"The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today"

[bloom]

This is also posted in Editorials - but I wanted to post it here as well. It's really nuts.

by J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #917

December 19, 2005 |


...We are on patrol today in Iraq. Men and women of the United States armed forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Baghdad. They pass in the way of so many who have come before them: the Egyptian charioteers of Ramses II, the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the Great, the Roman legionnaires of Cae sar and Trajan, the Crusaders of Richard the Lion-Hearted, the legionnaires of Napoleon, the Camel Corps of Lawrence of Arabia....


They were able to create this Constitution because they learned from history, and the history that was most instructive for them was the history of the Roman world, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. They crafted our Constitution to reflect the balanced constitution of the Roman Republic, with the sovereignty of the people guided by the wisdom of the Senate, with a powerful exec utive in the form of the commander in chief, the consul. But they also understood, with the Romans, that no constitution, however good on paper, would work unless it was vitalized by civic virtue, by the willingness of each individual to sub ordinate his own good to the good of the commu nity as a whole. To use an old-fashioned word, patriotism must vitalize every constitution.

The founders hoped that, in America, we would see these virtues of ancient Rome, and they knew that under such a constitution the United States would grow into an empire. They already spoke of a rising empire of America. They hoped that Rome of the republic would be our enduring model, but they feared, and rightly so, that one day, perhaps today, our model would be Rome of the Caesars, Rome of the first and second centuries A.D. For Rome of the Caesars and the United States today are the only two absolute superpowers that have existed in history.

By an absolute superpower I mean a nation that is dominant militarily, politically, economically, and culturally. The United States is absolutely dominant militarily, politically, economically, and we dominate the world culturally. We may never produce a Beethoven or a Bach, a Goethe or a Shakespeare. That is not how our culture dominates. It is our music, our McDonald’s, our popular culture that spreads all over the globe. Look at a terrorist. He will be holding someone hostage while wearing sneak ers, Mickey Mouse tee-shirt on, listening to terrible music and dreaming of a McDonald’s when this is all over. That is how our culture rules the world...

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/hl917.cfm

[rwenos]

1. Caligula Bush

Anyone who has read "The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius, an early Roman historian, knows the depths of depravity that were REALLY going on in the heart of Rome.

And Pax Romana didn't exactly survive Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula and Nero, did it?

Is there any wonder these people want to turn America into a fascist state, and have achieved that state in many ways?

Disgusting . . .