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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
Fiddytree said:
I'm not an ancient specialist, but just to let you know, it tends to be rather foolish to follow reductionist thinking for history-especially attributing the rise and fall of empires to lead poisoning.
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Still, there is as much plausibility to it as other more agenda driven explanations. Fact is, we don't know enough of the full story, and probably can't.
 
ITT: people who don't know much about the roman empire.
 
Perotista said:
I do think there are a lot of similarities. I also believe our best days are behind us as instead of us handing our children a better nation to live in, we when we die will be handing them a nation in worst shape than when we entered it. Gallup had a poll a couple of month ago I wished I would have saved where they asked are our best days as a nation ahead of us or behind us. Around 45% answered behind us vs. 40% ahead of us.

It is the debt that worries me the most, within a couple of years the interest payments on that debt will replace defense spending as the largest outlay, the number one budget item. Just think what may happen to those payment if interest rates return to normal, instead of paying 1-2% we have to pay 5-6%. We will be unable to sustain that.
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Very good post.
 
Somerville said:
Another one ignorant of real history. There was no single cause leading up to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Don't forget that those called "citizen" in the Roman Empire were a minority of those governed.
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I was just pointing out the main similarity between the decline of the Romans and us.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?

You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
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End of America as global superpower ≠ fall of country.

Nonetheless the parallels are there. Or, perhaps to sound a little less alarmist, the potential for those parallels to be a serious problem are there.

Rome.info > Fall of the Roman Empire, decline of ancient Rome

Decline in Morals and Values
Even during PaxRomana (A long period from Augstus to Marcus Aurelius when the Roman empire was stable and relativly peaceful) there were 32,000 prostitutes in Rome. Emperors like Caligula and Nero became infamous for wasting money on lavish parties where guests drank and ate until they became sick. The most popular amusement was watching the gladiatorial combats in the Colosseum.
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This is so relative as to be meaningless. It's easier to focus on the weaknesses of the current age because the greatest strengths tend to get mixed up in them, sort of like how we imagine that all the music from the sixties was brilliant only because the really awful stuff was eventually forgotten. I would only say that greater economic inequality has played a devastating role in shattering the strength of the stable nuclear family, which definitely plays a part in morals and values.

Public Health
There were many public health and environmental problems. Many of the wealthy had water brought to their homes through lead pipes. Previously the aqueducts had even purified the water but at the end lead pipes were thought to be preferable. The wealthy death rate was very high. The continuous interaction of people at the Colosseum, the blood and death probable spread disease. Those who lived on the streets in continuous contact allowed for an uninterrupted strain of disease much like the homeless in the poorer run shelters of today. Alcohol use increased as well adding to the incompetency of the general public.
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True. Bad diet and lack of exercise are leading to record diabetes and heart disease, and health care is reactive instead of preventive. American health is really bad.

Political Corruption
One of the most difficult problems was choosing a new emperor. Unlike Greece where transition may not have been smooth but was at least consistent, the Romans never created an effective system to determine how new emperors would be selected. The choice was always open to debate between the old emperor, the Senate, the Praetorian Guard (the emperor's's private army), and the army. Gradually, the Praetorian Guard gained complete authority to choose the new emperor, who rewarded the guard who then became more influential, perpetuating the cycle. Then in 186 A. D. the army strangled the new emperor, the practice began of selling the throne to the highest bidder. During the next 100 years, Rome had 37 different emperors - 25 of whom were removed from office by assassination. This contributed to the overall weaknesses, decline and fall of the empire.
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True. Many Americans feel their presidential candidates are chosen for them in a format in which they have no voice. Add to that lobbying and campaign contributions that clearly favor the wealthiest, I definitely give a nod to this. The result an increasing number of Americans feel alienated from the democratic process.

Unemployment
During the latter years of the empire farming was done on large estates called latifundia that were owned by wealthy men who used slave labor. A farmer who had to pay workmen could not produce goods as cheaply. Many farmers could not compete with these low prices and lost or sold their farms. This not only undermined the citizen farmer who passed his values to his family, but also filled the cities with unemployed people. At one time, the emperor was importing grain to feed more than 100,000 people in Rome alone. These people were not only a burden but also had little to do but cause trouble and contribute to an ever increasing crime rate.
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True. Unemployment is high with no relief in the immediate future, and apropos of the above global warming and the current drought is going to play havoc with our food supply.
 
