon turned into an effort by the blues and the greens to overthrow the emperor, and put one of their own leaders in his place.
The Emperor, again not a strong man, decided to abdicate and flee, but his wife, Theodora I, was made of sterner stuff. She made him sit down with two loyal generals, and scheme to preserve his crown and the empire.
So a peace conference was called, to take place in their great amphitheater. The entire blue and green faction was to attend, and they intended to demand terms of the emperor’s surrender and abdication, as well as to elect the new emperor.
Once assembled, the two generals brought their armies to encircle the amphitheater. Then a senior slave, known and liked by all, entered the amphitheater, and approached the leaders of the blue faction with bags of gold.
He said he had been sent by the emperor, and the emperor wanted to remind them that he had supported them in past.
They took the hint, and sent a message to their followers to all march out of the stadium at once, and they did.
The puzzled greens, however, on seeing the blues leave, decided the blues had lost their will to power, so they would name the new emperor from among the green leaders.
Great!, more for us.
Then the armies attacked the amphitheater and killed every one of the greens.
By this action, to which credit should uniquely go to empress Theodora I, the eastern Byzantine Roman Empire, instead of falling, lasted for another 200 years before it again needed a strong leader.
Of course, not all parallels are exact. We do not have an emperor and empress, but an Imperial presidency, for example. Yet the parallels among the political factions are almost eerie.
Nor am I saying that if the 20% most radical Democrats were exterminated, that it would do wonders for our constitutional order, stability and prosperity.
But it might.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
That’s what the urban blue voted for...6 TIMES!
I’ve lived in Tennessee and Alabama and both seemed like America to me. Even in the blue states when you go a certain distance outside the cities you’re in America. You don’t have to go to Russia or the Phillipines to escape. You just need to go to the next county. Maybe “countyism” is the new federalism.
Phillipines = Philippines
At least we allow CCW in Detroit.
The American Body Politic is withering from cancerous tumors right now. Parts of the Body may still be saved, but they need to excised from the spreading cancer.
And soon.
Permanently? Yikes! Does sound nice.
Chartering a free city, one capable of expansion, running on free enterprise and Constitutional principles, might be a better way -- not to mention less likely to be opposed. Who needs an entire state anyway?
Your idea is sound but the next political division down is the state - not the city. You are 2 Civil Wars ahead of the curve.
bert: I take issue with that statement.
So do I for a different reason. Voting only determines the speed, not the destination, which is the demise of America. It isn't a matter of what we voted for, it's a matter of what we are supporting financially; and not only supporting, but making possible. No govt can support itself at all -- it cannot continue to exist -- without the wealth freely, resentfully, grudgingly, fearfully, but always voluntarily, surrendered to it by the people who produce it.
Nobody is sending it one penny more or less than the govt demands, because Obama won, rather than Romney. Nobody. You pay what is demanded. That's the whole problem. You can scream all day how you loathe the government, but if you support it financially 100% all the time, no matter what, you are loving it.
We committed suicide. To help us die we elected a President a member of the Third World, one who does not even belong to our society. In my lifetime if one of his people had announced they were running for "Dog Catcher" our society would have burst out in peals of Homeric laughter. Today they are symptoms of our impending death.
I understand, but chartering a city does not result in a civil war. No state is going to secede, nor would the fed govt allow it (regardless of original terms of statehood).
People are far, far too timid to organize a secession movement. I’m trying to offer something realistic, though even a city would take a generation to beef itself up into a plausible contender.
And if it were mine to name, I’d call it Tax Haven rather than Liberty City. But I’m a cynic. :)
However, I have a faint hope that inside Americans(not Third World invaders)there may be enough spirit left to throw these "Third World leaders" into the trash.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.