Posted on 02/16/2012 6:19:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Worth repeating -- even if only for the responses I'll get claiming that it's not true and that we don't make anything anymore.
I would say that the correct analogy is the fall of the Roman REPUBLIC.
When the Republic was strong Rome was about duty and honor. To qualify for the lowest elected office, a candidate was required to have spent ten years in the legions. Since Rome was a small entity surrounded by (more?) powerful enemies, ten years would make any candidate a combat veteran - a man who had risked his life for Rome. The candidate wore a white toga to his examination by Roman leaders. His bow arm was bare, so they could see the battle scars won in Rome’s defense. Assuming the candidate was elected to Quaestor, and assuming he advanced to and executed each office in succession, he could be Consul in ten more years. The two Consuls were not only the highest office in the Roman government, each commanded half the armies of Rome. After a successful Consulship, one became Senator for life.
After the third Punic War, and the defeat of Philip V of Macedon, Rome had no rivals. All the wealth of the Ancient world (Mediterranean) poured into Rome, and she enjoyed untold wealth and splendor. These wealthy Romans adopted the philosophies of the conquered peoples (largely Greek) because duty and honor has less appeal than indolent opulence. In time, these Roman leaders were unwilling to risk their sons in the manner of the ancient Romans. Men were raised up to the highest levels based upon wealth and bribery, rather than merit. As the mix of Roman Senators/leaders became more corrupt, self-centered, and willing to sell out the interests of Rome for personal gain, the political situation grew less stable. The average citizen lost confidence in his government, and men such as Marius, Sulla, and Caesar established dictatorships in defiance of Roman law. Each dictator destabilized the system a little more, but the real issue lay with broken trust to the people.
In Julius Caesar, the people saw that a benevolent dictator who placed the interests of Rome first might provide better governance than a corrupt hoard of self-serving Senators. By the time the Civil Wars had raged for twenty years, with Rome’s enemies anticipating her rapid demise, Octavian/Augustus was largely welcomed as a Savior of Rome. Augustus was wise enough to keep much of the machinery of the Republic in place, (the part that functioned), and many Romans could live in the blissful delusion that the Republic still lived.
This is where the US is now, IMHO. The rule of law is being overthrown and the Constitution defeated. We will come out of it with something that resembles a Republic in form, but the actual power will reside in some vehicle other than ‘We the People’.
I think Christianity glued the Roman Empire together and let it last a few more years. This was part of Constantine’s motivation in establishing it. It also gave some cohesion to the Germans and, after Rome finally fell, to Europeans in general. Religion can be a powerful instrument in controlling the masses.
Probably not can also mean probably yes.
Your observations may have merit but let me ask if you see any parallels with this man’s observation.
"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all.
When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it.
The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.”
This observation is also applicable today.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus, Roman Senator and Historian (A.D. c.56 - c. 115)
Tacitus (c. 56/57-ca. 125) was a Roman orator and historian. In a life that spanned the reigns of the Flavian emperors and of Trajan and Hadrian, he played a part in the public life of Rome and became its greatest historian.
It seems to me that there are many similarities between The Third Reich and The Roman Empire.
It seems to me that there are many similarities between The Third Reich and The Roman Empire.
Obviously Rome, Britannia, and the USA may not share the exact route, but the overall direction is similar enough for them to all wind up at the same destination?
But the most obvious similarity the USA shares with Rome is the one this article conspicuously omits, immigration/emigration. In fact he seeks to spike the entire topic with one sentence:
"The obvious direction from being #1 is becoming #2, but that doesn’t mean the American society is going to be overrun by vandals overnight to the point where it becomes a mere shadow of what it once was."This despite the fact the Rome was "peacefully" overrun by migrating foreign tribes centuries before those same people rose up in arms to topple it. Despite the fact that Roman politicians, either ignored the invasion or even sold off Roman citizenship to those invaders for their own gain.
The author would have us close our eyes to the fact that that our USA is being similarly overrun by tribes of millions of illegals, while American politician either ignore the invasion or even sell off citizenship or alternative legal status, for their own gain.
Ha! On an historical scale of time, the massive invasion of the USA by illegals over the last 30 years is in fact "OVERNIGHT!"
"... to the point where it becomes a mere shadow of what it once was."