Part 2

Inflation
The roman economy suffered from inflation (an increase in prices) beginning after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Once the Romans stopped conquering new lands, the flow of gold into the Roman economy decreased. Yet much gold was being spent by the romans to pay for luxury items. This meant that there was less gold to use in coins. As the amount of gold used in coins decreased, the coins became less valuable. To make up for this loss in value, merchants raised the prices on the goods they sold. Many people stopped using coins and began to barter to get what they needed. Eventually, salaries had to be paid in food and clothing, and taxes were collected in fruits and vegetables.
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True. Adjusted for inflation, the average household makes less than it did 15 years ago.

Urban decay
Wealthy Romans lived in a domus, or house, with marble walls, floors with intricate colored tiles, and windows made of small panes of glass. Most Romans, however, were not rich, They lived in small smelly rooms in apartment houses with six or more stories called islands. Each island covered an entire block. At one time there were 44,000 apartment houses within the city walls of Rome. First-floor apartments were not occupied by the poor since these living quarters rented for about $00 a year. The more shaky wooden stairs a family had to climb, the cheaper the rent became. The upper apartments that the poor rented for $40 a year were hot, dirty, crowed, and dangerous. Anyone who could not pay the rent was forced to move out and live on the crime-infested streets. Because of this cities began to decay.
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Mostly true. Infrastructure, in the form of our power grid, highways and mass transit are falling apart, and there's little political momentum to overhaul any of this on a nation-wide scale.

Inferior Technology
Another factor that had contributed to decline and fall of the Roman empire was that during the last 400 years of the empire, the scientific achievements of the Romans were limited almost entirely to engineering and the organization of public services. They built marvelous roads, bridges, and aqueducts. They established the first system of medicine for the benefit of the poor. But since the Romans relied so much on human and animal labor, they failed to invent many new machines or find new technology to produce goods more efficiently. They could not provide enough goods for their growing population. They were no longer conquering other civilizations and adapting their technology, they were actually losing territory they could not longer maintain with their legions.
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Undetermined. What's funny about this is we have lots of technology. The disconnect, as anyone who has traveled to much of Europe, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea can tell you, is that you just don't always see a lot of it on the street.

Military Spending
Maintaining an army to defend the border of the Empire from barbarian attacks was a constant drain on the government. Military spending left few resources for other vital activities, such as providing public housing and maintaining quality roads and aqueducts. Frustrated Romans lost their desire to defend the Empire. The empire had to begin hiring soldiers recruited from the unemployed city mobs or worse from foreign counties. Such an army was not only unreliable, but very expensive. The emperors were forced to raise taxes frequently which in turn led again to increased inflation.
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Gee, I don't know. What do you think? Does anybody think we're spending a lot of money on our military?

THE FINAL BLOWS
For years, the well-disciplined Roman army held the barbarians of Germany back. Then in the third century A. D. the Roman soldiers were pulled back from the Rhine-Danube frontier to fight civil war in Italy. This left the Roman border open to attack. Gradually Germanic hunters and herders from the north began to overtake Roman lands in Greece and Gaul (later France). Then in 476 A. D. the Germanic general Odacer or Odovacar overthrew the last of the Roman Emperors, Augustulus Romulus. From then on the western part of the Empire was ruled by Germanic chieftain. Roads and bridges were left in disrepair and fields left untilled. Pirates and bandits made travel unsafe. Cities could not be maintained without goods from the farms, trade and business began to disappear. And Rome was no more in the West. The total fall of the Roman empire.
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True (sort of). I was tempted to make a joke about how the threat of Visigoths has mostly passed, but looking at the drug war spilling from Mexico and into our border, and how Sudan reminded everybody that piracy is still actually a thing, decreased military might on our part could allow these thing to slowly chew away at us.
 
Can't really answer because I haven't significantly studied the Roman empire. I do think some of our efforts abroad in the 2000's could be similar to the overreach of an empire; though I thought the war on terror's issues were more a wonderful analog to our efforts to spend the soviets into oblivion in the cold war as opposed to anything to do with Rome.

