Rome Falls and America Follows - part two

Yesterday we began drawing parallels between the fall of the Roman Empire and the path that America is now on. Because of the long list of complex issues, we only managed to get about halfway through the main reasons. Today we pick up where we left off and the remaining items on the list seem to have even more relevance to America than what was discussed yesterday. Those items are:

Failing Economy
Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)
The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'
Decline in Ethics and Values
Slave Labor
Natural Disasters
Christianity
Barbarian Invasion

Failing economy: As the flow of captured wealth to Rome diminished, it became increasingly difficult to fund the Legions defending the far reaches of the Empire. There had always been a wide disparity between the elite and the poor of Rome which exacerbated Rome’s economic problems as opportunities for employment dwindled among those of the lower classes. Of course the Roman elite still expected luxuries from the Far East and an increasing amount of gold was used to purchase those goods, creating a shortage of gold to coin money in Rome. The resulting unemployment, high taxes and inflation placed the government at constant risk of bankruptcy.

Teddy Roosevelt lauded the idea of a progressive tax system and the redistribution of wealth although he never had the opportunity to put either into practice. Instead, we would have to wait until Woodrow Wilson for a progressive income tax and FDR to figure a way to use that money to advance an agenda that would culminate in today’s entitlement culture. By abandoning capitalist principals and punishing the attainment of wealth through the progressive tax system, we have seriously hampered the ability of our economy to grow in proportion to her population.

The increasing numbers of people that have been raised as second and third generation recipients of government support programs have created an entire class of people that rely solely on government instead of their own abilities, further depleting the treasury. Worst yet is that the number of people that pay the taxes are slowly becoming the minority with those that pay no taxes or collect government benefits now sitting at 47%. Our government has turned to high taxes and credit to continue funding these benefit programs rather than returning to our capitalist roots. The resulting debt has created a shortage of money in the private sector, further damaging our economic stability and creating an unsustainable trend of shifting economic activity from the private to the public sector.

Unemployment of the Working class: Since this title ties directly into the segment above, I will only add that the shortage of capital in the private sector and the threat of increased taxes and government regulation has severely impacted the job market in the United States. As long as business must compete with an out of control government for available credit and as long as business owners operate under the threat of increased government tax and regulatory liabilities, the unemployment trends will not reverse. Our bizarre trade agreements and aggressive taxes have done little to benefit the manufacturing communities within the United States and many of those jobs will never return as long as there is an economic advantage to manufacture overseas. The rest have been regulated out of existence or have been so seriously impacted that they are near collapse.

The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games': In order to placate the mobs of unemployed workers, the Roman government found increasing amounts of money going to fund gladiatorial games to occupy the masses. Of course this was only a temporary means to quiet civil unrest and more spectacular events had to be presented to keep the mobs occupied. The games would eventually consume more that a full third of the total income of the Empire.

Of course we don’t have bloody competitions to amuse the poor and unemployed but we do throw an awful lot of money at the problem through government entitlement programs. The problem is as the government spends more, they consume the monies that would ordinarily stay in the economy to create the jobs that would eventually, alleviate unemployment and poverty. There is a minor percentage of the population that would always be unemployed because of disabilities, poor life choices and yes, even because they were raised to be government dependents. Unfortunately, the addition of high unemployment to that base has stressed the entitlement structure to near collapse and it is reaching the point where our public outlay for these programs is nearly on par with the expense of the Roman games.

Decline in ethics and values: Do I really need to expand on this? I think anyone that has read the news lately would agree that the ethics and values of our nation are being seriously challenged. Not because the average American is so depraved, but rather because we are constantly inundated with legal challenges from our friends on the left to accept the unacceptable. There is even an ongoing full court press to introduce many of these radical and morally bankrupt ideas into our schools to infect our children before they have fully developed the moral armor needed to fend off the assault. Parents are being denigrated by these people and they are trying to convince our children that we are old fools that just don’t know any better. Once a society has lost respect for its elders it has lost its past and without its past, it has no future.

Slave Labor: Rome captured many people from occupied lands that would work as slaves for the Empire. Slave labor was essential to Rome because so many Roman men were under arms to defend this expansive Empire. Since slaves were disposable, slave labor added to the decline of morals and ethics as happens when people routinely treated other humans with such miserable disregard. Since slave labor replaced so many Roman men, Rome also suffered from technological stagnation as skilled labor was replaced with unskilled slaves performing a trained task.

