Is America repeating the mistakes of ancient Rome?

In 2001, a book published by a small publishing company in the US came and went without receiving much fanfare.  Nestled among the many glossy get-rich-quick, positive thinking and self- help books that one commonly finds in Christian bookstores, "When the Empire Strikes Out: Are We Repeating the Pattern of Past Civilizations?", with its serious title and earnest, analytical tone, could not have seemed less untimely.  

After all, America had just experienced a whole decade of growth, peace and self-indulgence. The economy was booming, after a few "setbacks" like the dot com bubble that burst in 2000. The Soviet Union, long considered America's archenemy, had collapsed. The Cold War was over, and Clinton had promised a "peace dividend". What could go wrong?

The book's author, William R. Goetz, delved into a theory with which most Americans are unfamiliar - Sir John Glubb's theory of the rise and fall of empires- and what this theory could mean to Americans - namely, that the United States was in the throes of its imminent collapse and death. Needless to say, the book was not terribly popular. Truth never is.

At the time, I found a copy in my local Christian bookstore, and read it with great eagerness. Goetz explains how Sir John Glubb's famed book The fate of empires and Search for survival. The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival outlined seven phases in the life span of an empire, from the first, the Age of Outburst, to the last, the Age of Decline and Collapse.

Goetz's book applied this theory to the history of the United States, and came to the almost inevitable conclusion that the United States was heading for disaster.

The parallels between the last days of Rome and the last few decades of the United States are appallingly clear -the political corruption, obsession with luxury, huge disparity of wealth, and above all, obsession with triviality, wealth and hedonistic sex are found in both. Of course, we have all heard of the decadence of Rome's final years. In Caesar and Christ, Will Durant described Rome's final days as follows: 

"Prostitution flourished....  many rich men paid a talent ($3,600) for a male favorite; Cato complained that a pretty boy cost more than a farm. Marc Antony surrendered to such sensuality that his subjects lost respect for his authority. He surrounded himself with dancers, musicians, courtesans and roisterers, and took wives and concubines whenever a fine woman struck his fancy."

The worst ruler, Nero "divorced one wife, murdered his own mother, killed a pregnant second wife, then in regret found a youth who closely resembled her, had him emasculated, married him and used him in every way like a woman." 

Has it gotten this bad in the US yet? Thankfully, America has not yet produced a new Nero, but the many sexual scandals (including Bill Clinton's famed cigar incident with intern Monica Lewinsky) should give us cause to consider. 

Goetz quotes Henry Cabot Lodge in The History of Nations: "Perhaps the most significant mark of the corruption of the age is the frequency of divorce and the general aversion to marriage..... immorality was the rule." Another sign of a society in decline is the division of wealth: "(There were) two predominant classes in the state... the mass of beggars and the (incredibly wealthy). 

The "economic and social disintegration", as Lodge put it, caused the Romans to become lazy, overly fond of luxury and adverse to hard work.  The indolence of its citizens, the endless internal struggles brought about by societal disunity, and the financial burden of providing free bread for thousands - these were the first cracks in Rome's invincible facade. 

Add to this the assimilation of thousands of barbarians into Rome, the frequent invasions from without and the many foreign wars designed to bring in much-needed funds to pay for the bloated military, public welfare and luxurious decadence of the Roman aristocracy, and you have the makings of disaster. 

To be sure, the long, slow decline of Rome has long been a favorite of historians, and innumerable books have pondered the causes for her fall. While few have read all of Edward Gibbon's momentous seventeen-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the gist of the book's chronicle of Rome's downfall can be summed up in what Gibbons describes as the five significant factors in her inglorious end: a rapid increase in divorce, a craze for pleasure, a bloated military coupled with ignorance of enemies within, an increase in violence and a decline in religious morals. This, yet again, reads like a perfect description of American society today. 

The frivolity, hedonism, obsession with convenience (so that even walking five minutes is considered an undue burden) are one side of America's decline, and are even looked upon as comical. Home-grown terrorists, school massacres, a sudden rash of child abductions by predatory pedophiles and the splintering of society are the darker side. 