Claiming Obama is a "Usurper" however is foolish. 8 years of that crap with Bush and now we have to put up with it for Obama. Will doomcriers please go away? When a President actually makes a push to go beyond 8 years THEN I may start giving them Robert Baratheon's title. Before that, meh. I disagree with a lot of what he's doing too, but Usurper is ridiculous.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Obama rate of issuing executive orders is one of the lowest of any president in a hundred years:
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SD, you're a smart guy so I don't know why you keep going to this ONE factor when it's been pointed out to you numerous times that peoples complaints are generally beyond simple "how many".

If people were claiming specifically that Obama is doing too many EO's or suggestnig EO's inherently are beyond a Presidents authority, then you'd be correct in posting this link. However, that's not what people are claiming...but you're just attacking a strawman of your own creation by acting like their focus is on one thing.

If I say a player is making poor decisions shooting the ball and he turns raound and goes "But coach! I only shot the ball 8 times and Johnson over there shot it 12! How dare you criticize me" that doesn't necessarily counter my point. Johnson's shots may've been high percentage while the other players wasn't. Johnson's may've been uncontested while the other players were while being double teamed. Johnson's may've been on set plays after ball movement, where as the other players were from him hogging the ball and putting up a shot.

There could be all sorts of factors as to why I say he was making a poor decision shooting; but he just throws out one metric and declares a win.

Unless you can show me an instance of the poster complaining about poor volume, this instance...as with previous instances where you've been called out about htis...is just you attempting to pidgeon hole an argument.

A large part of the argument regarding Obama and executive actions is not the volume, but the type of actions being under gone. Additionally, the issue is not even singularly resolving around "Executive orders" but a mass of executive action undertaken...both through EO's and directives via Executive Administrations.

When it comes to EO's, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson laid the foundation for the three types that exist.

Those issued persuant to an expressed or implied authorization of Congress. In these cases the POTUS's authority is maximum, with an EO being invalid only if what it does is outside the scope of the governments power.

The next are those with a "Zone of Twilight"; instances where a President acts singularly based on his independent power and Congress has not spoken on the issue. Here, the validity of the EO is a bit more questionable and depends on the imperatives of the event and contemporary imponderables.

Finally, there are those that are incompatable with the expressed or implied will of Congress. This is the flip side of the first instance and is where the POTUS's authority is at it's lowest. The EO would only be constitutional if it's something a court could disable the congress from being able to act on.

Justice Jackson pointed out that instances falling in that last category are ones where the notion of checks and balances within our government becomes at stake.

Focusing singularly upon the "amount" is a dishonest reading of peoples complaints, basically placing blinders on and deciding to argue the path of least resistance rather than take any effort to honestly understand their complaints.

It is not simply the number but rather the method and style in which it's being done.

The issues with regards to immigration is a wonderful example of this. Proponents of the President will note that he was simply focusing enforcement towards certain problems and away from others. A legitimate defense. However, also legitimate is the opponents of the President's point that many of the designations that the Obama administration made for determining enforcement closely match a law that was attempted to be passed by congress and failed. As such, you're have an issue of an Executive Order that is incompatable with the expressed will of Congress. It was a course of action specifically dealt with in Congress and was unable to come to pass. That causes a greater question regarding the legitimacy of that executive order beyond one that was done in line with what Congress stated.

This is why it's foolish when people keep throwing out pure volume numbers as if every executive order or action is equal and the same.

The changing of implimentation dates within the passage of Obamacare is another legitimate issue. For example, the law laid out SPECIFIC dates that certain factors had to occur. And while they did provide for exemptions, they highlighted that said exemption couldn't come into effect until 2017. When congress clearly includes a specific date, and clearly includes that an exemption can't be done until 2017, it's difficult to argue that expressed OR implied will of the congress was that changing to a date sometime between those two points was perfectly okay. Yet that has not stopped exemption after exemption being issued by the Administration regarding the employee mandate.

These are the type of issues that people have when talking about his over reach of powers and not simply "how many". Continually posting up the same tired chart of "how many" is a poor debate tactic based upon intellectual dishonesty and an attempt to strawman that does a horrendous job of actually offering up substantitve counter arguments to the claims being made.

You've had this pointed out to you by others before, and you even aknowledegd it, so why you continue to then fall back to the same tired argument is confusing to me.
 
WCH said:
Let's see.

Allowing influence from the outside. Check!

