The Weakness of Empire

The American Conservative ^ | May 22, 2006 Issue | Michael Vlahos

[A. Pole]

History has not dealt kindly with imperial ambitions, and America, however benevolent her intent, cannot hope to be an exception.

Something remarkable happened on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Commentators began to declare, in somewhat exultant tones, that America had at last become a true empire. America was of course also a benevolent empire, they insisted, but that nod to altruistic tradition could not hide their excitement that America had at last joined the greatest empires of the past.

Implicit in these giddy declarations was the assumption that empire was an exalted state of power and possibility, not so unlike Rome at its zenith. Ironically, and for a historical instant, they were right. But there is one inescapable aspect of empire that the commentators missed. Empires are weak. It is republics in contrast that are strong. The United States is a republic that has been operating like an empire, and it has suffered for it. If we look at the gold standard for empire - Rome - we can see why.

First of all, what is an empire? Empire has less to do with scale of realm or of power than it does with one single feature. Simply, it is a polity where politics itself revolves around the person of the emperor.

This differs from the politics of kingship. Kings represent and embody a densely woven social fabric. They preside over a society of aristocracy: an extended family of rule, where the king is also father. Empires in contrast often emerge from republics. Thus Rome has been a favorite model for American commentators precisely because its successful passage from republic to empire seems close to ours.

Such post-republican emperors often inhabit the complex politics of multiple competing constituencies. These groups and factions continue to do political business within a republic’s constitutional framework transformed. Thus emperors find themselves consulting with and cajoling senates or assemblies; and unlike kings, they may owe their very legitimacy to these bodies.

Weakness 1: The Imperial Person

But the making and the doing in politics swirl around the imperial person - indeed, politics is dependent on the imperial person. This is the first weakness of empire: because politics revolves around the emperor, the rise and fall, success and failure of state policy is ultimately his alone.

The imperial situation is thus one of continuing and always worrisome vulnerability because no matter how many supporters or factions an emperor marshals, they can vanish in an instant. No matter that they have been handsomely bought off with perquisites and gifts, no matter that they are kept in line with threats and periodic cruel example. Failure of an imperial venture puts imperial authority itself instantly at risk.

Thus emperors do their utmost to ensure that politics is stuffed with reliable personal retainers. Longstanding official empires are a bit easier on the imperial person: there may be a tradition of a submissive bureaucracy and a compliant senate, and so the emperor’s legitimacy is less at the mercy of policy failure. But crisis immediately opens up the prospect of rival claimants and coups, usurpations, and civil wars.

A republic’s robustness, in contrast, derives from its ability to replace an elected leader and his government with relative ease. This is consecrated in the U.S. Constitution by mandated quadrennial elections of its executive.

Our constitutional framework is still in place, but after 9/11 it shifted operating practice to the imperial. Basically, 9/11 created an imperial dispensation. Through it the president took on the mantle of the office of commander in chief, which under the circumstances was perfectly natural. But then he went further and announced a state of perpetual war - "a war of generations," "a hundred years war" - and so transformed himself into an imperial person. The transformation here was from episodic commander in chief - when and where circumstances warranted - to permanent generalissimo. His primary identity was now that of the military commanding person.

U.S. tradition and precedent limited the office of commander in chief both to the duration of a specific emergency and in terms of presidential powers. The Cold War chipped away at congressional authority to limit presidential powers. But the breathtaking 9/11 attacks drove the president to expand these powers further and make them truly open-ended.

Here the imperial transformation was not simply about power. Even more persuasively, it operated in the realm of authority and expectation. The popular climate was such after 9/11 that Americans seemed to share the prospect that American energies now revolved again around a great world struggle. Here of necessity - or so everyone thought - the entire conduct and control of this struggle should be vested in the emperor. The president took full advantage of the new zeitgeist to lock politics into an imperial orbit. Moreover, Americans also believed that war was the new national norm and that it would last a very, very long time. Few questioned that the situation marked a historic shift in the inmost nature of American politics.

So the president, through the transformed office of commander in chief, became an emperor. But the war that made this possible was now an imperial war and so his exclusive enterprise. He deliberately denied national participation - "go about your business" - that would have put this war squarely in the tradition of the old republic. Now it was his, and the benefits were great, extending deeply into American society as much as they did across the globe.

But the president also took on this weakness of empire: the enterprise stands and falls with him.

