The American Empire has already peaked and is on the downhill slide.

[IndyDave1776]

It's over simplistic to say the least. It's like taking a page covered in dots, connecting only the ones you choose, and saying "look, it was a picture of a horse this whole time!" Well, sure, but there's a lot of other possibilities if you add in the dots you left out.

Industrial nations =/= agrarian nations. Agrarian nations can only support a limited amount of specialization, a limited amount of expansion, and a bad crop year starts things turning in on themselves. There is no industry to manage shortages. There is no real economy engine outside of agriculture and trading. Resources are vastly more limited and unable to weather rough patches in terms of war, natural disaster, etc.

Rome, at the end of the day, got too big to support itself given the logistics, communication speeds, political structures, and economic engines of the day. It divided itself into chunks to try and be more manageable, but those sub-units lacked a federal system to work out disagreements and disputes over resources turned into competition, which started the whole thing spiraling. Arguing about what caused the empire to fall is like arguing which organ failed first in a cancer ridden patient. Academically it may be interesting, but if it wasn't one it was going to be the other.

Compare to the modern US economy which can grow based entirely on a consumer uptick in spending. There's no need to conquer new land suitable for farming, forests to build ships, etc. You can grow your economy with the resources on hand. What resources does a Windows operating system consume from the land? How much does it enhance the economy? That's a HUGE deal that's so often overlooked in these 'decline of xxx empire" debates tryin to compare agrarian societies to us. We can grow in standard of living without growing in footprint. Modern logistics and communication make larger and larger areas easier to manage and administer, ease shortages, etc. It's the winter in Indiana and I can put my hands on fresh fruit for a buck a pound. It's so commonplace to us we forget what a huge advantage that is. The ability to feed and provide drinking water to the entire "empire" even when half of it has a drought/flood/tornado/what-have-you? That's HUGE.

While this is true and will allow us to avoid some critical failures which would have killed off an ancient empire, it is also true that there are certain matters of principle which will always result in the collapse of a civilization, most of which are matters of principle. Inflation, devaluation of currency, moral failures, overreaching government which necessarily is more resource intensive than a free society, and bad actors being allowed to abuse positions of power for personal gain are timeless issues which are just as deadly to a society today as they were thousands of years ago. At the end of the day, these elements leading up to the rejection of the rule of law in favor of the rule of man/a man operating on the currency of self-interest of one or a few rather than the principles upon which the society was founded will reliably result in a collapse of that society.

 

[JS1911]

Ah, Rome...and the US...

1. Rampant inflation and devaluation of currency, check.
2. Moral decline, check.
3. Overextending relative to the ability of the economy to support such expansion, check.
4. Bread and circuses supplanting productive contributions, check.
5. Establishment of a multicultural society (please note that I specifically mean incompatible customs, etc, not genetic traits) specifically in running out of enough Italians to staff the army leading to a less stable structure with more mixed agendas, and in turn, policy hinging more on personalities than rule of law, check (at least we are well on the way).
6. Increasingly authoritarian government resulting in a more resource-intense high maintenance mode of operation as opposed to the voluntary society which was the foundation of both the Roman and American republics, check.
7. Unsound fiscal policies, particularly in form of deficit spending and national debt, check.
8. Barbarians at the gate, check.
9. A people which became over time less concerned with the nation and more concerned with strictly self-serving motives (i.e., the lack of the honor that once existed in both societies), check.
10. Allowing public officials to establish private fiefdoms within the government rather than doing their supposed duty, check.
11. Increasing lack of accountability on the parts of elected officials, check.

Well, that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. You will have to understand that it has been about 20 years since I took Roman history (even though I can remember that the textbook was written by a fellow named Finley Hooper) and have forgotten quite a bit since then.

Well said.

 

[JS1911]

Riiiiiight. Lol... the Rome fell due to their educators teaching about "white privilege."

Kut (thinks YOU may want to review your history, 1600 years ago and prior)

Fair enough, I failed to properly articulate my point.

The point I was attempting to make is that in addition to the many mistakes that Rome made, leading to it's downfall, America is making even worse mistakes by not teaching proper World History in college. Instead, the leftists in charge opt to teach the aforementioned nonsense that helps nothing and creates even more problems instead. After all, if students aren't allowed to learn from the mistakes of past civilizations, they certainly won't be equipped to correct them.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Fair enough, I failed to properly articulate my point.

