Thread: America & The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

How does that saying go? "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme". Obivously things are different from then but that doesn't mean the lessons you can learn from it is any less valid.

Originally Posted by Alric

How does that saying go? "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme". Obivously things are different from then but that doesn't mean the lessons you can learn from it is any less valid.
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I like that. That makes much better sense.
The only problem is a lot of the time we do not learn from the past, even though it is right their for us to follow.
So we could make it rhyme if we would learned from our mistakes. But instead we let it repeat itself.

Originally Posted by Alric

I consider significant differences in the materialism of America and Rome, especially their culture. Roman mythology and culture was significantly more creative and expressive. Sadly, north american culture seems to be more about adapting and borrowing cultural symbolism from other countries (see all the Kanja tattoo's around..? Soo many valley girls with Celtic symbolism on their behinds..).

I would hope that America could learn from the Romans. However, the lessons just seem to prolong the inevitably decay of the American economy... It makes evolutionary sense - I am curious to see which country rises up.[/b]

I guess at that stage, there was a lot of new boundaries being challenged politically. Kind of a renaissance in leadership structure.
Now their is not much pushing in the way of changing or innovating new ways for growth in politics, more pushing it on others.

Originally Posted by TheUnknown

I would like to start by saying, sure.. we're in debt.. but SHIT how many other countries you think are in debt? Given we all know empires don't last forever, some last long, and some don't last long. I don't credit one man with our downfall, a series of events is causing us to fall into a hole. I don't think in this current decade the US is going to tear itself apart in a revolution or civil war, but we do have to accept the fact other countries exist... even if they exist to piss us off (France, Spain, North Korea, Isreal, you know who you are, and don't think you're the only ones). We need to let them deal with their problems, and if France gets invaded, then let them stay invaded.

The US reached its peak of power sometime after WWII and during the Cold War, I really doubt the people of the nation have the spirit to bring it back to those days. The problem with WWII is that we went from being an isolationist superpower to being the world police. For a time, we had an enemy, the Soviet Union. When the US is put against a country or a government it performs well, but because we are/were a country of ideals, we cannot fight these police wars with every country wanting to make noise.

I think that US war with the Middle East was unavoidable, the attacks of 9/11 pissed a LOT of people off and Afganistan was known to be a Taleban country. The war with Iraq was a rash move by our country, but not unjustified. It served as a simple warning to the UN, that if they won't enforce resolutions, we will. And so the US starts a war against a government and easilly overthrows it. But the war against religious ideal cannot be fought by a government, it gets fought by a people. Our place is not in Iraq trying to quash the rebellion.

So it comes down, who do the fools blame? The figurehead Bush of course. Given, this is not a polished man when it comes to public speaking, nor is he a good leader. However, COMPLETE blame for the war cannot be leveled on one man. This problem started with Vietnam and will only continue to repeat itself because the US never withdrew its forces from around the world.

We stand in a horrible situation right now, the top administration of the country has lost its connection with the people and set its course for an endless war, and the legislative below it will now immediatly try to remedy this debt by ramping taxes up. But this is really just the economy, the problems lie deeper, we've lost a great deal of our foreign support. The little sense we do have is in reference to the crazy fucks in North Korea. Europe presses the US to take action against them which is a REALLY bad idea. This is a country that is not afraid to attack its neighbors and kill lots of civilians (now the liberals will cry "oh, but you are killing civilians now in Iraq", and sure we are, but not millions and millions). So we put our foot down for a change and won't step into this conflict. But it leaves Iraq, the great question comes down to, do we pull out and let a feeble government be taken over by a theocracy like Iran, or do we continue to lose soldiers to their insane beliefs.

It also must be mentioned, that by attacking Iraq, we knocked off a balance that existed between Iraq and Iran. With Iran's enemy gone and public oppinion of the US war in Iraq being so low, Iran is now left with full opertunities to develop the very WMD's feared in Iraq, and distribute to terrorists crossing the border to Iraq.

It's a war the US lost just like Vietnam, I expect the future is grim with the probable choice of pulling out and leaving Iran to develop weapons and Iraq to come under a theocracy. The only other outcome would be that the rest of the developed world would wake up and see this threat, and lauch the world into WWIII, regardless, the Middle East is going to become worse before it becomes better.

Just as WWII was the war that brought about our empire's golden age, this new world war will be the very war that could break it. We are running out of allies in Europe and our footing with China is still uncertain (we're talking about one of the worst governments for human rights possibly becoming a US ally?). Mixed issues with North Korea are going to arise.

The worst part of this is that we have no idea who the country's leaders will be during this time.. I doubt a republican, and I fear a democrat will raze the middle class into poverty with high taxation (shit, the US is already not a good place to have a large company headquartered, outsourcing is cheaper). China and India have economies growing exponentially which I don't see the US keeping up with.

So, I conclude? The US is going to try to compensate for its recent fuckup by taxing, and this will raise living costs and force businesses out of the country.. a world war is going to develop out of the chaos we are a part of and at this we will become isolationist. A second Great Depression is to follow, and China will take the place of world superpower. Europe will have its hands full with extremist muslims and it is at this point we will declare WWIII, and the US empire will have fallen much like the Soviet Union.

Its a grim future, and many of this could happen different ways, but THERE IS NO EASY SOLUTION TO THE MESS WE ARE IN! If anyone is to blame most of all for world instability, its the fucking Muslims and the US cannot and SHOULD NOT have picked a holy war yet we got sucked into it by the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

** Disclaimer: I did not take into effect any conspiracy theory relating to 9/11, nor do I like Republicans or Democrats. I see war as sometimes a necessary evil, but this is way different then anything before.
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Wow nicely said