Usurper in office. Check

Decadence Check!

Moral decay Check!

Economic problems Check!

Philosophical divisions Check!

Looking pretty bad for us.
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There's a lot wrong in this post, but none more than the Usurper comment.

Do you even know what an Usurper is? Obama is no such thing. I get that you don't like or respect him, that is your right, but this is just disingenuous and ignorant to a fault.
 
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Zyphlin said:
SD, you're a smart guy so I don't know why you keep going to this ONE factor when it's been pointed out to you numerous times that peoples complaints are generally beyond simple "how many".

If people were claiming specifically that Obama is doing too many EO's or suggestnig EO's inherently are beyond a Presidents authority, then you'd be correct in posting this link. However, that's not what people are claiming...but you're just attacking a strawman of your own creation by acting like their focus is on one thing.

If I say a player is making poor decisions shooting the ball and he turns raound and goes "But coach! I only shot the ball 8 times and Johnson over there shot it 12! How dare you criticize me" that doesn't necessarily counter my point. Johnson's shots may've been high percentage while the other players wasn't. Johnson's may've been uncontested while the other players were while being double teamed. Johnson's may've been on set plays after ball movement, where as the other players were from him hogging the ball and putting up a shot.

There could be all sorts of factors as to why I say he was making a poor decision shooting; but he just throws out one metric and declares a win.

Unless you can show me an instance of the poster complaining about poor volume, this instance...as with previous instances where you've been called out about htis...is just you attempting to pidgeon hole an argument.

A large part of the argument regarding Obama and executive actions is not the volume, but the type of actions being under gone. Additionally, the issue is not even singularly resolving around "Executive orders" but a mass of executive action undertaken...both through EO's and directives via Executive Administrations.

When it comes to EO's, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson laid the foundation for the three types that exist.

Those issued persuant to an expressed or implied authorization of Congress. In these cases the POTUS's authority is maximum, with an EO being invalid only if what it does is outside the scope of the governments power.

The next are those with a "Zone of Twilight"; instances where a President acts singularly based on his independent power and Congress has not spoken on the issue. Here, the validity of the EO is a bit more questionable and depends on the imperatives of the event and contemporary imponderables.

Finally, there are those that are incompatable with the expressed or implied will of Congress. This is the flip side of the first instance and is where the POTUS's authority is at it's lowest. The EO would only be constitutional if it's something a court could disable the congress from being able to act on.

Justice Jackson pointed out that instances falling in that last category are ones where the notion of checks and balances within our government becomes at stake.

Focusing singularly upon the "amount" is a dishonest reading of peoples complaints, basically placing blinders on and deciding to argue the path of least resistance rather than take any effort to honestly understand their complaints.

It is not simply the number but rather the method and style in which it's being done.

The issues with regards to immigration is a wonderful example of this. Proponents of the President will note that he was simply focusing enforcement towards certain problems and away from others. A legitimate defense. However, also legitimate is the opponents of the President's point that many of the designations that the Obama administration made for determining enforcement closely match a law that was attempted to be passed by congress and failed. As such, you're have an issue of an Executive Order that is incompatable with the expressed will of Congress. It was a course of action specifically dealt with in Congress and was unable to come to pass. That causes a greater question regarding the legitimacy of that executive order beyond one that was done in line with what Congress stated.

This is why it's foolish when people keep throwing out pure volume numbers as if every executive order or action is equal and the same.

The changing of implimentation dates within the passage of Obamacare is another legitimate issue. For example, the law laid out SPECIFIC dates that certain factors had to occur. And while they did provide for exemptions, they highlighted that said exemption couldn't come into effect until 2017. When congress clearly includes a specific date, and clearly includes that an exemption can't be done until 2017, it's difficult to argue that expressed OR implied will of the congress was that changing to a date sometime between those two points was perfectly okay. Yet that has not stopped exemption after exemption being issued by the Administration regarding the employee mandate.

These are the type of issues that people have when talking about his over reach of powers and not simply "how many". Continually posting up the same tired chart of "how many" is a poor debate tactic based upon intellectual dishonesty and an attempt to strawman that does a horrendous job of actually offering up substantitve counter arguments to the claims being made.