The point I was attempting to make is that in addition to the many mistakes that Rome made, leading to it's downfall, America is making even worse mistakes by not teaching proper World History in college. Instead, the leftists in charge opt to teach the aforementioned nonsense that helps nothing and creates even more problems instead. After all, if students aren't allowed to learn from the mistakes of past civilizations, they certainly won't be equipped to correct them.

I honestly don't believe that to be true. I think the educational system get an unwarranted bad rap. Most public schools put out fine, well adjusted graduates. There's no massive indoctrination going on. If anything, it the failure of parents to "indoctrinate" their children that is the problem. Besides our home school contingent, I willing to bet that most of the members here have fine kids, that probably share their world outlook. Odds are they were publically educated. What did they do right that others have not? They parented.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

While this is true and will allow us to avoid some critical failures which would have killed off an ancient empire, it is also true that there are certain matters of principle which will always result in the collapse of a civilization, most of which are matters of principle. Inflation, devaluation of currency, moral failures, overreaching government which necessarily is more resource intensive than a free society, and bad actors being allowed to abuse positions of power for personal gain are timeless issues which are just as deadly to a society today as they were thousands of years ago. At the end of the day, these elements leading up to the rejection of the rule of law in favor of the rule of man/a man operating on the currency of self-interest of one or a few rather than the principles upon which the society was founded will reliably result in a collapse of that society.

I learned on INGO that gold always holds its value and is immune to the fluctuations of the evil fiat currency. What was Rome's currency again? Inflation is a symptom, not a disease. Rome's economic engine required expansion, as already outlined. Expansion required more and more military forces. The military forces and cost of occupying became more than the gain from expansion. Stall, fall, splat, goes the economy. Plus, seriously, the whole slave thing. Tough for paid labor to compete against slaves in a no skill labor force...which is what the vast majority of jobs are, particularly in a agrarian society.

Moral failures? Ok. When was the peak of the US moral superiority? When we could own people? When we merely allowed lynch mobs and segregation? Morals have changed, but declined? That's a hard sell.

You could easily make the argument that government UNDERreach doomed the Romans. They were too big for their britches and couldn't coordinate economically (tax collection, for example) or militarily, which led to dissolving into smaller nation states, which led to the issues already discussed.

 

[BugI02]

"Moral failures? Ok. When was the peak of the US moral superiority?"

Pickett's charge

 

[Kutnupe14]

"Moral failures? Ok. When was the peak of the US moral superiority?"

Pickett's charge

June 6th, 1944... while not perfect is about as close as we got.

 

[OutdoorDad]

If this is an empire, we're doing it wrong. Empires take territory and keep it, we go break their stuff, then rebuild it and leave so they can have stuff to break, too. We keep other countries from being absorbed into empires, but we do it in such a schmuck way they wind up hating us for it. Every 4 years we have an election that determines whether our foreign policy will be characterized as hapless or feckless. After WWII we had such economic strength and advantage, which though it inevitably couldn't be maintained at that level, we've been throwing away hand over fist trying to get people to like us.

I don't think you're describing a schmuck. I think you are describing a mensch. And I'm good with being a mensch.

 

[Kutnupe14]

If I was running for president, my foreign policy campaign slogan would be "I'm not going rebuild, tomorrow, what I destroyed yesterday."
First guy or girl that say that, from either party, has my vote.

 

[BugI02]

George Marshall would not approve

 

[Alpo]

The whole "exceptionalism" point has exactly zero to do with America being populated with better people than any other nation has, or being inherently superior in any other way.
It has to do with us being the first country that went against the tide by being the first one in modern times that threw aside the chains of monarchy or other forms of dictatorship.
The story of nations for centuries has been on of tyranny, and the American Revolution was unique, exceptional if you will, by reversing what had been the normal course of history.
Is the American Experiment perfect?
Nope, but it is as close as fallible humans can expect to have.

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
-Winston Churchill

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
–James Madison

A wise man once told me: Don't tell me who you are. Show me what you do and I'll tell you who you are.

That applies, methinks, to modern day America. American workforce No. 1? Well, why are we exporting jobs overseas? American education No. 1? At the university level, I'd say we still have the edge. Secondary and primary education? I don't think so. Yes, we're No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (at least) on the size of our military and we have over 700 bases overseas. It remains to be seen how effective all that firepower is since we haven't had the political wherewithall to truly improve the places where we've been engaged post 9-11.