Selfishness and individualism cause children to be seen as a burden, instead of a blessing, as Goetz points out. One result is an increase in abortion, long a hot topic of controversy among conservatives in the US. However, this, too, is nothing new. Ancient Romans practiced not only abortion, but infanticide, as well. 

 

American hedonism has also brought us the "Great Recession" we are now seeing: a nation that, for decades, consumed without producing, bought what it couldn't afford and demanded more wages for itself, while consuming cheap goods from overseas, is destined for defeat.

When he wrote his book in the last years of the nineties, Goetz could hardly have seen just how horribly wrong America's short- sighted economic policies could have gone– we now see Washington sending trillions of dollars to rich banking billionaires, while a whole generation of kids will spend their formative years living in tents, sleeping in motels or in their parents' cars. 

Meanwhile, the open borders with Mexico means that the so-called modern day "barbarians" will continue their invasion. Why do they keep coming? Again, America's short-sighted economic policies, such as NAFTA, forced millions of desperate Mexicans into poverty and hunger. With a drug war out of control, many now have little choice but to risk their lives fleeing from danger.
 

At the same time, millions of American citizens, out of work, are depending on extended unemployment benefits and food stamps, some living in their cars or in tents; all the while, America's wealthy elite would rather hire illegal immigrants than US citizens.     

On the political level, we see other signs of decay: the growth of a centralized, bloated bureaucracy, an inefficient, bloated military, the increase in expensive overseas battles, and a buildup in debt and ongoing corruption. No nation has ever successfully fought two wars on two fronts simultaneously and survived. The last two to try were Napoleon and Hitler, and both were defeated. The arrogance of our nation's leaders to think that they could succeed at such a task is astounding.

Interestingly, in chapter ten, Goetz enumerates the many threats facing America, many of which have, in the following years, come to pass. The Chinese have already committed many of the attacks that Goetz described a decade ago, including infiltration of the food supply (the melamine poisoning), shutting down power grids (which happened in 2003) and attacking the economic system through hacking (which happened last year). China's "information warfare" program is the second largest in the world - after the US. Because of America's dwindling number of native-born IT specialists (another product of the failed school and university system), we can expect the quality of China's program to soon exceed that of the US, if it hasn't already. 

In When Nations Die, Jim Nelson Black writes: "As I examine the parallels between American society and other great empires in history, I am often stunned by the way our civilization mirrors the fallen giants of the past."  If we want to see the future, we need only look at the past. Goetz's book now seems chillingly prophetic in its warnings. Too bad America's leaders were too busy playing golf, conducting sexual affairs or attending campaign fundraisers to pay attention to his dire warnings.

How to Destroy a Nation in 15 Easy Steps, or What Happened to the USA: a cautionary tale

1. Attack ALL tradition, even relatively innoculous traditions, like religious feasts, parades, traditional clothing, etc. Make sure that people follow fashion instead of tradition. Change the fashions as quickly as possible, so that people will have no time to attend to important matters, being continually consumed with following the latest trends. "New architecture", consisting of ugly buildings devoid of ornament, should be promoted. Old buildings that are beautiful should be torn down, so that people have little connection to the past. "Modern music" that is sterile, devoid of human feeling and hypnotic in effect should be promoted as well. Folk music, traditional forms of art and architecture should be eliminated. Art and film should reinforce a style that is either entirely devoid of meaning or substance, or simply decadent. "High art" should be eliminated from popular culture, and sneered at as "old fashioned" and "high brow". Thus demoralized, the population will be easier to manipulate.

2. Divide people by minor traits such as skin color. Reinforce these differences by treating people differently, or creating identity movements. Create separate magazines, television programs, radio stations, etc., so that people will be divided as much as possible.

3. Divide people by age. Make sure that young and old cannot wear the same clothing, eat the same foods, listen to the same music, or even speak the same language. Create a "generation gap". This will make it virtually impossible to create a community of resistance.

4. Create a plethora of different political groups, appealing to different factions, all proposing the same policies, and none of them offering meaningful change. Put "your people" in every party.

