More like the late Roman Republic. IMO.
We have yet to "cross the Rubicon".
Posted on 08/05/2007 8:43:29 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire
That is, are we Americans, citizens of the mightiest empire the world has known since the days of the Caesars, living in the last days of our civilization? Is the United States, like the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, doomed to collapse from its own decadence? Or can we avoid Rome's fate?
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Its really, really easy.
Moral Decay destroys nations from within.
Moral decay examples.
Killing children. - abortion. Moloch.
Perverse sexual appetities and preferences. homosexuality. Rampant pornography. Infidelity.
Calling good bad and bad good. Soldiers saving chidren daily are demonized in our media. The two border patrol agents currently in jail.
Defending criminals. too many to count.
Demonizing and criminalizing good people. People who want their children not taught about decadent sexual practices in school have been prosecuted by schools recently for coming in righteously angered.
Stop the moral decay and God smiles upon the nation again and offers blessings. The healing is miraculously fast.
How does moral decay start?
By good people allowing it to.
How do you stop moral decay?
By not allowing evil in your own backyard. One person at a time.
Folks, its time to rebuild the holes in the wall in fron of our own houses.
The temple has been destroyed, but we can fix it. It not enough for us to get mad and vent on line. We need to be out teaching people the difference between right and wrong, and sometimes thats tough. But it starts with each one of us.
I think there are many more good people than bad, and even if there werent, it would still be the right thing to do to stand up for whats right.
God always blesses those who do.
So where’d all the good people go and how do we get them back into the streets?
And “we’re doomed” is not a really acceptable answer ( it involves surrender)
:-)
have faith. Fair winds of change are coming our way..... just takes a spark....
More like the late Roman Republic. IMO.
We have yet to "cross the Rubicon".
| Just an opinion: the United States is not as powerful, comparatively, as the Roman Empire. And it is not even as powerful as the British Empire once was, unless you take into account 'soft power.' The United States covers a territory of land roughly the same size as the Roman Empire. Although it has military bases in many countries, it does not make the laws for these lands, and therefore does not control them. The Roman Empire ruled much of their surroundings (the Mediterranean part of the world) for around 500 years. In contrast, the American hegemony has lasted around 60 years, and, again, members of that hegemony are often quick to not fall in line with the American stance. Furthermore, it does not look as though American hegemony over much of the world will last for another 440 years. This is not to state that the United States is weak, but the Roman Empire was intent on getting conquered land. The United States could have usurped much of Western Europe's colonies, much of Latin America (a traditional region of American influence), and those Western European countries themselves, after World War 2. Even the Soviet Union could have been crushed in they few years between when the Americans invented the atomic bomb and when the Soviets did. Then their 'empire' and their own country could have also been taken over. The United States did not do this. Even in NATO and in the early years and height of the Cold War, American allies have had independent stances from that of the United States. The allied countries are not colonies or vassal states of the American 'hegemon.' The American people generally are an insular, isolationist people, who are not very intent on empire-building. |
Your comments about government becoming too complex are right on the money.
There are time when I’m glad I’m an old fart. I really feel sorry for the kids coming up. Their future is none too bright :(
Moreover belonging to a state united under this Constitution not only has inertia and vested interest going in its favor, it also has many real and tangible benefits.
And thank God for that! We can barely, sorta, keep our country on the right track, let alone empire-building.
We are, if anything, a mercantile empire. We don’t usually care to try to run others peoples affairs, we just want to sell them stuff and buy their stuff.
A nation is having peace and prosperity? GREAT! Let the good times roll. Sell us your goods and services and may we interest you in ours?
A nation is having warfare and strife. NOT AS GREAT! But we can sell you some guns and ammo, let us know when things settle down and we can set up shop and invest.
“””I really feel sorry for the kids coming up. Their future is none too bright :(”””
As kids, we never considered we were living in “The Golden Age” but upon reflection - I believe it was.
We took risks, but we were not ‘at risk’. Poor, but not impoverished. Wild, but not evil. Lots of siblings, sure we fought - basic training! Horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens - you name it, we raised it. We were such lucky little brats.
Damn technology!
•Both see themselves as the center of the world, divinely appointed to lead.
•Both have unusual capital cities where government is the main industry.
•Both let the private sector exploit public goods.
•Both are successful multi-ethnic empires, though with increasingly porous borders.
•Both have militaries stretched too thin to maintain imperial power.
•Both are unmanageably complex.
HOW IS THE U.S. UNLIKE ROME?
•The U.S. is a socially mobile, middle-class democracy; Rome was a rigid aristocracy.
•Americans are reluctant to be an empire; Romans accepted it.
•Rome was economically static; America is economically transformative.
•Romans were self-satisfied by nature; Americans strive for improvement.
•Romans committed to ruthless perseverance; Americans lack staying power.
HOW CAN WE AVOID ROME’S FATE?
•Accept that change is inevitable and that adaptation is necessary.
•Instill an appreciation of the wider world.
•Stop treating government as a necessary evil.
•Fortify the institutions that promote assimilation.
•Take some weight off the military. “
I am not an expert in Roman History, but I have read Gibbon, Plutarch, Suetonis and other history of that great entity. In reality, Rome survived over two thousand years, until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Western Empire collapsed for many reasons, while the Eastern Empire survived another thousand years.
