SO WENT ROME, SO GOES the UNITED STATES of AMERIKA
Submitted by HonorGod on Fri, 10/24/2008 - 11:00
http://www.unknownnews.org/0809-15LF.html
It's just a little piece of history repeated
by Leon Fisher
If a student of history were to research the rise and fall of civilizations they would no doubt study Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . After a promising start as a Republic the Romans would embrace militarism, slavery and dictatorship in which to maintain and expand their empire. The Patricians, the wealthy Romans whose greed and thirst for power was unquenchable, were in constant conflict with the common man. Both groups' interests were heard and debated in the Roman Senate, but eventually the wealthy prevailed, the farmers losing their land to the wealthy landowners and a system of slavery imposed in their stead.
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H'mmm
Pride goes before a fall.
Ah yes! as a person, as a Nation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3A6-1BNHio
lyrics:
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/q/quicksilver_messenger_ser...
Some guy named Misus found some simularities
From Wikipedia:
Ludwig von Mises argued that unsound economic policies played a key role in the impoverishment and decay of the Roman Empire. According to himm, by the 2nd century A.D., the Roman Empire had developed a complex market economy in which trade was relatively free. Tariffs were low and laws controlling the prices of foodstuffs and other commodities had little impact because they did not fix the prices significantly below their market levels. After the 3rd century, however, debasement of the currency (i.e., the minting of coins with diminishing content of gold, silver, and bronze) led to inflation. The price control laws then resulted in prices that were significantly below their free-market equilibrium levels.
Artificially low prices led to the scarcity of foodstuffs, particularly in cities, whose inhabitants depended on trade in order to obtain them. Despite laws passed to prevent migration from the cities to the countryside, urban areas gradually became depopulated and many Roman citizens abandoned their specialized trades in order to practice subsistence agriculture. This, coupled with increasingly oppressive and arbitrary taxation, led to a severe net decrease in trade, technical innovation, and the overall wealth of the empire.
Bruce Bartlett traces the beginning of debasement to the reign of Nero. By the third century the monetary economy had collapsed. Bartlett sees the end result as a form of state socialism. Monetary taxation was replaced with direct requisitioning, for example taking food and cattle from farmers. Individuals were forced to work at their given place of employment and remain in the same occupation. Farmers became tied to the land, as were their children, and similar demands were made on all other workers, producers, and artisans as well. Workers were organized into guilds and businesses into corporations called collegia. Both became de facto organs of the state, controlling and directing their members to work and produce for the state. In the countryside people attached themselves to the estates of the wealthy in order to gain some protection from state officials and tax collectors. These estates, the beginning of feudalism, operated as much as possible as closed systems, providing for all their own needs and not engaging in trade at all.
We could be going this way.
"Shaka, when the walls fell. Timba, his eyes wide open. Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra."
The Federal Reserve...
... is the beast at Tanagra :-)
Does that predict
feudalism in our future?
-"I owe my soul to the company store."
- Country song describing life in mining towns
Defend Liberty!
NOW COME ON HONOR! NOT THE
NOW COME ON HONOR! NOT THE GOOD OL USA! WE ARE SMARTER THEN THOSE STUPID ROMANS! WE HAVE COMPUTERS,
THE WORLDS BEST ARMY, WE ARE THE BIGGEST AND THE BADDEST THAT HAS EVER BEEN! NO WAY WE GO INTO A DEPRESSION OR HYPERINFLATION! WE ARE THE USA! people better start waking up! we are headed down! period! it will take time but we will go the same way the romans, england et, al has gone! all empires implode! just some on here don't want to admit it is happening and don't want to be bothered with having to make hard decisions and prepare! I SAID IT BEFORE AND I WILL SAY IT AGAIN.. IF YOU ARE NOT BUYING SILVER AND GOLD ALONG WITH FOOD, WATER AND A WAYS TO PROTECT what you have you are in denial!
"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
-Thomas Jefferson
I am more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money. --Mark Twain
“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” (Prov. 22:3; 27:12 KJV)
Hey McCain-----┌П┐(◣_◢)┌П┐
I don't feel like that description is totally accurate
After the Struggle of the Orders early in the history of the Roman Republic, the Plebeians held as much or more power as time passed. The Concilium Plebis was the most powerful body in the Roman state and the senate often was left impotent by the will of the people. Let's not forget that the senate was not a legislative body. It was a council made up of ex-magistrates who advised the Roman consuls. All real power was in the assemblies and the Concilium Plebis was the most powerful of these.
