Alternate title: how The United States accidentally committed suicide.
Co-blogger and Brother-From-Another-Mother ASM826 and I have had a number of conversations lately about how when we both started blogging 15 years ago, we still had hope. Yes, I cribbed the alternate title from histories of Rome, but there's a fateful dynamic at play today that mirrors what played out back then.
In 400 AD, Rome stood tall. Sure, there were problems, but Rome was the only super power. 76 years later, it no longer existed.* It was simply unable to respond effectively to the barbarian invasions - the problem wasn't a military one, it was structural. The Legions were still strong, but the ruling elite could not use them effectively to keep the barbarians out. You see, they didn't want to keep them out.
Barbarian hordes were an opportunity to various members of the elite. The rewards of power and wealth to those at the top of the Roman Empire were so unbelievably vast that, well, a wandering barbarian horde might be able to be used to put somebody new on the throne. And so the elites played 27 Dimensional Chess against each other until the Empire was overwhelmed. What temporarily helped local Senators and Provincial Governors quite frankly led to the downfall of them all. I'm looking at you, Constantine III.
And so to today. The Ruling Class in this Republic is institutionally incapable of dealing with the problems facing the Republic because they don't want to. Indeed, there is a dynamic at work: never let a crisis go to waste. This has come about in a shockingly short time - twenty years or so.
But this happened to Rome as well. Between 410 and 430 AD, the Eternal City itself was sacked and Spain and Africa were lost to the Empire - and with them went the tax revenue that had supported the Legions. Today we have a President who is a feeble-minded puppet; the Emperor Honorious was (at the time) compared to a jellyfish.
The grandeur that was America was very great indeed, but so was Roman grandeur. Sic transit Gloria Mundi, and all that.
Entering this Independence Day weekend I wish I could be more optimistic. I leave you with a song from the dark days after 9/11, a reflection of a time when the grandeur of this Republic was great, even though the dynamic that has led us here was already formed.
America The Beautiful (Katharine Lee Bates, Samuel A. Ward):
Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, their country loved
And mercy more than life
America, America may God thy gold refine
'Til all success be nobleness
And every gain divined
Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain
America, sweet America
God shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress,
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Oh beautiful for halcyon skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music hearted sea!
May God save this honorable Republic.
3 comments:
I stood there on that damned bridge next to Horaitius as did my father and his. We lost what we lost but I got renewed vigor of sorts from the ones like Elon. All the while him and those like him are doing their thing, we got the major part of America still.
There is a good deal of hope yet.
ah
and shed no tears for the Republic. It wasn't worth it.
It will be a little smaller and better.
Currently reading a collection of unit histories of the various legions. What became totally clear was that the entire period of the last 100 years of the Republic and the Empire up to the collapse of the West was a 600 year long civil war. There would be lulls when the victor of the last round would restore stability but then they would die, occasionally from natural causes, and the wars would start up again. Legions often would be completely destroyed by foreign enemies. 3 along the Rhine in 9AD, 3 more in Dacia (more or less Romania) , a bunch fighting the Persians and associated peoples. One in Britain just disappeared without a trace. Kind of amazing they lasted as long as they did.
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