Weakness 2: The Imperial Purse

In crisis, a republic can claim all the energy and resources of its citizens because in the end the citizenry and the republic are the same. In empires, however, former republican citizens have given over their political authority to the trust and keeping of empire - and also their deepest responsibility to the nation as well. The emperor now manages; the emperor now defends. This is the heart of the imperial compact, and it is expressive of a fundamental political transaction: the citizens yield over management powers to the imperial person in exchange for a release from civic responsibility.

In revenue terms, this means that although they will still pay a citizen’s normal taxes, they are no longer obligated for extraordinary levees. Formal empires, in fact, are unusually weak when it comes to squeezing the very top citizens, those who in a republic would have been the foremost contributors. Remember, an empire that succeeds a republic retains as a sort of sacred fiction the old constitutional framing. And behind this fiction is continuing reality: that the emperor is not all-powerful, but rather dependent on the same political constituencies that were players in the old republic. The emperor cannot do without them, and he cannot afford to alienate them. Thus the top citizens in effect have to be bought off. This president has done just that with his extravagant tax cuts. In other words, the emperor can have his war, which itself is necessary to his majestic exercise of imperial power, as long as he does not demand too much from the interest groups whose support he needs for the continued exercise of imperial authority.

It is up to the emperor to marshal what national resources he can - and this is especially true in elective wars he has taken on and made his own. He cannot ask citizens to bear a burden that is exclusively his, and this limitation extends to money. As historian Mark C. Bartusis wrote, "In Byzantium there was never a general ‘citizen’s duty’ to fight for the state. In fact the very notion that a subject had an obligation to defend the state was foreign to the Byzantine mind set and antithetical to both Roman and Byzantine ideology that identified the emperor, through his army, as the Defender of the Empire."

War expenditures therefore must exist in a "normal" fiscal context - which naturally limits the scope of imperial actions. Thus truly grand war by contrast and by definition is always a republican, or people’s war.

This limitation is even more keenly felt when it comes to soldiers. Here it is not simply a question of how they are paid, but also how they are recruited and retained. One of the key transformations of republic to empire is precisely in the shift from armed citizenry to imperial military. By fighting his own war, the emperor above all needs loyal troops: both figurative troops in politics and real shooters in the battle. The transformation from armed citizenry to imperial military is not simply a shift from conscription to volunteer force. In fact, it is necessary for the new army to become the emperor’s instrument, and thus it must be at some deep level bonded to the imperial person. In this way, the empire’s soldiers are also transformed. But it is often metamorphosis so nuanced as to be easily missed that they become the emperor’s retainers.

If they are native volunteers, then their emotional motivation to join is still patriotic - for the nation. But increasingly, their functional motivation as soldiers changes and is expressed through their direct allegiance to the emperor, in whose wars they fight. He is their benefactor, their protector, and their leader. Integral to imperial authority and imperial majesty is also the emperor’s overarching identity as soldier (hence in the original Latin, imperator meant general). Therefore, the emperor’s relationship to his soldiers must first be one of a general to his troops. He may not actually lead forces in the field, but his persona is anointed as generalissimo and war leader. For this president these ties were underscored in media interviews with troops on the eve of war: "We’re good to go when our commander-in-chief gives the word."

This relationship has also been etched repeatedly in very public and very emotional images of the emperor with his army. The president would often give war speeches at posts and bases where his person was always staged with troops arrayed in back of him, as well as before him. There he would stand in camera-eye in a sea of battledress uniforms. The emotion would run high, encouraging him, lending steely drama to his voice. There are even images of soldiers in the round, outstretching their arms to him. At applause lines his troops would go further, washing his presence with whoops and hoo-yahs. The ties of the imperial person and his army were further consecrated by his ubiquitous short military jacket, emblazoned with its badge and title of supreme authority: "George W. Bush, Commander-in-Chief."

Weakness 3: The Imperial Majesty

We have indicated that the personal politics of empire are surprisingly fragile, and that the politics of the emperor must therefore always be about reinforcing or shoring up his politics by the constant reminding exercise of imperial authority. This is best done not through attempting to acquire more statutory power - a risky and problematical pursuit - but rather through radiating more authority.

This is after all why people put up with emperors at all. People have come to believe that leadership of the polity and the nation requires a single, celestial man at the helm.

Imperial vesting happens because the emperor in his imperial person is the bringer of triumph, the vanquisher of foes in a world milieu of constant, "lurking" insecurity - a favorite term in presidential rhetoric because it helps to sustain the impression that enemies are everywhere, all the time, requiring constant, strenuous, and victorious executive action. In Rome this quality of the imperial person was famously styled as victor ac triumphator.