One thing that is interesting to note: both sides were not debated in the senate as Mr. Fisher says, rather, the rich patricians prattled on in the senate while the Concilium Plebis confiscated their land and gave it away to the poor. There were two motives behind this. One, the exodus of poor from Rome into the country would alleviate some of the worries of over-population, and two, it would insure that the countryside was populated and tended to by free men rather than just slaves who were likely to become disgruntled.
When Rome became an empire it was not because of the rich and powerful stealing from the poor or by the government taking land from farmers. Julius Caesar and Julius Caesar Octavianus (who was better known as Octavian or Augustus later on) acquired power by giving land and freebies to the masses. One debate that had been raging long before the Caesars came to power was over the idea that the masses be sold grain by the government at a fixed price. Augustus, the first emperor, took this a step further by simply giving it away for free. Therefore, his power was derived from the poor, not the rich. He did this to satisfy his own ambitions, of course, but the analogy between Rome and the United States is fairly weak. They never had a republic as we know it (res publica meaning rule of the people)--it was actually fairly similar to Athenian democracy--and the men who would become "emperors" were not known as such at the time. As far as the Romans knew, the republic was continuing alive and well.
The power the emperors had was derived from the masses whose favor they had won. They wielded this power over the patricians and the senators, always giving them privileges but never real power. If you insist on drawing analogies between Rome and the US, it would be more apt to say that our population, suitably bribed by politicians, has unwittingly given them the power to destroy our Constitution.
As for the bit about "embrac[ing] militarism, slavery and dictatorship," there are a number of misconceptions here. The Romans were always militaristic even during the republican era. This is how they overthrew the Etruscans and later, how they defeated the Carthaginians. There was nothing peaceful about the Roman republic--the military was always an integral part of Roman society. Likewise, slavery was always there. Slaves were all over the ancient world no matter how fixated with justice a society might be--i.e. Plato's Republic. It was not the advent of a Roman empire that created slavery.
Let's abandon these notions that the US is somehow repeating Roman history. Let's also stop assuming that the Roman republic is a system of government to be admired. It was nothing of the sort. Our Constitution is very far removed from the Roman system of assemblies, consuls, and tribunes. There is very little to suggest that we ever began as they did and that we are making their mistakes.
The problem is NOT capitalism, but fascism/corporatism
It is a good article, but again it is confused regarding the cause of the problem. Last sentence in the article states:
"all highlighting the failure of a wealthy capitalist class, who like their predecessors in Roman times have once again sacrificed a healthy Republic for a failed empire. "
It is not a failure of CAPITALISM, because we do not have capitalism, but a corporatism/fascism. What is failing is a collusion between GOVERNMENT and corporations along with controlled market by regulations.
Free market, real capitalism without regulations thrives with real government free corporations making ordinally people prosperous and creates masses of prosperous middle class.
The only rule must be the responsibility to fullfill any contract entered voluntarily and not violate other's property/freedom.
Can you imagine this mess happening if sum of all the taxes were less than 10% of GDP as it was over 100 years ago? Every one would have almost twice the income to invest, save and spend, instead of wasting several trillions every year around the World in Imperial wars and adventures making the US be hated by the World.
The prosperity of middles class brought by the American revolution before Fed/corporatism/fascism became dominant has proven the above.
Another book that can show us history repeating is
"The rise and fall of the Third Reich", it also shows how a group can come to power and ruin a whole peoples way of life.
Thank you Dr. Paul for making my act on what I already knew was right.
*May the only ones to touch your junk, be the ones you want to touch your junk.*
Just one exmple out of thousands
confirming that history moves in cycles. There is no stopping it.
NWO for Dummies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLPG_HplrA
"There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one: The regeneration of the inner man."
—Tolstoy
"The body is but a vessel for the soul,
A puppet which bends to the soul's tyranny.
And lo, the body is not eternal,
For it must feed on the flesh of others,
Lest it return to the dust whence it came.
Therefore the soul deceives and despises."
Those at the top always fall the hardest
VOTE CHUCK BALDWIN
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
END THE FED
Ron Paul's Convention Speech
Ron Paul's Convention Speech