I'm not knocking our form of government. But we aren't a football team. Shouting "We're No. 1" tends to make the ROW look at our present failures. Not our accomplishments.

Show me what you do.....

 

[oldpink]

A wise man once told me: Don't tell me who you are. Show me what you do and I'll tell you who you are.

That applies, methinks, to modern day America. American workforce No. 1? Well, why are we exporting jobs overseas? American education No. 1? At the university level, I'd say we still have the edge. Secondary and primary education? I don't think so. Yes, we're No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (at least) on the size of our military and we have over 700 bases overseas. It remains to be seen how effective all that firepower is since we haven't had the political wherewithall to truly improve the places where we've been engaged post 9-11.

I'm not knocking our form of government. But we aren't a football team. Shouting "We're No. 1" tends to make the ROW look at our present failures. Not our accomplishments.

Show me what you do.....

We're No. 1?
I'm still trying to find anywhere in my post that I implied any such thing.
Again, it was our precedent-breaking reversal of history by constituting our nation as a republic, nothing to do with our people or land as formed being inherently superior.
Saying otherwise, then sneering at that strawman is the sort of thing that only a self-loathing person, an oikophobe could think.

 

[miguel]

I think the USA "peaked" in 1945. Been down the ****hole ever since.

 

[Alpo]

We're No. 1?
I'm still trying to find anywhere in my post that I implied any such thing.
Again, it was our precedent-breaking reversal of history by constituting our nation as a republic, nothing to do with our people or land as formed being inherently superior.
Saying otherwise, then sneering at that strawman is the sort of thing that only a self-loathing person, an oikophobe could think.

I'm sorry you missed the point....which sometimes happens in this medium.

Exceptionalism today, often also described by many in current and prior political leadership as: "The Greatest Country on Earth" is quite a bit different than the merits of a republic over other forms of governance. I don't think we'd disagree that a republic is the best as yet formulated and I can't think of any other method that might yield more acceptable representation of its citizenry.

That being said, I believe it is you who puts forth the false equivalency between a republican form of representation and the brag. Strawman indeed.

 

[BugI02]

A wise man once told me: Don't tell me who you are. Show me what you do and I'll tell you who you are.

That applies, methinks, to modern day America. American workforce No. 1? Well, why are we exporting jobs overseas? American education No. 1? At the university level, I'd say we still have the edge. Secondary and primary education? I don't think so. Yes, we're No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 (at least) on the size of our military and we have over 700 bases overseas. It remains to be seen how effective all that firepower is since we haven't had the political wherewithall to truly improve the places where we've been engaged post 9-11.

I'm not knocking our form of government. But we aren't a football team. Shouting "We're No. 1" tends to make the ROW look at our present failures. Not our accomplishments.

Show me what you do.....

Would a 'wise man' have tolerated Jerry Sandusky in his midst

 

[Alpo]

Bug...is that short for something else and the reason Sandusky seems to be on your mind?

 

[Thor]

America was never an 'empire' anyway. If we were we'd still own Europe and most of Asia. We would never have left the Philippines just because they wanted us to...Japan would be our R&D base...and we wouldn't be buying oil from the Middle East.

But other than that quibble...yeah, we're on the brink.

 

[BugI02]

Bug...is that short for something else and the reason Sandusky seems to be on your mind?

"The Board of Trustees commissioned an independent investigation by former FBI director Louis Freeh and his law firm. The Freeh Report stated that Spanier and Paterno, along with Curley and school vice president Gary Schultz, had known about allegations of child abuse on Sandusky's part as early as 1998, and were complicit in failing to disclose them (although Paterno did make a report to his superiors). In so doing, Freeh stated that the most senior leaders at Penn State showed a "total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims" for 14 years and "empowered" Jerry Sandusky to continue his abuse."


something something can't stand the heat something something kitchen

 

[Alpo]

I still fail to see your point. The obvious answer to your question is: of course not.

I still don't see what rape has to do with the topic.

 

[BugI02]

You introduced a Paterno quote and positioned him as a wise man. Not everyone will agree with that characterization. You went immediately Ad Hom with the riff on Bug so I went to the official report as evidence why not everyone thinks 'papa' got his wings