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The fall of Rome equals US today?

The fall of Rome equals US today?

  • Yes, absolutely

    Votes: 9 22.0%

  • Some similarities, but not really

    Votes: 18 43.9%

  • No, not at all

    Votes: 13 31.7%

  • Other (please elaborate)

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • Total voters
    41
Van Basten said:
There's nothing to decide, he's not a usurper. His credentials and experiences are irrelevant, he beat the other guys in the election. America voted for him, they wanted him, not your guy. Get over it and stop spewing nonsensical accusations. What bull****.
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Not really. It's in decline, but not like the Roman Empire.

I think that's just a lazy shorthand for people that really don't know history. It's a lot closer to the fall of, say, the Spanish Empire than it is the Roman.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Rome fell because of the military costs of maintaining its empire. Most great empires fall due to out of control defense spending.
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Rome fell due to Barbarian Invasions. We're falling for a similar reason - we're importing massive amounts of Third World people. You can't be a First World society, never mind the Leader of the Free World, if your society is characterized as Third World.

It's people who make a society. If this wasn't so, then we could either impose or actively promote that all Third World countries adopt the US Constitution and thereby eradicate their Third World status.
 
Perotista said:
within a couple of years the interest payments on that debt will replace defense spending as the largest outlay, the number one budget item.
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You need to check your facts. Defense accounts for only 18% of the budget. Take a gander at social welfare transfers if you want to see where the largest outlays are found.
 
Rome fell because of too many military conquests which diminished resources, combined with adequate rivals on all sides. IIRC it was the Gothic War, specifically, which was the nail in the coffin. Less commonly known is that Rome was divided into East and West, with two different rulers. The Gothic War attempted to unite the two and it caused much resource to be wasted. It had nothing to do with a bloated bourgeoise or entitlements -- those are modern distinctions. Rome did not have social welfare or anything like our social systems today.

The U.S. is going to diminish in power and have to scale back its empire building, but it's not going to collapse from invasion the way Rome did. It has Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, the most powerful military on the planet (for now), and has many military allies. Do the math, it's not gonna happen.

There are many parallels to the U.S. and the decline of Rome but it's a tired comparison because too many variables are entirely different. We can compare virtually any ailing nation with ancient Rome because it's the western world's gold standard (and obsession) of civilization decline, but it's usually not that meaningful or especially important of a comparison. Rome was the greatest nation the western world ever knew, which existed from the 8th century BC onward. The U.S. is too young to be that important... it's burning hot and dying young. When people compare the U.S. to ancient Rome, I think they need to deflate their big heads a little bit.
 
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RiverDad said:
You need to check your facts. Defense accounts for only 18% of the budget. Take a gander at social welfare transfers if you want to see where the largest outlays are found.
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Okay I see what you mean.
 
BigRedChief said:
The only undamaged infrastructure after the war. We got to provide the materials to rebuild after the war.
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Go and check your data. Look at exports as a percent of GDP. If your hypothesis truly reflects reality, then you should expect to find that American exports to the war ravaged nations of the world were monumental, enough to boost and sustain our economy for decades after WWII. Hint: you won't find what you were looking for, but don't take my word for it.

Plenty of jobs. They in turn spend the money. Created more jobs. We have been living off that kick start since.
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This is closer to the what actually did happen.

Without a strong middle class we are done as a country. Thats the danger for us. If the income inequality keeps whacking the middle class it will lead to slow decline but an ending that works out well for no one.
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This plus the invasion of the barbarian hordes will spell our doom.
 
NoC_T said:
Inequality doesn't necessarily precipitate collapse.
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That's right. There is some type of threshold beyond which inequality can't exist because the economic system is no longer self-sustaining. Before that threshold is crossed there is usually some form of revolution.
 
RiverDad said:
Rome fell due to Barbarian Invasions. We're falling for a similar reason - we're importing massive amounts of Third World people. You can't be a First World society, never mind the Leader of the Free World, if your society is characterized as Third World.

It's people who make a society. If this wasn't so, then we could either impose or actively promote that all Third World countries adopt the US Constitution and thereby eradicate their Third World status.
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This could have been written (and basically was) in 1845. Also in 1890. Also in 1910. Also in 1921....etc.

The similarity here is that the people who made this argument have been wrong for about 200 years. And still aren't learning.
 
Threegoofs said:
This could have been written (and basically was) in 1845. Also in 1890. Also in 1910. Also in 1921....etc.

The similarity here is that the people who made this argument have been wrong for about 200 years. And still aren't learning.
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You're wrong for a number of reasons. The primary reasons are that the social science data shows that there are vast gulfs in various metrics even into the 4th generation and this didn't occur with past immigration waves.
 
If immigration was the cause, it would've been over long, long ago. Not just for the US, but for many countries, in many eras. Let's assume it's a contributor: it's obviously so much more than that that to focus on it is naive at best or trolling at worst.
 
Absolutely! Once a people lose their moral compass then there's nothing that can't be rationalized. Society exists because as a people we agree to a certain set of rules or laws to maintain a safe orderly environment for the propagation of our species.
 
RiverDad said:
You're wrong for a number of reasons. The primary reasons are that the social science data shows that there are vast gulfs in various metrics even into the 4th generation and this didn't occur with past immigration waves.
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Yeah..right.

Let's see the data. And let's not see it come from American Thinker either.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Rome fell because of the military costs of maintaining its empire. Most great empires fall due to out of control defense spending.
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Well we may not be an empire but we do have a far ranging military presence that is costing us billions each year...
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
That was the point though. Huge empires are extremely expensive to defend and invariably they collapse because of that. Rome simply did not have the resources to maintain the level of military needed to defend their empire indefinitely.
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Again, however; the factors which ultimately brought the Roman Empire down had nothing to do with military spending.

The barbarians and plagues would have come either way regardless of Rome's size or spending. Having a smaller empire or less expensive military wouldn't have helped anything in this regard.

Over extended time scales, the likelihood of any system collapsing ultimately approaches 1. I don't see any particular evidence that large is any better than small in this regard.

Imperial China, for instance, endured for millennia in one form or another before finally collapsing.
 
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