You've had this pointed out to you by others before, and you even aknowledegd it, so why you continue to then fall back to the same tired argument is confusing to me.
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Actually the vast majority of the complaints about "Imperial Obama" I have seen on here are directly related to the fact that he has issued executive orders. When its pointed out that he issues far less than most presidents, the argument then falls back to basically "well I disagree with his, thus they are imperial". There are a lot of valid criticisms of the Obama Administration. Personally, I can't even see where those that would be fully sympathetic to his ideology could argue that has presidency has thus far been better than mediocre at best, but in terms of executive orders the guy has been a weeny compared to most presidents.

Moreover, yours in the first argument I have even seen on here that actually went into why you see the Obama Administration's use of Executive Orders being different than previous administrations, so I am not sure where you get that I have acknowledged the validity of the arguments of others on this issue.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?

You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
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If you know anything about Roman history, you cant believe this is true.

The 'fall of Rome" isnt even an established thing. Did the Roman empire cease to exist in 476? Or was it in 1453 when Constantinople fell? Or is your strict definition when Rome lost its capital status in 330? The Eastern Romans living in 1000 would be offended if you told them the Roman empire fell hundreds of years earlier, I assure you.

The history of the US spans a tiny bit of the Romans - which can arguably have been said to last over 1500 years.

The myth of moral decay and decadence was dispelled after Victorian times. One of the main reasons the Western empire 'fell' is that the empire became much too big to defend with the communication systems they had then - they couldnt handle two East and West empires - you cant run Spain and Turkey from a single location when you have Persian pressure on one end and barbarian pressure on the other. So they split. And the West was the weaker part, which was buried by the displaced barbarians from the North... although it also could be said that there was no real fall there either... Charlemagne, for example, considered himself to be taking over as the Roman emporer in 800.

So no. its in no way even close.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Moreover, yours in the first argument I have even seen on here that actually went into why you see the Obama Administration's use of Executive Orders being different than previous administrations, so I am not sure where you get that I have acknowledged the validity of the arguments of others on this issue.
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Dr. Chuckles brought it up with you in another thread. I remember it because I was going to make this kind of comment to you there, pointing out that dumbing down the issue regarding executive orders singularly to Volume without anyone DIRECTLY claiming that was the issue is problematic, but then saw he suggested something similar and you indicated it was a fair point but one you didn't desire to take the time to significantly research.

Dr. Chuckles said:
not that I am disagreeing that criticism is misplaced (it's not an issue I am overly concerned with), but wouldn't a better measure be the issues those executive orders concerned and how legally and socially controversial they were?
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SouthernDemocrat said:
I think thats a fair point. That would take a lot more research than what I am willing to put into this one though. :)

Actually, a quick google search reveals his predecessor had some pretty controversial ones:

The top Bush executive orders that Obama should scrap immediately.
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Granted, he spoke singularly of controversial from a societal stand point where as I'm pointing out the actual legal reasonings behind it, but both are highlighting that pure and simple "volume" hardly is the only component one could be assigning to things when they complain about "executive orders".

I am in no way saying that people aren't complaining about Obama's use of Executive Orders.

I'm suggesting that compalining about his use of Executive Orders could cover a whole host of things, not JUST volume. Acting like someone complaining about executive orders means they must be singularly speaking about volume is dishonestly painting their argument, unless you have supporting evidence from their statements to back up that volume is the singular thing that was concerning them.
 
Zyphlin said:
Dr. Chuckles brought it up with you in another thread. I remember it because I was going to make this kind of comment to you there, pointing out that dumbing down the issue regarding executive orders singularly to Volume without anyone DIRECTLY claiming that was the issue is problematic, but then saw he suggested something similar and you indicated it was a fair point but one you didn't desire to take the time to significantly research.





Granted, he spoke singularly of controversial from a societal stand point where as I'm pointing out the actual legal reasonings behind it, but both are highlighting that pure and simple "volume" hardly is the only component one could be assigning to things when they complain about "executive orders".

I am in no way saying that people aren't complaining about Obama's use of Executive Orders.

