Posted on 12/20/2005 6:04:54 AM PST by robowombat
I think you misread the quote. It doesn't say "a set of cultural values founded in a common religion." The VALUES are what bind, not necessarily the religion. If Religion A begets the same values as Religion B, then the culture has sufficient mortar to bind it.
At least that's my reading ...
We are on patrol today in Iraq. Men and women of the United States armed forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Baghdad. They pass in the way of so many who have come before them: the Egyptian charioteers of Ramses II, the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the Great, the Roman legionnaires of Caesar and Trajan, the Crusaders of Richard the Lion-Hearted, the legionnaires of Napoleon, the Camel Corps of Lawrence of Arabia.
All of these have come through the Middle East
Capriole: Um, you have taken him a bit too literally
Reread the above. No I have not. Dr Fears statement is hysterically inaccurate as I pointed out.
Never claimed it did. However, you'd have to be willfully blind not to be able to spot strong similarities, especially as they pertain to the fates of dominant cultures.
To compare the two societies is hysterically stupid. There are "no lessons of history" ok?
You should be careful about tossing out phrases like "hysterically stupid," lest you be tarred by the same brush. If you have truly learned nothing from history, one might legitimately conclude that you'd not only fallen afoul of the brush, but had perhaps willingly bathed in the tarpit.
That is just babble from those who want to use history to rationalize their stupid political opinions.
And yet, amazingly despite your claims to the contrary, we can spot the same human and societal failings, time after time, throughout history, and we can see them have similar effects, time after time. That's one big reason why the Bible still resonates with us today: because people and societies really haven't changed all that much.
And, of course, we must not forget that our own Constitution was not simply invented -- no, it was written by men who very deliberately studied and used historical lessons in the formation of it. Should I learn from you, or the Founders?
You need to learn to read for comprehension. I never said Rome fell from an excess of government. I stated (rather clearly, I think) that an excess of government is a symptom of something else.
I liked the article. It is true where it is true, and misses the mark where it misses. But it contains a great deal of food for thought.
See, I believe too that the "time of the Caesars" may be near at hand for us. The opposition of the weak minded, communists, and enemy within is hamstringing our ability to wage war. Should the opposition succeed in destroying our will and ability to fight, we will continue to be hit again, and again, and again. Then the call will go out for an authoritarian who can mobilize our defenses. We pray we don't get a dictator at that time.
I think Theodore Roosevelt knew as evidenced by this observation on the Fall of the Republic.
"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.”
I believe it would have been Babylon at that time, what, 25-50 miles from Baghdad?
But WHY did the Roman Citizens lose their energy? Did they suffer from cultural undermining as we do today? Was it their welfare state (bread & circuses)?
I think people that are enslaved DO yearn for freedom. It is those who are coddled that choose security.
This country COULD be united, if we silenced the traitors within. But they are smart, and captured the influential institutions years ago. There, they can dig in and fight a rearguard action that will cost lifetimes to uproot. Time is on their side, as the ignorance they spawn seeps in and pervades our culture.
We've got them contained for the time being, but we must work actively to DESTROY them, or they will continue to infest us.
An excellent theory, and as you've pointed out, one shared by some of the wisest of our Founders.
I would add that Tyranny is son to that same dubious father.
This is simply too profound!
Baghdad is about 50 or 60 miles from the ruins of Babylon (just estimating it from the map). A closer city to the modern Baghdad was Seleucia on the Tigris, founded by Seleucus I about 312 B.C., but destroyed in A.D. 164 (earlier burnt by Trajan). The Parthians built a city on the other side of the river near Seleucia, known as Ctesiphon, which became the capital of Babylonia after the destruction of Seleucia, and which was later the capital of the Sassanian Persian empire (3rd century to 7th century).
To be honest, I think it was the availability of wealth and comfort. Perhaps we can use food as an analogy: a person can get too much of it, and get fat and lazy and have a heart attack. A healthy life requires us to balance food with a proper diet and exercise. For us, food is easy to get, whereas diet and exercise demand willpower -- which, if obesity statistics are any guide, Americans seem to lack.
This, imo, is similar to what happened in Rome: the Roman citizens were able to enjoy their wealth and comfort, and were insulated from the need to understand, much less defend, its source. They "outsourced" their defense to barbarians, for example -- no longer did they have to worry about defending themselves, beyond (maybe) paying some taxes (and I don't think Roman citizens even had to do that).
I think people that are enslaved DO yearn for freedom. It is those who are coddled that choose security.
I'm not sure enslavement is necessary for this -- I think that the necessary civic virtues are strengthened where there is a clear connection between our own efforts, and the results of those efforts; and weakened when that clear connection is lost.
I don't think I would go that far. I think you can use history to demonstrate many truths about liberty and the desire of man to determine his own destiny. What I don't think you can do is take specific cases, such as the fall of Rome, and compare situations with modern times.
Pity it has in no factual merit. Rome did NOT fall because of an excess of Govt.
That's too easy an answer.
The problem is not "the traitors" per se, but rather those of us who are not "traitors," but who don't understand and therefore cannot properly defend ourselves and our institutions against decay.
It's very hard to be vigilant -- it's not only hard work, but it also requires one to say and do things that seem "mean" to others. In fact, I think most of our problems stem precisely from a very poor understanding of what "mean" really is; and what "fairness" is really all about. We're driven by the emotions of the moment, rather than a willingness to understand and accept the long-term the consequences of our actions.
Likewise, it's very hard to serve the community -- it often requires great sacrifice, and a lot of hard work. And thus we allow perversity to be normalized; and we surrender our institutions to those who are driven by something other than a desire to serve the greater good.
Well how about this. The "Lessons of History" are general and vauge. For example. A Lesson of History is to NEVER get involved in a ground war in Asia.
Mischaracterizing once can be an accident. Doing it again, after being shown your error, means you're distorting my statements on purpose. Please stop -- you're making Dr. Fears look positively honest by comparison.
That's not a lesson in history, that's simply a quote by Douglas McCarthur. It all depends on who you are fighting. We fought the Japanese all over Asia and won. And herein lies the problem with "lessons of history," there are so many different situations one cannot legimitately make fair comparisons. Until we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 the historical assumption was that you could not fight and win a war in Afghanistan against the Afghanis. It all depends on how you do it.
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