[Paul C. Jesup]

In order to vote in Rome, you had to be a citizen. That required being male, having had military service and owning property. Hardly 'free' in the modern sense.

You got that confused, to vote you had to be a male citizen of Rome. Now there were three ways to be a citizen, one is to be born by parents who were both Roman citizens, two be declared a Roman Citizen by a Caesar or three join the Roman military and after 25 years of service at retirement from the military you were made a Roman citizen with your own land and a nice pention.

As well, ownership (and by extension trade) was limited to citizens. See above about how this is hardly defined as 'free'.

Yes and no, it depended on what type of property and where it was located. A lot of trade happened in the Roman nation and not all of it by Roman citizens.

For example: (History Channel's special on the Gaul) the Gauls, after centuries of being enslaved by the Romans, were finally given their own homes lands in the Roman Nation and were allowed to trade.

I would fairly wager that I've forgotten more about Roman history than you'll ever hope to know, so why don't you get back to me when you've got a clue? Alright, cuz?

It is not so much that you have forgotten, but that you have the information on the different eras in Ancient Rome all jumbled together in your head.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Well which era are we talking about?

The bottom line is that Rome was not a massive believe in representative government being born after Greece's fall. In fact, the whole idea of a Repbulic was born out of the failure of Greek democracy.

Most of Islam is still at the early stages of that fight. The concept of representative government is bewildering to them and as alien as the Aristotelian works they protected for centuries.

As for Gaul, I understand the struggles of Vercingetorix and how Gaul was ultimately subdued, then allowed equal status mainly to counter the rise of the Huns and Vandals.

Regardless of this history, we are not dealing with similar circumstances. We are an inherently free society built on the idea of cooperation and assimilation. Consider the Roman experience with Christianity.

Rome fell because it was unable to assimilate new ideas and stopped expansion because of the overgrowth of bureaucracy (among other things). If they had sauntered out to follow Alexander the Greats steps, been open to other cultures, they could have established the silk route as a viable Roman trade route, subduing Persia and Southern Asia in a way nobody has been able to do.

In fact, the problems we're dealing with right now are really an outgrowth of Rome's mismanagement and bloating. The problems are without and within.

We're offering a better standard of living in Baghdad. Over time, that will win us the Midddle East. If you've ever seen 'Life of Brian' you'll know what I'm talking about.