The emperor himself was anointed ultimately through the legitimizing concept of "eternal victory." Rome’s very identity came to be couched in terms of perpetual triumph - over foes, adversity, backwardness, over what was not Roman. Moreover, the nation’s (res publica) triumph was achieved always through the intercession of imperial leadership. The emperor had to be the quintessential generalissimo, and victory thus became the essential hallmark of his reign.

The emperor’s authority was established through what became the central Roman imperial ritual: the imperial triumph. In the triumph, the emperor’s semi-magical persona that marshaled the forces of the nation and led them to victory was celebrated and revealed.

Central to a Roman imperial triumph was the conveyance of the imperial person to the sacred place where triumph would be celebrated - a stage entrance always freighted with grand symbolism. Our emperor’s landing on the flight deck of the USS Lincoln was no exception. Instead of a triumphal chariot, the president arrived on a military aircraft in which he was co-pilot, thus demonstrating to all his soldierly bona fides.

The Lincoln itself represented a grand symbol of American power and an enormous icon of eternal victory. In this triumph it is significant that the emperor chose to celebrate exclusively with his troops, where Americans were collectively placed outside as second-class onlookers - thus underscoring their depreciation of citizenship while elevating the military’s relationship.

In Roman times, of course, the army was often the source of imperial legitimacy. Just as the army would proclaim a new emperor by elevating him on a shield borne up by troops, so this emperor was raised up by "his own" (ton idion). In a supremely public moment, the emperor chose to have his own legitimacy ratified before the American people by the very military that represented "his own."

The procession and prostration of the enemy leader is a common trope in Roman victory ceremonies. The vanquished leader undergoes ritual divestiture of his badges of authority and then is forced to prostrate himself before the imperial person. This ceremony was often associated with the army and took place in the camps. But Justinian transferred this ceremony to the imperial capital in 534. The public triumph over the Vandalic kingdom culminated in the divestiture and proskynesis of Gelimer, which served to signal to the Gothic kingdoms that their regimes too were illegitimate, that they were no better than usurpers, and that they were next.

When U.S. forces pulled Saddam out of his "spider hole" they made sure to videotape the filthy and disheveled dictator during a medical examination. This was no medical moment but rather a carefully orchestrated ceremony of divestiture and prostration. Like similar late Roman ceremonies, it took place in one of the battle army’s encampments, but it was also broadcast worldwide, to have the widest public impact, like an ancient victory procession in the imperial capital. Indeed, modern ceremony puts its ancient antecedents to shame. Not only was the entire world shown again and again the interior of Saddam’s mouth, but also the purposeful degradation of the former ruler went beyond even the old Roman act of forced proskynesis.

The emperor-president also addressed the people in carefully assembled, handpicked venues. These not only guarantee high levels of emotional support - visualized on-camera as positive energy - but they also bring forth comments that are less questions than they are petitions of support. In the president’s March 22 "town hall" meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, one military wife exclaimed, "I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, for a solution to this, because it seems that our major media networks don’t want to portray the good. … And if people could see that, if the American people could see [the good], there would never be another negative word about this conflict."

These are reminders of imperial authority flowing from popular acclamation. These events become all the more essential as imperial popularity wanes. No matter how selective and narrowly unrepresentative the audience, its enthusiastic acclamation is broadcast to all as though it were all-American.

But of course, modern America is not ancient Rome, and Americans are not generally even like old Romans. But it is rather astonishing how some of the rituals of imperial kingship - those that defined imperial authority 1,500 years ago - should have reappeared, unbidden and unrecognized, and yet with such crystal fidelity in our own politics.

Moreover these echoes, however strongly they have sounded over the past four years, may well be fading. The entire imperial enterprise erected around the global war on terrorism seems to be receding, if not heading toward wholesale collapse.

But the imperial moment was real. For a time at least the American Republic came close to being transformed - in operating politics if not in its actual constitution - into an empire.

We would be wise at the very least to acknowledge how close we came to the politically irreparable. We should also recognize what attends the transformation to empire. For a time, national politics came to revolve dangerously like old empires, and almost wholly, around the person of the commander in chief. Everywhere it was believed that the fate of the nation was in his hands, that he would protect us, that he would lead us to victory - and moreover that the people were passive onlookers in a great struggle run by the emperor.

Two convergent conditions made this happen.