I'm suggesting that compalining about his use of Executive Orders could cover a whole host of things, not JUST volume. Acting like someone complaining about executive orders means they must be singularly speaking about volume is dishonestly painting their argument, unless you have supporting evidence from their statements to back up that volume is the singular thing that was concerning them.
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Thanks for pointing that out. However, if you notice I pointed out that some of his predecessors (as with any president) use of executive orders were quite controversial. Moreover, when you consider how unproductive this congress has been, the comparatively light use of executive orders on the part of the Obama Administration is quite remarkable. Think about it. You have a president that came into office in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and has faced the last few years one of the least productive congresses ever, yet has still issued less executive orders than the vast majority of presidents in the last 100 years. I just don't see criticism of the Obama Administrations use of executive orders as being a valid one unless one also criticized his predecessors use of executive orders at the time. Being that the people that criticize Obama over executive orders today were silent during the Bush years, it seems to me their criticisms are based either in ignorance, or just plain old hypocrisy.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?
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You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
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No, absolutely not.

Rome fell, the USA has not fallen and right now it is the dominant power on this planet.

I'm not saying that it will always be that way, but those are the facts right now.
 
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Fiddytree said:
I'm not an ancient specialist, but just to let you know, it tends to be rather foolish to follow reductionist thinking for history-especially attributing the rise and fall of empires to lead poisoning.
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An Empire is only as strong as its ruling class is it not? If that ruling class is weak or dying out then you start getting problems. You have seen that through out history, before and after the Romans. The Habsburgs spring to mind.. generations of incest caused infertility and insanity which ultimately lead to the demise of Empires. Hell even in the UK, the various thrown's were traded based on fertility of its ruling class.

Like it or not the theory of lead poisoning is not only very logical, but can be backed up by historical records on how Roman elite ate and conducted themselves. It is no different that the first Emperor of China going mad due to Mercury poisoning because he ate mercury every day which is also an historical fact. That they now have found his tomb location and have discovered massive amounts of mercury leaking from the tomb, also proves the myth of the design of the tomb and his love of mercury.

Fact is that the Roman Empire had leaders that did not live long, especially during the latter part of the empire, and had some crazy ass ones at that.. Nero and Caligula are only the famous ones, but they are hardly alone. The fact is that many of these leaders died without any heirs which lead to civil wars and so on. And the fact is that the water pipes in ancient Rome were made of lead and that lead was seen by Roman's as a miracle metal. It is not a myth but a fact. It is just a fact that has been overshadowed by other theories, often politically motivated, to explain why the Roman Empire died over several hundred years.

Now the Roman Empire lasted for 1000 years, where as the US has only been around as a powerhouse for maybe 150 years if we stretch it a bit, but more like 80 years. It took the Roman Empire centuries to decline and dissolve, where as we cant say for the US yet.. other than the decline has started.
 
shrubnose said:
No, absolutely not.

Rome fell, the USA has not fallen and right now it is the dominant power on this planet.

I'm not saying that it will always be that way, but those are the facts right now.
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I don't think anyone's suggested we've actually fallen, but since we're already dropping down the list on an increasing number of scales we might as well explore what, if any, similarities we share with previous empires who lost their empire/superpower status.
 
PeteEU said:
Like it or not the theory of lead poisoning is not only very logical, but can be backed up by historical records on how Roman elite ate and conducted themselves. It is no different that the first Emperor of China going mad due to Mercury poisoning because he ate mercury every day which is also an historical fact. That they now have found his tomb location and have discovered massive amounts of mercury leaking from the tomb, also proves the myth of the design of the tomb and his love of mercury.

Fact is that the Roman Empire had leaders that did not live long, especially during the latter part of the empire, and had some crazy ass ones at that.. Nero and Caligula are only the famous ones, but they are hardly alone. The fact is that many of these leaders died without any heirs which lead to civil wars and so on. And the fact is that the water pipes in ancient Rome were made of lead and that lead was seen by Roman's as a miracle metal. It is not a myth but a fact. It is just a fact that has been overshadowed by other theories, often politically motivated, to explain why the Roman Empire died over several hundred years.

Now the Roman Empire lasted for 1000 years, where as the US has only been around as a powerhouse for maybe 150 years if we stretch it a bit, but more like 80 years. It took the Roman Empire centuries to decline and dissolve, where as we cant say for the US yet.. other than the decline has started.
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Like it or not, but this argument has also been a source of contention for decades, even with strenuous warnings from proponents of the theory. A relatively recent journal article highlights many of these issues. For instance, see F.P. Retief and L. Cilliers "Lead Poisoning in Ancient Rome" in Acta Theologica Volume 26, no. 2 (2006), pages 147-164.

