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Paris and the Fall of Rome

Gardener said:
I've got a spare bedroom.

....and did I mention that the beer here is terrific?
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Miss American Craft beer! The craft beer scene is starting to catch on in the UK soon! Good thing i'm over in the US right now for Thanksgiving, going to watch the Patriots on Monday night and have some good beer tomorrow.
 
Jack Hays said:
Here is a provocative thesis presented by one of our most interesting historians. Is the Paris terrorist attack indicative of the coming Fall of Europe?

Paris and the Fall of Rome
Niall Ferguson, Boston Globe

I am not going to repeat what you have already read or heard. I am not going to say that what happened in Paris on Friday night was unprecedented horror, for it was not. I am not going to say that the world stands with France, for it is a hollow phrase. Nor am I going to applaud President Hollande’s pledge of “pitiless” vengeance, for I do not believe it. I am, instead, going to tell you that this is exactly how civilizations fall.


Here is how Edward Gibbon described the Goths’ sack of Rome in August 410 AD:
“In the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed . . . a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and . . . the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies . . . Whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless . . .”


Now, does that not describe the scenes we witnessed in Paris on Friday night?. . . .
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No. It does not.
Does it describe what happened in Boston?
 
Where the Romans obsessed with social welfare and political correctness? If so, then yes you can draw a comparison to the coming fall of modern day Europe.
 
Jack Hays said:
Oh, I don't know. He seems to have succeeded in engaging you.
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Hardly. His intention clearly has been to draw focus on the refugee crisis and the growth of Islam in Europe, but the entire focus of our conversation has been on his ignorance regarding the Fall of Rome.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
Hardly. His intention clearly has been to draw focus on the refugee crisis and the growth of Islam in Europe, but the entire focus of our conversation has been on his ignorance regarding the Fall of Rome.
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Actually, I don't think any of that was his target. He's concerned by Europe's parallel trends increasing complacency and weakness.
 
Jack Hays said:
Actually, I don't think any of that was his target. He's concerned by Europe's parallel trends increasing complacency and weakness.
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Parallel trends that are not actually parallel.
 
Jredbaron96 said:
With regards to opinion. His attempts to liken the current situation to Rome's are demonstrably false.
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I suspect there's enough room for interpretation and differing views among historians to have a discussion of that. You won't be having that discussion with me because it's not an area of strength for me.
 
Jack Hays said:
I suspect there's enough room for interpretation and differing views among historians to have a discussion of that. You won't be having that discussion with me because it's not an area of strength for me.
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Fair enough.
 
Jack Hays said:
Here is a provocative thesis presented by one of our most interesting historians. Is the Paris terrorist attack indicative of the coming Fall of Europe?

Paris and the Fall of Rome
Niall Ferguson, Boston Globe

I am not going to repeat what you have already read or heard. I am not going to say that what happened in Paris on Friday night was unprecedented horror, for it was not. I am not going to say that the world stands with France, for it is a hollow phrase. Nor am I going to applaud President Hollande’s pledge of “pitiless” vengeance, for I do not believe it. I am, instead, going to tell you that this is exactly how civilizations fall.


Here is how Edward Gibbon described the Goths’ sack of Rome in August 410 AD:
“In the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed . . . a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and . . . the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies . . . Whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless . . .”


Now, does that not describe the scenes we witnessed in Paris on Friday night?. . . .
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I like Ferguson but I think his articles are hit or miss. This one is the latter.

First of all, he tries to make a correlation with the barbarians who sacked Rome and the threat of ISIS which is a huge stretch. Second of all, the Vandals and the Goths were Christian and they were let in and they destroyed only the pagan temples and not the Christian ones in Rome. Thirdly ISIS has very few numbers- their own estimates have them at 100K fighters in the middle east while Europe has a population of close to 500 million so his cries of doom do not add up. It's a poorly written article.
 
Jack Hays said:
Eye of the beholder.
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Well what we are facing ( America included) is quite a complex threat, much more complex that what Rome faced, I think that's the point JedBaron is trying to make.
 
Higgins86 said:
Well what we are facing ( America included) is quite a complex threat, much more complex that what Rome faced, I think that's the point JedBaron is trying to make.
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I don't think I can go along with the assertion that the threats we face are demonstrably more complex than those faced by Rome.
 
Jack Hays said:
I don't think I can go along with the assertion that the threats we face are demonstrably more complex than those faced by Rome.
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Absolutely they are. Rome had exhausted her power after centuries, Rome had engaged in long and demanding conflicts in Germania, tried to secure Briton whilst at the same time secure it's own trade. What we are dealing with is a secular threat which can be controlled with our weapons. Rome was always outnumbered heavily, it was only a matter of time before her enemies learned and adapted.