The prodigal symbolism of 9/11 - whose emotional power transcended Pearl Harbor - demanded a national narrative on the scale of America’s great wars, especially World War II. This was not simply a war narrative but a sacred war narrative. It alone seemed to demand a struggle between good and evil and an American national messianic mission of world redemption - or at least Islamic-world redemption.

At that moment, Americans were not only emotionally vulnerable, their emotions inclined them toward the comforting and the mythically familiar. We were ready for a great war that would unify the nation, vanquish evil, and lead to a better world. We were primed, in short, for a war of national transcendence.

And this administration was ready to give America a military catharsis. Americans were ready for the war leadership of a commander in chief. But the administration took the all-powerful Great War trope and shaped it into an imperial rather than republican vessel of authority.

Like Rome, the administration made victory the foundation of authority. It was implied that a series of campaigns would be necessary to achieve millennial goals such as "democracy in the Middle East." The situation called for active and constant presidential leadership. Going further, the entire management of the war would be the president’s alone: there would be no government of national unity, no national mobilization, and no conscription. Not only was the president acting as commander in chief, he had undergone a metamorphosis: his person now fully inhabited an imperial station.

Furthermore, the administration also transformed the war into a permanent dispensation for imperial authority. The "long war" was designed to take normal politics and normal expectations off the table. By accepting the reality of the long war, moreover, Americans were encouraged to submit to a working imperial constitution. In practice this meant widespread expansion of executive powers at home as well as abroad.

But now "his own" closest retainers have deserted him, and even the military is no longer ton idion. And so, according to ancient story, the emperor is increasingly isolated, if not quite alone.

Our very strategy now founders because it was vested entirely in the cockpit of one man’s vision. So what is next? Where do we go from here? What lessons can we draw from the past five years?

First, the office of emperor as bringer of Eternal Victory is now a bankrupt, rotten concept. The quest to fulfill this triumphant identity did not bring victory but instead visibly weakened American world authority and domestic cohesion. Arguably no future leader will touch the model of triumphal rulership for a very long time. Therefore future executives will be less tempted to transform themselves into working imperial persons.

Second, even if the model of triumphal rulership has been discredited, the other imperial dispensation - the "long war" trope - is still alive and well, so even the next president might be tempted to renew a state of national emergency and become a permanent war leader. Then, if a real war rears up, the lure of triumphal rulership will beckon yet again.

But national emergencies are nonetheless real, and the political-military role of commander in chief was designed to deal with crisis. We must also remember that the slide beyond this, to imperial mode after 9/11, was more like an opportunistic pushing of norm and form rather than a permanent transformation. After all, we did not end up with anything like real triumphal rulership but only in contrast, its sordid failure.

Perhaps the lesson for all of us is in how quickly an imperial enterprise took root in the American presidency in the wake of a single - if pushing-all-the-buttons flamboyant - attack. Moreover, that enterprise was supremely confident: it was fully prepared to transform the office of president into that of an imperial victor ac triumphator. There was the real possibility, however remote it might actually have been, of an American political transformation.

Therefore, if nothing else, we should be all the more alert to future imperial temptation.

[Porterville]

Empire my ass. It is a World War against much of the Muslim World tied to the UN and corrupt governments like france vs. The United States of America.

It ain't got nothing to do with empire.

[BenLurkin]

What "Imperial Ambitions"?

[Darkwolf377]

Commentators began to declare, in somewhat exultant tones, that America had at last become a true empire.

They did?

[A. Pole]

Empire has less to do with scale of realm or of power than it does with one single feature. Simply, it is a polity where politics itself revolves around the person of the emperor.

This differs from the politics of kingship. Kings represent and embody a densely woven social fabric. They preside over a society of aristocracy: an extended family of rule, where the king is also father. Empires in contrast often emerge from republics.

[peyton randolph]

But then he went further and announced a state of perpetual war - "a war of generations," "a hundred years war" - and so transformed himself into an imperial person.

---

DNC talking point regurgitated in Patsy Buchanan's misnamed magazine.

[A. Pole]

They did?

Yes. You did not pay attention.

[LSUfan]

The name of that magazine really bothers me. Conservative my eye. More like The American Isolationist.

[Darkwolf377]

My cable package doesn't include Aryan Militant News Network, so I wouldn't have heard it.

[A. Pole]

Conservative my eye. More like The American Isolationist.

Let us assume for a moment that we are dealing with isolationism versus globalism. Which is more conservative of the two? Isolationism is by definition conservative and globalism is revolutionary.

[hedgetrimmer]

More like The American Isolationist

And the opposite would be?

