Posted on 09/05/2015 5:11:03 AM PDT by NYer
The fall of Rome was a culmination of several external and internal factors.
Great Wall of China
By 220 A.D., the Later Eastern Han Dynasty had extended sections of the Great Wall of China along its Mongolian border. This resulted in the Northern Huns attacking west instead of east. This caused a domino effect of tribes migrating west across Central Asia, and overrunning the Western Roman Empire.
Open borders
Illegal immigrants poured across the Roman borders: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Alemanni, Thuringians, Rugians, Jutes, Picts, Burgundians, Lombards, Alans, Vandals as well as African Berbers and Arab raiders.
Will and Ariel Durant wrote in “The Story of Civilization” (Vol. 3 – Caesar and Christ, Simon & Schuster, 1944, p. 366): “If Rome had not engulfed so many men of alien blood in so brief a time, if she had passed all these newcomers through her schools instead of her slums, if she had treated them as men with a hundred potential excellences, if she had occasionally closed her gates to let assimilation catch up with infiltration, she might have gained new racial and literary vitality from the infusion, and might have remained a Roman Rome, the voice and citadel of the West.”
Loss of common language
At first immigrants assimilated and learned the Latin language. They worked as servants, with many rising to leadership. But then they came so fast they did not learn Latin, but instead created a mix of Latin with their own Germanic, Frankish and Anglo tribal tongues. The unity of the Roman Empire began to dissolve.
The welfare state
“Bread and the Circus!” Starting in 123 B.C., the immensely powerful Roman politician Gaius Gracchus began appeasing citizens with welfare, a monthly handout of a free dole (handout) of grain.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Yes. Lesser of two evils. Not much lesser, but lesser none the same. At least give the nation time to come up for a last breath.
“It isn’t just America, it’s the whole western world.”
There’s another factor causing the decline of Western Civilization that’s not mentioned in this post, and that is:
Survival of the unfit.
Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (often referred to as The Theory of Survival of the Fittest) describes the positive effects resulting from any “pressure” on an animal species that removes the least fit among the species and allows only the most fit of the species to reproduce. Many of us are well aware of this “Survival of the Fittest” theory, but few are aware that Darwin also makes mention of the negative effects resulting from unlimited reproduction of a species’ least fit when the weak, the lazy, and the stupid are left unchecked.
We like to think otherwise, but our species, Homo sapiens, isn’t that long “out of the trees” and the same laws of nature that affect all of God’s creatures apply equally to us. If we were to observe any other species that had been allowed to reproduce without limitations, we would know immediately what the consequences will be.
Whenever the weak; lazy; and stupid of a species are allowed to reproduce unimpeded by predators that feed off the weak; lazy; and stupid, they soon outnumber the strong, productive, and intelligent. When the weak/lazy/stupid dominate the gene pool, the entire population becomes weak/ lazy/stupid, and then the population collapses.
In the past, when these collapses occurred within human populations, they have been referred to as a “Malthusian Collapse.” Thomas Malthus, a Nineteenth Century Economist, thought these collapses were caused simply because past civilizations had reached a point where human populations could no longer produce sufficient food supplies to feed themselves, but he never pinned down the exact reason for the food shortages.
We now think some of these collapses of past human civilizations have occurred whenever the unproductive weak/lazy/stupid greatly outnumber the strong/productive/intelligent of the population. In other words, the majority of the population becomes too lazy to perform the work necessary to provide for themselves and what’s left of the strong/productive/intelligent refuses to continue to do it for them.
These collapses have occurred at frequent intervals throughout human history, and Western Civilization is, in my humble opinion, currently on the cusp of one of these collapses.
D.J. Taylor
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it hundreds of times from my 92 year old Father. Over and over he has stated that we are following the path of Rome and doing it in 1/2 the time.
Depressing
There are actually three players in this drama - the fit, the unfit AND the “beast”.
It is the “beast” that causes the fit to feed, clothe, promote the reproduction of the unfit to the potential demise of the fit.
But who is this “beast” and how does he do his work?
“Such a clever and inventive civilization, this Western culture, but the things it creates are ugly. They destroy the self-respect of those who make them and of those who buy them. And the ideas it produces are worse. The biggest idea that this West of 1973 has produced is “the beast,” the idea of “world conscience.” This beast is made of two parts, one of guilt and one of anti-racism. The guilt portrays Third World poverty as a consequence of Western greed, while the anti-racism condemns any attempt by the guilt-ridden to protect themselves against the Third World retribution that is to come.”
From... http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1504/article_1340.shtml
The questions that the events of today and Jean Raspail’s “Camp of the Saints” are forcing us to address are these:
What are the limits of compassion? At what point does compassion end up killing the compassionate one? How do we arrive at and define that limit? What do we do when we reach it?
Unfortunately man bears a huge burden in being the only animal with the awareness of good and evil. It makes you wonder if this is just the latest echo from genesis and the original sin?
“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
That Eve sure caused us a lot of headaches!
The Chapters are short and straight to the point. It is the sort of book that can be set aside, and when picked up, the reader has lost nothing in its continuity. It is also in the public domain. Cheap.
Thank you, will look into it and I’m certain I’ll enjoy the read.
Apud eundem, Haec non Stercore
I have been preaching this for a long time and my dad was on it before me in the 70’s or 80’s.
We have a barbarian invasion going on, aided and abetted by the “patrician” class - just like Rome.
“The only thing new is the history you don’t already know”
Harry S. Truman
Purgamentum, my FRiend, purgamentum. My kids read this site.
Free from the Gutenberg Project, plays nice with Kindle...
Hey, we warned you about having them learn Latin, it’s nothin’ but filth all the time from those gladiator-loving freaks. ;’)
Rome conquered/built Ostia sometime before 600 BC; the Roman capital was moved to Constaninople more than 1000 years later, and C fell in 1453 -- a total span of 2000 years. So, even if there were a real parallel (and I doubt it), the news is not all that bad.
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