Hmm. This is a difficult one. I could comment on our own spotted past but America was courageous enough to abolish slavery and even fought a bloody civil war to bring about abolition. Instead I will say that the oppressive taxation used to fund the distributive policies of Progressive politicians has effectively created slaves of anyone that pays taxes. The taxes are not fair and because they are easily attained, politicians have no compelling interest in reducing them. In fact, Progressives routinely vilify the wealthy to justify their acts of legalized theft just as slave owners dehumanized their human possessions to justify the harsh treatment of other men. Our wealthiest Americans now bear so much of this nation’s financial burden that they are fast approaching the point where not working and living on their savings is becoming increasingly appealing. Tell me that is not an induced loss of ethics and values?

Natural Disasters: Well, Rome faced them and so do we.

Christianity: Christianity not only challenged the established faith structure of the Roman Empire but the excessive and immoral practices of the ruling elite. The adoption of Christianity struck at the heart of the core of Roman culture and fundamentally changed the entire structure of Roman society.

Today we have a growing number of people that show open disdain of America’s Judaeo-Christian roots. This country was founded with deeply religious beliefs and without those beliefs; the tenant that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights suddenly rests on very shaky ground. If God did not grant our rights, who did; Government; The Constitution? If they were granted by an act of law then they can certainly be denied by an act of law. Contrary to popular belief, the largest threat to our religious foundation is not being waged by Atheists or Muslims; it is being waged by the ecological movement. They are actively engaged in a fight to protect “mother” earth to the detriment of her human inhabitants. So misguided are these new fundamentalists, that some have embraced a new age religious belief that earth has a soul and awareness that must be honored. Some have even proposed that mankind should cease breeding and bring about the voluntary self-extinction of man so that the earth can finally heal from our horribly destructive ways.

Finally, Barbarian Invasion: Rome had conquered almost all of Europe but was faced with Barbarian assaults on nearly every one of her new borders. The expanse of the Empire and the decline of their economy left them economically unable to fend off Barbarian attack and as the Roman Empire receded, the Barbarians followed their retreat.

We aren’t facing Mongol hoards or waves of Vandals but we are faced with an equally brutal enemy, partially because of our interference in their home lands but also because their religious beliefs do not tolerate any religious faiths other than their own. Of course I am referring to Muslim radicals. Like the Barbarians that the Roman’s faced, radical Muslims will not stop until we are dead, or they are. Unfortunately, they are in a race to obtain weapons that will make their attacks against us even more devastating.

So there it is. What truly frightens me is that none of my attempts to parallel the fall of Rome with the current actions of America are really a stretch of the imagination. So the question is “What do we do now?” Do we continue down the same path until our society collapses under its own weight and the Barbarians are at the gates or do we take the immediate and drastic steps needed to restore our culture and country to point in time before Progressive ideals began chipping away at our morals, economy and God given rights?

Paul

The Fall of the Roman Empire - Is America Taking the Same Path?

In the two hundred years since the American Revolution was fought and won, our country has gone from a band of rebellious colonial upstarts that defeated British rule in 1781 to becoming the world’s last remaining Superpower by the 1990’s. As remarkable as that story is it will pale in comparison to the story of our current race to commit national suicide. While the Progressives began their assault on the Constitution over a hundred years ago, the decline of America really began to accelerate twenty years ago and we are now challenged with making the decisions that will either restore America to sanity and prosperity or will complete the destruction. The day of reckoning is here and we can no longer delay the choices. The big question is what choice will we make?

One would think we would turn to history for some insights. After all, history is replete with examples of other societies and civilizations that were faced with similar challenges. Most chose poorly and as a result, we now study the ruins they left behind; examining the documented history of how their choices collapsed their society. One perfect example is the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire had its roots in a small agricultural community on the Italian peninsula. The legends claim that twin brothers, descended from a Trojan Prince, founded the City of Rome in 753 BC. The brothers, Romulus and Remus were purportedly conceived when Mars, the God of war, raped a vestal virgin named Rea Silvia who gave birth to the twins. Because Romulus and Remus were fathered by the God of war, they were considered half divine. As the story goes, their Grandfather and King of Alba Longa, Numitor, was deposed by his rival Amulius. Fearing the twins would recapture the throne, Amulius ordered them drown. A she-wolf would save the boys from death and raise them. Once grown, Romulus and Remus returned to Alba Longa and restored Numitor to the throne before departing to found their own city. In a dispute over who would rule the new city, Romulus killed his brother and assumed the crown. Now that his throne was secured, the City would be named Rome in honor of its king, Romulus.