However, Scarborough (1984:469-475) and Needleman & Needleman (1985:63-94) warn that calculations of lead consumption must be critically scrutinised. Although sapa prepared in leaden containers would indutibly have contained toxic levels of lead, the use of leaden containers was popular but not necessarily general. The exact amount of sapa added to wine was not standardised either, and we have no idea how often sapa was added, or which wines were treated in this way. (Page 159)
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Likewise, "The disappearance of aristocratic family names does not necessarily indicate a decline in the number of noble families, but that the complex composition of the aristocracy was subject to constant change during the Empire, and that many other factors besides lead could have been responsible for the apparent decline in the numbers of the aristocracy and the reduction of family size." (Page 160).

We also do not have much in the way of documentation to ultimately demonstrate that widespread lead poisoning was much of a factor (Page 160), but we may know that ancient Romans may have ingested "less than half that of modern Europeans," at least part of the time (Page 160-161).

Beware of the single factor explanation of complex social and political changes. It will do you some good.
 
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I think the comparisons to Rome usually just result in very poor analogies. It's the attempt to fit the square pegs of modern policy dilemmas into the circles of Roman civilizational woes. Even the tropes like 'Roman military spending' aren't as simple or accurate as they are being presented and certainly can't be easily compared to the United States or any other country in the world today. The differences between our world and theirs is more extraordinary than we give ourselves credit for.
 
I think the Roman, Persian, Ottoman and British Empires all fell for similar reasons of over extension, wars, internal/political strife, economic stress and change. Eventually some form of oppression always begins to form against a certain group.

We're definitely seeing the signs of those problems starting here, but I'm not sure how close we are to decline or dissolution.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?

You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
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Many do not discern the difference between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.

A reasonable, concerning same, site for perusal of those interested:

Roman Republic vs. Roman Empire - Historum - History Forums

Enjoy life

Thom Paine
 
PeteEU said:
The main reason of the fall of the Roman Empire was more sinister and historians are beginning to realize this. The Roman Empire had a massive population decline of "true Romans" and especially among the powerful elite. This caused massive problems over many many decades and even centuries. The reason was rather simple... lead poisoning.

Roman water systems were built with lead pipes and there was a belief among the upper classes that lead was good for you. What we know today is it is far from it and causes things like insanity and sterility.

This eventually lead to a weak Empire and hence its downfall.
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True. it could totally affected their judgment and reasoning across the board.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?

You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
Click to expand...
1 The US empire (or whatever it has been/is) does not cover almost all of the known world.

2 It has not lasted a thousand or so years (for the western part) or 2000 for the rest of it.

3 It has not been vastly successful in war, destroying and conquering almost all before it.

4 It is not undergoing a slow stagnation of culture and innovation.

5 It is able to recruit soldiers into it's forces from all sections of it's society. There is no irreplaceable soldier cast.

6 It is not in the throws of several vastly depopulating plagues. This was especially sever in the western Roman empire in the 5th century. The eastern half only lost about half of it's population.

7 There are not significant military threats attacking it.

8 It is the most advanced military technologically nation as opposed to Rome having been surpassed in many ways.
 
radcen said:
The fall of Rome equals US today?

You hear this a lot. People pointing out the poarallels between the US today and the fall of the Roman empire. Implying, of course, that we are on the downslope of our phase as a country.

Do you believe this is true? If so, why? If not, why not?
Click to expand...

There is no similarity between the Roman Empire and the USA. None.
 
Zyphlin said:
Can't really answer because I haven't significantly studied the Roman empire. I do think some of our efforts abroad in the 2000's could be similar to the overreach of an empire; though I thought the war on terror's issues were more a wonderful analog to our efforts to spend the soviets into oblivion in the cold war as opposed to anything to do with Rome.

Claiming Obama is a "Usurper" however is foolish. 8 years of that crap with Bush and now we have to put up with it for Obama. Will doomcriers please go away? When a President actually makes a push to go beyond 8 years THEN I may start giving them Robert Baratheon's title. Before that, meh. I disagree with a lot of what he's doing too, but Usurper is ridiculous.
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Well here's something to chew on:

Roman usurper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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