The Western Empire was cursed with exceptionally poor leadership in the 5th Century, but its decline started much earlier. Gibbon opined that the Empire started its decline after the death of Marcus Aurelius. The Age of the Antonines was the peak.
“The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and more laborious kind. It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years, he embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as things indifferent.” Chapter 3
Others that followed:
“Yet the arts of Severus cannot be justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He promised only to betray; he flattered only to ruin; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation.” Chapter 4
The Western empire fell because the political, social, moral and economic integrity of the society was not supported. The so called barbarians (most were German tribes or Huns) were described by Gibbon:
“Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty. From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a persian harem. To this reason, another may be added of a more honourable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human.” Chapter 9
“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.” Chapter 35
Gibbon also found that the early Christian Church was a part of the problem. The early church was obsessed with monasticism, where many bright people became monks:
“While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops...”
Gibbon found that the Arian controversy a huge divide in the early church:
Rome was rotten to the core, neither its aristocracy or its common people cared terribly much for what was left of Rome’s greatness in the 5th Century. Civic and moral virtue were rare and the Barbarians had much more of both.
The USA has NOT in my opinion ossified to the degree of 5th Century Rome, however, Rome started is downfall three hundred years earlier. During that time, its leadership produced some of its greatest and most virtuous leaders. The end was not written, as the Eastern Empire survived with more of a Greek cultural influence, and better leadership.
Our country has lost some of its will. No one thought we could lose a war during WWII. It unthinkable. Korea and Vietnam were not victories, at best ties.
Comparing Rome with America is difficult, since, our government was different, the economy was different, and the World is not different. However, if we lose our civic and moral virtue, and the will the win, the end it inevitable. American will fall more because of people like Jane Fonda and moral degenerated like Paris Hilton, especially if they become dominate.
We are not Rome, but the more power, authority, and tax resources become centralized in Washington and States become little more than administrative and postal boundaries, the more we become vulnerable to the the same fate.
“Are we Rome?”
This question has been raised many times before but no one has come up with an answer - especially not from our political leaders. Answering that question gets you branded a racist.
America is more akin to midieval times. The 1200 to the 1500’s.
We have the kings....political family names over generations moving into high leadership positions.......Bush, Kennedy, Rockefeller, etc.
We have the rich who control most of the financial wealth, and “grant” a certain percentage of good, hard working followers the ability to “own” property as long as the owners pay into the financial empire of the rich.
This group would be defined as the middle class.......or serfs. They would be the smarter in society. The innovators who enhance the wealth of the rich. Among them would be the Sheriffs who enforce the laws of the land as directed by the rich and the King’s Court.
We have the working class who works in physical labor jobs in agriculture and services. Many are not “granted” the credit rating to own property so they have to rent from the same rich landlords who grant property ownership to the middle class. This could be considered the servant class.
Then we have the peasants who are provided places to live by the rulers, and provided basic necessities in exchange for menial jobs or just for being loyal to the rich who grant them their subsistence.
That leaves the squatters who migrate from job to job. Who are criminals and illegal immigrants that will do whatever it takes to survive. They can be manipulated easily because they are criminal and will take the side of whoever protects them at the time. They live in the shadows of the King’s Castles.
The Roman Republic fell when the backbone of the Roman Legions, the citizen-soldier in the mold of Cincinnatus with a primary loyalty to the Republic, was replaced in the days of Marius by professional soldiers with a primary loyalty to their own commanders.
The greed of the patrician class in monopolizing the ownership of vast areas of land, however, greatly contributed to the economic ruining of the citizen soldier and his dissappearance.
America has succeeded where the Roman Republic failed by maintaining a strong middle class, by curbing the excesses of the monopolies, by curbing the excesses of the mob and by a military culture that would not dream of EVER staging a coup de etat.
It is a very tricky juggling act that America has accomplished so far.
Once any one of those balls falls, the American Republic will go the way of the Roman Republic.
Disagree on both this period and the late Roman empire.
The US currently is more like the late Republican period of Roman history. The main question is can we find a way to continue to have a republican government or will a successful and charismatic general render the legislative branches window dressing after a coup?
The Roman Empire was the most brutal, evil political system of it's time. Except for all the others.
“””Once any one of those balls falls, the American Republic will go the way of the Roman Republic.”””
Damn gravity!
Actually, that describes the Roman Rublic with its patrican class and families like the Julians, the Cornelians, Caecilians and the Fabians that controlled wealth and power for generation after generation over the entire Republic.
Although powerful, the family power was not absolute and the power could be and often was thrawted by the power of the plebian's Tribunes.
The feudal era was characterized by a much more localized and absolute power.
In the feudal era, a Lord Bush or a Lord Kennedy would own the fortress on the hill dominating your town and, upon learning of your post, Lord Kennedy would be sending a group of soldiers to pick you up this afternoon and throw you to rot in the castle dungeon.
Tactical:
We are not Rome, but the more power, authority, and tax resources become centralized in Washington and States become little more than administrative and postal boundaries, the more we become vulnerable to the the same fate.
It is the duty of every citizen to ensure that his State resists the efforts of fed and local infringements on individual liberties.
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