[pissant]

This guy reads too many Buchanan books. Oh wiat, this is Pat's rag he's writing in.

[pissant]

You can count on one hand those who did.

[tet68]

What a pant load this is.

[LSUfan]

Sanity.

[A. Pole]

My cable package doesn't include Aryan Militant News Network, so I wouldn't have heard it.

I did not know that such network exists (I do not have TV/cable). Either way, I asume that your choice of channels/programs includes cooking lessons, Jerry Springer, reality shows and soap operas. If so, how you could you know about the praises of empire?

[Darkwolf377]

I dunno, maybe because unlike some people who seem to know all about the schedules for Jerry Springer and cooking shows, I don't sit in front of the tube all day?

[TheDon]

When ya ain't got nothing else, attacking a straw man will do for some.

[ex-snook]

Does 'Empire' of its nature pursue military solutions? The first half of the last century was spent warring in Europe. The second half was in warring in Orient. This century we are off and running in the Near East. All of these have been 'to make the world safe for democracy'.

It is akin the age of exploring countries to spread Chrisianity [and acquire wealth and control trade on the side]. Our effort seems to be to make sure that no other country becomes 'the Empire'. This will be successful for us as long as 'the war' is on the battlefield of armies.

'The war' today is one where the future will go to ideas. The past non-military growth of Christianity comes to mind. Also the triumph of marketing over communism. I believe Bush has mis-framed the future with 'people want freedom'. I believe it will be framed into 'people want justice'. And that should be the driving force of our 'Empire' - the unugly American.

[UltraKonservativen]

Empire my ass....How true!!
The freaking war against us started under Jimmy Carter in the embassy, Reagan walked away from the barracks, Bush 1 stopped before Baghdad and Clinton diddled through Mogadishu, the WTC and the Cole.
9/11 was not an isolated criminal event that triggered an Empire mentality.
It was a battle we lost like the other ones.

It will be a long war indeed. History shows that wars only end with a totally defeated enemy otherwise they go on (100 years war, Napoleon, WW1 followed by WW2). Germany and Japan quit in total destruction.
Either Islam or us will quit in total destruction. Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes.....It's not an Empire thing, it's survival.

[LSUfan]

Poppycock. Pat B. increasingly finds himself allied with the Left on these issues because mainstream conservative Republicans haven't believed this line of crap since Teddy Roosevelt dragged America kicking and screaming into world leadership.

The isolationist movement headed into WW2 was made up of liberals and conservatives. The isolationist movement is separate and apart from political ideology. The Isolationists today are made up of fringe elements on both sides of the aisle: Pat B and guys like Ron Paul on the right and the Howard Deans on the Left.

[Always Right]

How many terrorists blowing up planes must there be before we respond? How many USS Coles? How many 9-11's? Yeah, we are really acting like an empire. We had been acting more like a whipping boy. Is that the conservative response to decades of terrorists regimes and attacks?

[SteveSpeaking]

If they say they are going to obliterate Israel and replace our constitution with the quaran, then that is exactly what they plan to do.
They keep telling us this, yet we continue to brush it off and laugh.
They have infiltrated us, in fact the world. Their procedures work. They move to a country, raise families, acquire jobs in all sectors, live in all parts of the target country. They start to make demands based on their their religious beliefs (the quaran). Nativity scenes are offensive, require rooms and time for prayer, imposing their beliefs at the expense of others. Softening the target so to speak. By leveraging political ground gained at every turn. Subjugation in any means,some subtle, some not so subtle. Each appeasement is a victory for them.When their population reaches a critical mass they strike. They plan to do this with in our lifetimes.France may well already be lost. There is no such thing as a peaceful islamist, it simply means they have not been activated.
We must not continue to dismiss them in apathetic arrogance.
We should be prepared to bare arms.

Will it take an American Hiroshima to awaken the majority, to mobilize our masses against the Islamic quest of world domination?
Islam must be crushed. Islam must not be recognized as a religion any more than Nazism was. All Mosques should be declared delinquent of taxes owed retroactive from the day they were built. ANY gathering of Islamics should be PROSECUTED as CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MASS MURDER, found guilty and deported. Country by country, state by state, town by town, foot by foot, inch by inch, the Islamic cancer must be eradicated.



ACT NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE:
Dear Representative:
As a registered voter and tax paying legal resident of the United States of America we urge you to provide us with your utmost commitment to providing the citizens of our nation protection of our rights, life, liberties, property, and our hallowed Constitution.

