[quote]mapwhap wrote:
While I am hardly a history expert, and I confess to not having full grasp of it, I am referencing the fall of the Republic of Rome. The empire was bound to fall eventually, as all empires do. [/quote]
OK, so the fall of the Republic.
That usually gets placed around the time Octavian was appointed Dictator (crushing the post Julius Caesar Second Triumverate-Goodbye Marc Antony and Lepidus) and named himself Caesar Augustus. Other historians put it at Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, or his stabbing. There is sort of an intriguing minority opinion that Rome had in fact been an empire for many years because of its frequent dictatorships, expansionist economy, ect.
If we are drawing parallels to The Republic’s fall than we are looking at the start of a dictatorial central government that ushers in a long period of relative safety from foreign invaders, domestic turmoils, and increased economic prosperity. In deed we would be looking at a period where there would be a massive respect for the rule of law. The Republic’s Fall was the beginning, more or less, of the Pax Romana. It should also be noted that a return to family/moral values was a huge part of Augustus’s policies and his reign was a less freedom, but competent rule type of deal. The shitbirds making “Fuck the police, he thugin w/ Jesus now.” posters do not strike me as evidence of support for that kind of platform. Quite the opposite.
The Senate at the Republic’s Fall was in fact incredibly fearful of the plebes(common folk) and of the civil war, trade issues, starvation(Antony and Cleopatra’s position could essentially choke Rome’s food/grain supply). I am not getting any of that from current events. Unless flyover country somehow stops shipping food to D.C. I really am not seeing it. I know some would attempt a parallel with fossil fuel/energy as being the new necessary import but that isn’t remotely applicable in light of the untouched reserves or oil/gas/coal in the U.S.A. and the fact the current administration stalled out the Keystone Pipeline instead of having to go to war to secure it.This is where Will notes that the last time Canada and the U.S. had a dust up they burned our Whitehouse like a bunch of rowdy hockey fans.
Even during the Republic Rome’s economy thrived on military expansion as much, or more than, trade/production of goods. The U.S. has never really had a empire type economy (Texas might be an example of militarily aquired land, but the fighting wasn’t done by the U.S. Government proper. Some might argue that the U.S. Gov’s treatment of the native people’s qualify and that holds a bit better, but was mostly a shooting war when blackpowder was current tech.). Our colonial attempts have largely been bush league compared to what Rome was doing. The most often cited wartime/military economic boom is the post WWII economy. However in that case I submit we benefitted from the exact opposite of Roman policy.
The U.S. is often accused of being too isolationist leading up to and in the early parts of the war. Even when we got involved our initial attempts focused on industrial support (Lend-Lease) and embargo against the Axis (suspension of fuel exports to Japan was especially damaging to their war efforts and is often cited as the driving force for them starting the shooting war proper). Rome waged war to get goods and services flowing into the city, we waged it by exporting to allies and not selling to adversaries. The post war boom consisted largely of the marketing pitch “We notice all your factories and industrial capabilities are all busted up an shit. Ours aren’t, cause we didn’t fight in our homeland. We can sell ya stuff. But it’ll cost ya.” This lasted well into the 1970’s until the western nations rebuilt enough to start telling our salesmen to pound salt up their asses.
I know Rome’s Fall is commonly alluded to, but the modern day U.S.A. is way too different for the analogy to hold for me.
A counter point to the above could be that our standard of living is high and violent crime rates are at historic lows (as are law enforcement deaths when adjusted per capita) so you might argue that we are living in the Pax. I consider that insufficient because of the economic differences and the lack of civil war.
That wasn’t too bad, only light profanity.
Regards,
Robert A
