Today's United States vs Ancient Rome

[GregW]

The US is operating a financial empire backed by a very expensive military. More later.

[GregW]

Rome=America

Later:

IRRC there was a major world wide crop failure in 535 AD attributable to the eruption of Mt. Toba in Indonesia. The ash and dust cut off enough solar heat to put the northern hemisphere in the dark and cold for several years. This must have, along with the associated plagues, cut the surviving population below a critical level. The barbarians then just walked in and took over.

IMHO a major contributor to the fall and a cause of our eventual decline in real prosperity was the financialization of the Roman economy and the replacement of freehold farming with investor owned latifundia (corporate farms before corporations) operated with slaves or destitute tenant farmers. This resulted in a concentration of wealth that indulged in the great debaucheries the latter phases of
Rome.

The parallel to the US is the unproductive empire (we are spending our treasure to protect a few of our citizen’s access to oil profits at a great cost to the rest of us) protected by a huge and corruptly expensive industrial/political complex and the parallel financialization of our economy. American prosperity is no longer based on innovation and industrial capacity (except military) but on financial speculation. The latest collapse has shown the folly of that policy but the powers that be are not paying attention. This is where the American Empire will fail. We are no longer productive enough to support the losses and our domestic economy will stagnate while a few of the investor class reap billions from foreign factories.

IMHO we need to drastically restructure our economy in order to restore our physical and industrial productivity even if it costs some of our financial investors. We need to reindustrialize behind countervailing tariffs and eliminate the cost of defending the plutocrat’s overseas investments. The former will improve our productivity and the latter will encourage domestic, not foreign, investments. The result should be a stronger American economy and a restoration of the American Republic.

[ncc]

Originally Posted by Lolailo

The U.S is not a Empire...No matter what Chavez says....

America is NOT an "Empire". It is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, a system where the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law and citizens elect representatives to government.

Democracy (some people view the U.S as one!), by contrast, designates a system of government where the will of the majority rules, unrestricted by any law. The Founders of the United States of America went to great measures to ensure that our new nation was not a democracy.

The Constitution was designed to preserve individual rights and to limit the power of government to the protection of individual rights. The Founders opposed unlimited majority rule because they recognized that individual rights and liberty would be compromised by mob rule, that the will of the majority could be just as tyrannical as the will of a monarch. In short, they knew that just as monarchy did, so democracy would, lead to the infringement of individual rights.

The Founders created a system of checks and balances, such as the division of the government into three branches, to prevent government officials from acquiring too much power. If an official could acquire such power, he could become like a tyrant and violate individual rights. For a similar purpose, the Founders also created checks and balances to prevent the majority from acquiring too much power (which is one of the reasons, for example, behind the Electoral College).

Unfortunately, it appears that this knowledge of the Founding Fathers is being lost. If one asked a random person what type of government America has, he will most likely say"a democracy of course!"

This is an ominous sign, because it means that people no longer know what principles this country was founded upon and why. If people continue to believe America is a democracy, and so strive to in fact make it one, we will move to a form of government that, as the Founders knew, is a grave danger to our freedom.

[stillfresh]

Welcome to the Project for the New American Century

[GregW]

Ncc - Your post is irrelevant to the question. The type of government has nothing to do with the question of empire. Dictatorships, Communist tyrannies, Republics, Democracies, and any other government can form economic and military empire. We are trying to maintain ours in the Middle East and much of South America and it is bankrupting the country.

[ncc]

Originally Posted by GregW

Ncc - Your post is irrelevant to the question. The type of government has nothing to do with the question of empire. Dictatorships, Communist tyrannies, Republics, Democracies, and any other government can form economic and military empire. We are trying to maintain ours in the Middle East and much of South America and it is bankrupting the country.

I know... it was just a response to that quote.. Anyways, about your situation, i pray that your country maintains the freedom that everyone deserves. Freedom is not Free!

[Leovigildo]

The US is not an empire. American land grabbing stopped in 1898. Continental U.S. is the equivalent of Italian peninsula (and maybe Provence and add Raetia).

American Wars are commercial wars, not conquest wars. Nazis, for example, if you remove their weird racial and tribal frame of mind, fought for the same reasons that Roman, land grabbing and plunder.

If Americans were Romans, they should have conquered and plundered Europe, all the riches of Europe should have been in Washington and Europe would be divided in Roman provinces.

If America were to be comparable to Rome, Central and South America, Western Europe, Philippines and portions of Asia and Africa should have to be American states, and their inhabitants American citizens, all sharing a common "civilizatio" and a common Lingua Franca, English.

American Imperialism, or the "Manifest Destiny" was based on race and colonization. Romans didn't give a crap about race and they believed in assimilation. "The Roman Dream" was different to the American Dream in every respect.