We are under attack by an ideology that demands our demise. We will not stand quiet in the eve of our destruction. And we certainly will not tolerate our elected representative to lead us to the slaughter.

We urge you to introduce a referendum on whether Islam is a religion, or an ideology.

The advantages and protections of tax-exempt status afforded to a religion should not be extended to an ideology determined to replace our Constitution with the Koran.

In spite of what the media reports, the American public is well aware that that the war on terrorism is in reality, our defensive efforts against the Islamic offensive. We are not being provided with the defense of both our rights and the sanctity of our Constitution as long as we allow the enemy to operate freely with in our borders.

Americans are concerned and are in extreme jeopardy and demand you perform your duties as both an American and elected representative.

In Earnest,

[A. Pole]

Is that the conservative response to decades of terrorists regimes and attacks?

Are the open borders, "free" market, nation building and globalism the proper response?

[Robert Teesdale]

Interesting article, and not necessarily incorrect. However, what's entirely missing is the fact that America is inherently a fundamentally and globally revolutionary ideology.

Yes, I said ideology and not nation.

Trotsky had nothing on the Declaration.

[Robert Teesdale]

Islam is the only thing that has an ideology sufficiently comprehensive to challenge America.

[Savage Beast]

Vlahos' imagination is running away with him. Maybe he should spend his time writing scary fiction like...well...wait a minute--that's what he did here.

You know, it seems that lots of people are fascinated with the idea that the United States is going to wind up like the Roman Empire. They just can't resist doom and gloom scenarios. It's as though they're creating action movies in their minds and can't resist expressing them in print.

The wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide stretches of imagination that their scenarios require are no deterrent.

This is what comes of watching too much Hollywood. You loose the ability to discern reality from fiction.

[x5452]

paelocons did have something of a preference for isolationism.

[onja]

"Wars only end with a totally defeated enemy otherwise they go on"

What about America's wars? We've fought Spain, England, France. Those wars ended with neither side too much abused and there was a genuine peace afterwards.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Empires are weak. It is republics in contrast that are strong. The United States is a republic that has been operating like an empire, and it has suffered for it. If we look at the gold standard for empire - Rome - we can see why.

He fails to mention that the Roman Republic had experienced several civil wars and during the time of Caesar was irredeemably weak, corrupt and ready for a fall.

In crisis, a republic can claim all the energy and resources of its citizens because in the end the citizenry and the republic are the same.

In Rome's case...BS

In revenue terms, this means that although they will still pay a citizen’s normal taxes, they are no longer obligated for extraordinary levees. Formal empires, in fact, are unusually weak when it comes to squeezing the very top citizens, those who in a republic would have been the foremost contributors. Remember, an empire that succeeds a republic retains as a sort of sacred fiction the old constitutional framing. And behind this fiction is continuing reality: that the emperor is not all-powerful, but rather dependent on the same political constituencies that were players in the old republic. The emperor cannot do without them, and he cannot afford to alienate them. Thus the top citizens in effect have to be bought off. This president has done just that with his extravagant tax cuts. In other words, the emperor can have his war, which itself is necessary to his majestic exercise of imperial power, as long as he does not demand too much from the interest groups whose support he needs for the continued exercise of imperial authority.

This is the worst part of the article. Caesar fought the wealthy elites who had backed Pompey. They were killed and/or sent into exile. Caesar eliminated oppressive taxes and regulations which had been imposed by the ruling elite onto the poor and middle class.

The Roman "Republic" at the time of Caesar had become a sham. It was controlled by influential wealthy elite families and political alliances for their own benefit. The people be damned.

I see parallels with America today. Supreme Court Justices are acting like supreme senators. Not judges. Although they genuflect before the written constitution for the benefit of the great unwashed, they do what they damn well please and the people be damned. All the while aided and abetted by the Media and their stooges in the Democratic Party.

As a result of Caesars actions the corrupt and oppressive Republic fell and the rule of the emperors began. The empire and it's citizens prospered as never before.

[A. Pole]

You know, it seems that lots of people are fascinated with the idea that the United States is going to wind up like the Roman Empire. They just can't resist doom and gloom scenarios.

Why "doom and gloom"? Imperial Rome lasted for centuries and provided good civilized life for countless millions. In her Christian form Roman Empire lasted additional thousand years providing the foundation for the present Western Civilization. Quite glorious achievement unsurpassed by any other state!

The only problem was that the Republic was gone. The choice is between stable long lasting republic in Swiss/Spartan/Venetian style or glory and power.