No country on this planet can be compared to Rome. Rome was everything, Rome was power and when it fell the Dark ages swept across Europe.
 
Higgins86 said:
Absolutely they are. Rome had exhausted her power after centuries, Rome had engaged in long and demanding conflicts in Germania, tried to secure Briton whilst at the same time secure it's own trade. What we are dealing with is a secular threat which can be controlled with our weapons. Rome was always outnumbered heavily, it was only a matter of time before her enemies learned and adapted.

No country on this planet can be compared to Rome. Rome was everything, Rome was power and when it fell the Dark ages swept across Europe.
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Lots of sweeping generalizations there.
 
Jack Hays said:
". . . “Romans before the fall,” wrote Ward-Perkins in his “Fall of Rome,” “were as certain as we are today that their world would continue for ever substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

Poor, poor Paris. Killed by complacency."
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Paris has been killed? By a handful of Muslim jihadists?
Read some history.
 
I was just in Paris yesterday and didn't notice that it had died. :rolleyes:
 
Jack Hays said:
Here is a provocative thesis presented by one of our most interesting historians. Is the Paris terrorist attack indicative of the coming Fall of Europe?

Paris and the Fall of Rome
Niall Ferguson, Boston Globe

I am not going to repeat what you have already read or heard. I am not going to say that what happened in Paris on Friday night was unprecedented horror, for it was not. I am not going to say that the world stands with France, for it is a hollow phrase. Nor am I going to applaud President Hollande’s pledge of “pitiless” vengeance, for I do not believe it. I am, instead, going to tell you that this is exactly how civilizations fall.


Here is how Edward Gibbon described the Goths’ sack of Rome in August 410 AD:
“In the hour of savage license, when every passion was inflamed, and every restraint was removed . . . a cruel slaughter was made of the Romans; and . . . the streets of the city were filled with dead bodies . . . Whenever the Barbarians were provoked by opposition, they extended the promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless . . .”


Now, does that not describe the scenes we witnessed in Paris on Friday night?. . . .
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nope most of the the Muslims in France are not terrorists this is not an invading horde your just afraid
 
Jack Hays said:
His article is meant to be provocative, not scholarly.
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Jack Hays said:
I suspect there's enough room for interpretation and differing views among historians to have a discussion of that ~
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These admissions that the false parallel he's trying to draw should warn readers unless they have already made their minds up.

The audience for such articles are the ones desperate to believe the "empire" of europe is doomed and self engaged to the level of Nero; fiddling while rampant hordes of IS and other extremist muslims march across Europe to destroy it from within.

I'm not worried when armchair generals debate - it's when we elect leaders who are infected with that same unquestioning lack of understanding and look at refugees in need of help and see only invading muslims with kalashnikovs drawn. Yes, there were and will be small numbers of IS operatives in the midst of refugees but there will be many more in need of help.

European leaders are slowly getting their act together, Hollande's call to close borders now stands in contrast with Frau Merkel's open arms stance that has invited so many to attempt the journey. In the UK, money has already been put into world leading deradicalisation programmes and we have also taken citizenship away from some who have gone.

It will take time but a unified policy will fall into place, security teams across europe will start working better together, more countries will start taking the UK's position and putting greater resource into intelligence and special forces. We are taking funding from policing but putting more into having larger SAS type units.

We went through this before with the IRA and survived stronger for it - I'm not cowering under my bed anytime any muslim walks by.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
These admissions that the false parallel he's trying to draw should warn readers unless they have already made their minds up.

The audience for such articles are the ones desperate to believe the "empire" of europe is doomed and self engaged to the level of Nero; fiddling while rampant hordes of IS and other extremist muslims march across Europe to destroy it from within.

I'm not worried when armchair generals debate - it's when we elect leaders who are infected with that same unquestioning lack of understanding and look at refugees in need of help and see only invading muslims with kalashnikovs drawn. Yes, there were and will be small numbers of IS operatives in the midst of refugees but there will be many more in need of help.

European leaders are slowly getting their act together, Hollande's call to close borders now stands in contrast with Frau Merkel's open arms stance that has invited so many to attempt the journey. In the UK, money has already been put into world leading deradicalisation programmes and we have also taken citizenship away from some who have gone.

It will take time but a unified policy will fall into place, security teams across europe will start working better together, more countries will start taking the UK's position and putting greater resource into intelligence and special forces. We are taking funding from policing but putting more into having larger SAS type units.

We went through this before with the IRA and survived stronger for it - I'm not cowering under my bed anytime any muslim walks by.
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Despite our differences IC, sometimes, you do just nail it and it needs to be called out. :)
 
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