Is America going to be as the Roman Empire ?

Question

They had their grand stadiums and indulgent nature. I wonder what this say about our culture in that we have similar conditions .... Much has changed here, many of those of supposed notoriety have reached this place only standing upon the backs of simplicty... Yet those of simplicity allow it! http://www.andersenskulptur.com

Answer 1

If you believe in the cyclical theory of civilizations--ascent, decline, and fall--then the collapse of America or at least its decline is inevitable. People who have studied the history of republics say that most last in their vigor for 200-300 years. And some of the signs are bad: student performance lags behind that of several other countries; the United States ranks 16th among the world's least corrupt nations; the nation spends more on health care than other industrial countries and yet Americans are not only not healthier but do worse; and so on. And yet it has a vigorous economy, despite ups and downs, although it relies too much on borrowing from other nations. The spirit of innovation and invention, presided over by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, is still alive. Despite corporate misdeeds and political corruption, many individual citizens still value and possess a moral compass. Americans need to save more (at present we save very little) because in the longer run it will create more jobs. And even more importantly, Americans need to recover the sense earlier generations had that America is the shining city on the hill, that we cannot allow ourselves to succumb to Old World vices--false distinctions between individuals based on birth and social rank. Someone called America "the last best hope of humanity": that sense has to be recovered and then realized. Can we do it? Yes but it requires an effort from all of us.

Answer 2

No
The historian Toynbee argued that "Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." He also wrote "It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it."
America will not reach her goals because she has lost her vision. We find Enron book keeping is the norm and the transfer of wealth in the last 2 decades has minimized her middle class. Soon it is a bankrupt old folks home with 3 times the current number of social security recipients and half as many as now paying in. It seems the government itself uses Enron book keeping and why not. American politics is now the domain of special interest groups. Corporate America rules and not the citizenry.

America is the first nation in western history to decline before it reached its peak.

Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity and that is certainly the goal of the government. No child left behind limits intellectual progress to the slowest member of the class. We are destroying the only hope we have - the more intelligent members of our youth.
As for the Enron bookkeeping the sheep refuse to hold the wolves accountable. We werent always spineless sheeple given to bread and circus. We once felt doing the right thing counted more than not making waves.

Answer 3

i would say yes but here's a tip- Americans here will overwhelmingly say no and Europeans will say yes. As for the slavery idea, its my belief that America does indeed live off the economic slavery of banana republics, sweat shop federations and imperial corporations. Not to mention the oil topic. But it was external saturation of immigrants which eventually saw the decline of the Empire. This is not the case with America. Though it has many immigrants wanting entry it is not near on the scale of the Roman Empire. More likely if the external nations of the world become more self or other efficient from USA then America's dominion will begin to fade. I think this may be slowly happening already with the South American maturity of indenpendence and the establishment of the Shanghai Group (Russia, China and India).

Answer 4

I think that it might be possible. One of the major factors that lead Rome from republic to empire was the collapse of a citizen army. That is, where citizens rise up to fight for the nation. This worked when Rome was pretty much just the Italian peninsula, but as they acquired far-flung provinces, it simply was too much for a citizen to rise up for military service. This lead to the formation of mercenary armies that were under the control of other elements besides the government, and that lead to civil war that people were glad that stopped when one person, Augustus, finally prevailed.

In the U.S., we might be overreaching in terms of commitments in many parts of the world. We are seeing extensions of our military at the same time that enlistment is in decline, and even then tends to be by people hoping to escape an economically depressed area (inner-cities, certain rural areas). We might be reaching a point where the system breaks down and we revert to an isolationist stance (which I feel is economic suicide) or the formation of independent militias that protects their interests primarily.

By the way, Orson Scott Card is coming out with a new book that deals with this very issue. You can check out the manuscript of the first five chapters at his website (http://www.hatrack.com/ ).

Answer 5

Rome fell because the only people in the cities who did any work were the slaves and the soldiers.

Once Rome stopped conquering, the number of slaves dwindled.

Once Rome couldn't find enough soldiers to man the walls, it started hiring locals from the area, until the guards were more like the barbarians than the Romans.

Barbarians at the gate - See immigration policy.

Non-productive people -
Rome gave its citizens bread and circuses.
USA has welfare, medicare, medicaid, section 8 subsidized housing, subsidized school lunches, food stamps, FEMA-checks, and social security.

Differences between USA and Rome -
USA outlawed slavery over a century ago, on its own.
While Rome collapsed as a result of losing its slaves, the US managed to create technology that replaced what the slaves were doing.
USA citizens don't want to see people dying while playing at The Games.

Answer 6

There is one key difference. American's are still of a hardworking, freethinking breed, though that is dieing out. The left is now teaching us to depend on others to get the job done and think for us. When the left is fully in charge, I can see another Roman Empire. I don't think that will ever happen, though, because we will be conquered by Russia and China before that can happen. People need to wise up and think/work for themselves and practice a life of self-denial.

Answer 7

As all creations of man they sooner or later fade. Similarities may suggest a similar fate. How the US meets its final hours will be greatly determined by her actions today, which i might add will not be the same as the Holy Roman Empire.

Answer 8

You had better hope that there are not too many similarities between USA today & the Roman Empire.
Look what happened to the Roman empire.

Answer 9

Unfortunately, "YES" to your question. Like Nero said, "Give them bread and circuses." What he meant was, keep them entertained, their bellies full and they'll stay away from the uncomfortable issues that politicians don't want to be accountable for. Nero used the Christians in the arena to #1: Blame them for the Rome fire and #2: Take the attention away from him as he was so corrupt. He knew that public opinion could cause him to be killed.

Answer 10

Of course not. The Romans were free-thinkers and had one of the least modest and cleanest societies of the modern world. Sure it had it's problems, but we won't have to worrry since global warming from our pollution is going to destroy the planet. So no we won't because Rome won't have existed and neither will we.