[A. Pole]

This is the worst part of the article. Caesar fought the wealthy elites who had backed Pompey. They were killed and/or sent into exile. Caesar eliminated oppressive taxes and regulations which had been imposed by the ruling elite onto the poor and middle class.

The Roman "Republic" at the time of Caesar had become a sham. It was controlled by influential wealthy elite families and political alliances for their own benefit. The people be damned.

I see parallels with America today. Supreme Court Justices are acting like supreme senators. Not judges. Although they genuflect before the written constitution for the benefit of the great unwashed, they do what they damn well please and the people be damned. All the while aided and abetted by the Media and their stooges in the Democratic Party.

As a result of Caesars actions the corrupt and oppressive Republic fell and the rule of the emperors began. The empire and it's citizens prospered as never before.

Very good points, thank you! But the key difference is that GWB belongs to the Optimates/Republicans while Julius Caesar belonged to Populares/Democrats

One might guess that the actual American Caesar will be a Democrat (building on the foundation set by the Republicans)

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Very good points, thank you! But the key difference is that GWB belongs to the Optimates/Republicans while Julius Caesar belonged to Populares/Democrats

I see the Democrats as the Optimates and the Republicans as the Populares. Both GWB and Caesar came from wealthy elite families however.

Average Joe is a Republican

[Mase]

Isolationism is by definition conservative and globalism is revolutionary.

American conservatives have never been economic isolationists. I think you're just pining for the revolutionary good old days when your beloved Soviet Union was working to make communism the global ideology.

[Savage Beast]

"Imperial Rome lasted for centuries and provided good civilized life for countless millions"...

...and brutal slavery for countless millions more. The Roman Empire is one of mankind's most dubious achievements. It laid the foundation for Western Civilization, one of mankind's greatest achievements, but only after many centuries of evolution. Imperial Rome itself was a cesspool--child and infant prostitution, torture for public entertainment, immorality and depravity. No thanks!

[JasonC]

This is the stupidest article on the subject I've ever seen.

[A. Pole]

Roman Empire is one of mankind's most dubious achievements.

"Brutal slavery", "torture for public entertainment, immorality and depravity" was not invented by Rome. And actually the fate of slaves and conquered peoples IMPROVED after Republic changed into Empire. Then the next step up was when Rome became Christian and over the following centuries higher moral standards were worked out. You are projecting superior Christian insight into the past.

[FBD]

>"Either Islam or us will quit in total destruction."<

-Sadly, this misnamed "war on terror", is not being fought to win. We can't nation build in the middle east, hoping that Jeffersonian democracy will take root, while ignoring the source of the terrorism. Terrorism is merely the tactic, not the enemy.
Unless our leaders are willing to identify the enemy, (islamo-fascism) and what motivates them, we will never win this vaguely defined war, not even in a hundred years.

[ScubieNuc]

Next time you might want to condense your post. When I scrolled down to see how long it was, I decided against reading it. Simply by reading the title and browsing the responses, I can see that its not something I'm willing to waste my time reading.

Just my .5 cent worth.

Sincerely

[A. Pole]

Just my .5 cent worth.

You are too modest :)

[ScubieNuc]

Actually, at this time of the night, I am mainly bored.

I suspect there probably is some great, well researched information in your post, but my mind is too tired to try to follow such a marathon of thoughts.

Of coarse I know that I am just a "Joe six pack" so deep reading isn't much for me, but if you wish to convince us "Joes" I merely recomend a little condensing.

Sincerely

[expat_panama]

your beloved Soviet Union was working to make communism the global ideology.

Michael Vlahos is an old school loony-left globalist from way back.   It's makes sense that The American Conservative's bush-bashing Pat (Mercedes) Buchanan would have a Boston Globe lib write his feature essay.

[bert]

Brigadeer drivel.

The writer apparently misunderstands the concept of empire. There is only evidence of empire in the minds of America haters....both left and right.

[siunevada]

Imperial Rome itself was a cesspool--child and infant prostitution, torture for public entertainment, immorality and depravity. No thanks!

Substitute USA for Imperial Rome and this could be the kernel of a typical Friday sermon at any mosque in the world these days.

I was struck by Chesterton's assertion that there was a difference of substance between the paganism of Rome and the paganism of Carthage and fortunate for the world that Rome had won.