For the following two hundred and fifty years, Rome would prosper as a Monarchy led by seven successive Kings. Just as the American colonists revolted against the British crown, Rome revolted against King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in 509 BC. Superbus was noted in history as a tyrannical dictator but revulsion turned into open revolution after Superbus’s son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped Lucretia, who was an important noblewoman in the Kingdom. The people of Rome succeeded in their revolt and deposed the tyrannical King, replacing the Monarchy with an Oligarchic Republic.

The Roman Republic was a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority through the imperium, or military command. The consuls had to work with the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power over time. While there are many differences between the Roman Republic and America, there are also a number of parallels, particularly in the forces that worked against the Republic.

See if this sounds familiar? Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival Senators, intimidated the electorate through violence. The situation came to a head in the late 2nd century BC under the Gracchi brothers, a pair of tribunes who attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians or working class. Both brothers were killed, but the Senate passed some of their reforms in an attempt to placate the growing unrest of the plebeian and equestrian classes.

Curiously, that sounds like our own radical fringe that would eventually become today’s “Community Organizers”. Rome’s community organizers also had their sympathetic Senators that brought about reforms to redistribute Roman wealth with land instead of cash. Just as today, the sympathetic Roman Senators forced the rest of the Senate to pass some of these reforms just to prevent civil unrest. It almost sounds as if the Gracchi brothers were the ancient equivalent of Cloward and Pivens that proposed the poor work to overwhelm the system and punctuate those efforts with threats of violence in order to bring about social justice. Rome’s sympathetic Senators could quite easily be paralleled with today’s Progressives in Congress on their quest for redistributive policies.

To continue; the Republic grew through a series of wars, allowing Rome to occupy much of the Italian peninsula. Of course with growth comes power and with power comes corruption. In the mid-1st century BC, three men, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, formed a secret pact—the First Triumvirate—to control the Republic. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, a stand-off between Caesar and the Senate led to civil war, with Pompey leading the Senate's forces. Caesar emerged victorious, and was made dictator for life. While we haven’t had a dictator assume power in the United States, it is a well known fact that we came very close to just that in the early days of Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency when there was a secret pact among the Democratic hierarchy that actually urged FDR to assume dictatorial powers to combat the depression. Fortunately, that never happened and the Constitution survived both the depression and FDR.

The Roman Republic however, would not survive. Caesar was assassinated in the 44 BC attempted Senate coup to restore Constitutional government. The aftermath created a Second Triumvirate, consisting of Caesar's designated heir, Octavian, and his former supporters, Mark Antony and Lepidus that took power. However, this alliance soon descended into a struggle for dominance. Lepidus was exiled, and when Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, he became the undisputed ruler of Rome.

Rome under the absolute rule of Octavian and his successors would become a vast Empire and eventually ruled over two and a half million square miles of the ancient world. The Empire dominated the entire Mediterranean coast including northern Africa, most of the European continent and even most of the British Isle. Of course the Roman economy was only an illusion that relied on a steady flow of loot from its wars of conquest and the taxes collected in the occupied territories. Hmm? That sounds like the illusion of our own economy. Instead of tribute collected from conquered lands our government spends borrowed money on the promise that future generations will somehow find a way to pay for the debt. The problem with economies based on conquest or credit is that they both ignore the hard work needed to sustain the spending and are therefore, both doomed to fail. Rome took all there was to take and by the time captured cash stopped pouring into Rome, the Roman people had forgotten what it meant to work for themselves and that sounds familiar too. Even more familiar are the chief causes listed for the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor
Decline in Morals
Political Corruption and the Praetorian Guard
Fast expansion of the Empire
Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending
Barbarian Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics
Failing Economy
Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)
The 'Mob' and the cost of the 'Games'
Decline in Ethics and Values
Slave Labor
Natural Disasters
Christianity
Barbarian Invasion

Tomorrow we will discuss the causes for the fall of the Roman Empire and how our society is now enganged in the modern equivalent of many of the same things.

Paul