Ha! The magnitude of the numbers and the changes caused and soon to be caused by the tens of millions of illegals - multiplied many fold by those illegals who have been allowed to legalize and bring in other family and their anchor babies - is in fact "to a point" unheard of since the Barbarians overrun Rome.
“We may be more like the Roman Republic in the first century BCE.”
I agree - the problem is how to line up the timelines. I would suggest that we are post-Marius and pre-Sulla. still some distance from Caesar and Augustus.
As Adam Smith averred, “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation.”
Bread and Circuses / Welfare and Foodstamps - CHECK
Millitaries stretched too far - CHECK
Not protecting the Homeland against Foreign Demographic invasion = CHECK
Illegal Cheap Labor (slavery/migrant workers) favored isntead of Domestic Labor forces = CHECK
Dumbing down of the populace = CHECK
Currency that is constantly being devalued = CHECK
Crippling Debt due to the above = CHECK
Lack of Property Rights = CHECK
It took the Roman Empire several hundred years to decline, things move faster now, we will be lucky to make it to 2020 without a major SHTF moment.
Dreams of an Imperial coup d'état by the ambitious are nothing new in America. Ambitious psychopaths have always been watching for an opportunity to seize America. The difference is that never before has it been possible.
Considering the limitlessness of ambition and the enormity of the prize, can anyone wonder?
Unfortunately--millions of Americans simply cannot comprehend the grim reality that it really could happen.
(I am well aware of the differences between Cincinnatus and Washington, on the one hand, and Julius Caesar, Octavius, Adolf Hitler, et al., on the other.)
You are familiar with the phrase, "bread and circuses," aren't you? Of course when it first came into use, it was more likely articulated as, "panem et circenses."
Not like Rome... More like GREECE!
America is on the fast track to self destruction and the government is in the driver’s seat. Yes, Hussein is fiddling while we burn.
It should be pointed out that all of these people lived in the 1st century BC or AD except Commodus, and he was murdered in 192.
The height of the Empire is usually considered to be the 2nd century, though the Golden Age ended when Commodus came to the throne.
IOW, the decadence we associate with the fall of Rome mostly took place prior to its Golden Age and centuries before its Fall. (Whenever you date that.)
This is largely because we have fascinating historical records from this early period which are missing from most of the later days of the Empire. It's entirely likely there were equally interesting and evil characters in the 300s and 400s, but we have little information about them.
Ridiculous hyperbole. Proscriptions did not consist of compensated (however inadequately) taking of private property.
Proscription was a death sentence with no trial or appeal, rewards to your murderers, confiscation of all property and loss of citizenship for one's family (if they were lucky enough to not be included in the proscription).
We're a long way from that, at present.
Rome was abandoned by Constantine, who had the foresight to move the capital, the wealth, and the defenses to Constantinolple. Rome itself was nothing but a hollow shell after that. The Roman Empire didn’t really fall, it just moved. The fall of the empire actually occurred in the 1400s and the cause was the invention of the cannon, making Constantinople’s walls and defenses obsolete.
Actually, depending on which period we're talking about, service as any of the major magistrates (quaestor, praetor, consul, possibly others) meant appointment to the Senate.
The crux of decadence
We see in on the scale of the individual in shirt sleaves to shirt sleaves in three generations, in those raise in comfort who succumb to indolence and self-destruction, and in the self-serving, self-indulgent Counter-Culture Movement of the 1960s (the first overt explosion of American decadence) and the present "Occupy" movement, each nothing more than the self-indulgence of the over-indulged.
"In Julius Caesar, the people saw...a benevolent dictator"
Millions today place their hopes in a benevolent dictator or oligarchy. This is fundamental to Marxist theory, which has been embraced by The Left and appeals to millions in America and throughout the world.
Of course, the cognoscenti--and anyone with a functioning brain--realize that the benevolent part is a big problem, one which the mindless and the easily seduced take comfort in overlooking. The results of such folly are written in blood on every page of history: Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, et al.
Millions cannot learn the lessons of history and cannot comprehend the obvious. So the bloody pages of history continue to repeat themselves. Perhaps they always will.
"This is where the US is now"
With deep regret--I agree with you.
It goes to show that there are no exact historical parallels, but there are similarities.
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