Men fight hardest when they feel that the foe is at once an old enemy and an eternal stranger, that his atmosphere is alien and antagonistic; as the French feel about the Prussian or the Eastern Christians about the Turk. If we say it is a difference of religion, people will drift into dreary bickerings about sects and dogmas. We will pity them and say it is a difference about death and daylight; a difference that does really come like a dark shadow between our eyes and the day. Men can think of this difference even at the point of death; for it is a difference about the meaning of life.

Men are moved in these things by something far higher and, holier than policy; by hatred. When men hung on in the darkest days of the Great War, suffering either in their bodies or in their souls for those they loved, they were long past caring about details of diplomatic objects as motives for their refusal to surrender. Of myself and those I knew best I can answer for the vision that made surrender impossible. It was the vision of the German Emperor's face as he rode into Paris. This is not the sentiment which some of my idealistic friends describe as Love. I am quite content to call it hatred; the hatred of hell and all its works, and to agree that as they do not believe in hell they need not believe in hatred.

Chap.7 The Everlasting Man

[A. Pole]

Michael Vlahos is an old school loony-left globalist from way back [...]

You did not like the article so you attacked the author.

That way you show that you are not able to refute the content and that you consider other participants stupid.

[A. Pole]

Substitute USA for Imperial Rome and this could be the kernel of a typical Friday sermon at any mosque in the world these days.

Another faulty argument. If your enemies say that you are fat it does not mean you are skinny. In your opinion, how many people are stupid enough to fall for this trick?

Second question, you seem to know what is "typical Friday sermon at any mosque". Fascinating, could you tell something more?

[A. Pole]

I see the Democrats as the Optimates and the Republicans as the Populares.

It cannot be so. Populares were for the more economic equality and for social safety net. Optimates believed that the wealthy deserve their status.

The main reason why the potential Democratic base votes for the Republicans is that the Democratic leadership/or activist core is taken over by the passionate pursuit of secularism, abortion, and sexual deviation (in hope of creating a new happy type of a human being).

The main stream population is conservative in social/moral matters while left-leaning in matters of economic equality and safety net. Apparently the voters put the moral principle above material interest and become so called Reagan Democrats voting for the Republican party. Democratic leaders are not capable to comprehend this choice but Republicans clearly are.

Even if the Democratic politicians are blind to it, it is enough that one of their leaders figures that out and he will use this opening to offer another FDR style platform combined with rejection of decadent libertinism. Tomorrow they will concentrate greater power than FDR could dream about (BTW it is because of FDR that the Twenty-second Amendment of the US Constitution was put in place.)

Both GWB and Caesar came from wealthy elite families however.

This is not so relevant. Both parties have rich people as they had in Rome.

[Mase]

That way you show that you are not able to refute the content

Just like with you A. Pole, we like to know the source of anti-American garbage like this article. It tells us a great deal about what motivates their anti-capitalist ranting. There is no need to refute the content if the author is a lefty American hating moonbat since these folks are only concerned with bashing our president, obtaining and maintaining power, and have little regard for the truth.

There is no need to call anyone stupid. That fact is eminently self-evident given the content of their posts.

[siunevada]

In your opinion, how many people are stupid enough to fall for this trick?

I am unclear on which 'trick' is the subject of your question.

Second question, you seem to know what is "typical Friday sermon at any mosque". Fascinating, could you tell something more?

Something more? What would you like to know? I only know what I read, hear and see through the media, not through personal experience of many, many Friday sermons.

[expat_panama]

...you attacked the author....  ...you show that you are not able to refute the content and that you consider other participants stupid...

You're right.  I hadn't argued with the essay because I didn't want to bore anyone.  Instead I ended up insulting my host and for that I apologize.  Here's my rebuttal; but first we've got to condense this pompous and long-winded rant.  The entire seven pages boils down to just two points:

The United States was corrupted into a "passage from republic to empire".   America is not conquering other people and setting up colonies.  This is hyperbolic overkill.  OK, Viahos changed the definition of empire to mean just any administration led by a personality.   Fine; let me change definitions all over the place and I can say Buchanan is a child molester.  I won't because words mean things and Viahos is wrong.

It's Bush's fault --he exploited a "single.. ...flamboyant" attack on 9/11.   Outrageous.  September 11 was four heinous (not 'flamboyant') attacks that killed thousands and cost billions.  It was the latest of decades of attacks; all part of a declared war.  Some people don't think Bush is overreacting.  A lot of people (including me) here have good reason to say Bush should be more aggressive.

Pacifists like Viahos and Buchanan may mean well, but they end up getting more people killed than warriors do.