5. Make sure that most people work at jobs that have little relation to their lives. Eliminate self-employment as much as possible, so that most people are completely dependent on corporations and anonymous multinationals. Slowly lower the wages and make sure that people have to work at several jobs to get by. A nation that is being worked to death cannot put up any resistance. They will not be able to take time off to demonstrate. 

6. Make sure that the nation is more and more dependent on imported goods. Eliminate small, family-run farms and locally owned factories. Bit by bit, send all meaningful work overseas to foreigners. A nation that produces nothing but debt will be easily cut off from outside resources. Those jobs that remain will be fought over by a desperate populace, who have lost their self-respect and self-sufficiency. 

7. Make sure that the nation goes into debt. In order to do this, it is necessary to encourage spending and discourage thrift. Consumerism and a life of shopping will mean that people will do anything to "keep up with the Joneses".

8. Attack the family and traditional marriage as "old fashioned". Make traditional virtues such as chastity, faithfulness and loyalty unfashionable, and replace them with "sexual liberation". Hire women to do menial work, paying them much less than men, so that one-parent families will be thrust into poverty. The children growing up without fathers or mothers will be easy to manipulate. Some can be taken by the state, raised to be "killers", and sent to the army. Undermine parental authority, so that children will do as they please. With the help of the media, you can steer them to do as you please.

9. Attack the traditions of the army. Make sure that morale is as low as possible, by allowing and encouraging abuse of power, rape and torture. Punish whistle-blowers, so that the most competent, ethical members of the armed forces will resign in disgust. When such abuse occurs, make sure that it is readily publicized, so that people will fear and distrust their own government. 

10. Attack or sublimate traditional religion.  Those that cannot be turned into mouthpieces for propaganda can be eliminated through infiltration, division and scandal. Send spies to the theology seminars, and have them seduce priests, pastors and seminarians. Disseminate heresy and pass it off as "new thinking". Encourage atheism. Meanwhile, pour as much money as possible into "fringe groups", sects and cults so that there is little unity among people. Make sure that legitimate religion is cast into the same pot as fanatical sects, so that people can see little difference between the two. A nation that is godless is also without morals, and can be persuaded to do anything that is suggested, including murder and cannibalism.

11. Find anything that is traditionally a sexual taboo (pedophilia, sadomasochism, bestiality) and re-label them "alternative lifestyles" and use the issue of sexuality as a wedge issue. Make sure you stoke as much controversy as possible, by allowing religious "fanatics" to have equal time with "perverts". Eliminate indecency laws, and allow pornography to flourish, becoming more and more crude. Meanwhile, divide people on the issue of "freedom of speech", so that they equate freedom with pornography, sexual libertinism and vulgarity. People will be so involved in defending their own positions on these issues, that they will barely notice that their nation is being taken over.

12. Attack the traditional school and university system, making sure that "new methods" do not encourage young people to think for themselves, but merely teach them to memorize facts, repeat other people's opinions and regurgitate information. Slowly lower standards so that the typical student is ill-informed and lazy. Discourage logical thinking. Meanwhile, "dumb down" all newspapers, television reports and books. Denigrate the study of history, politics, philosophy or theology and encourage young people to confine their studies to "practical" matters, such as business, engineering, banking, accounting, etc. You will then have a mass of willing slaves to perform remedial tasks such as bookkeeping, data processing, banking or graphics, none of which will be able to convincingly challenge your rights to do as you please. 

13. Plant some of your own people in positions of authority. Make sure that they propose laws that will undermine freedom and political transparency. If anyone opposes them, accuse them of being unpatriotic or old-fashioned. Use the word "patriotism" to your own advantage, diverting its meaning so that it is equated with flag-waving and nationalism instead of traditional values or traditions.    

14. Consolidate all news media and publishing companies, so that "your people" control virtually all that people see, hear, read or experience. Package propaganda as "entertainment". Vulgarize the arts so that they appeal to sensationalism instead of reflective thought.  Attack independent media by either "buying them out" or "shutting them down". Use the media to distract people with an unending stream of useless information, disinformation, scandals, gossip and trashy programming, so that they barely have time to attend to serious matters.

15. Without religion or traditions, moral and ethical objections to your political takeover will be rendered toothless. Set up fascist laws under the pretext of "security". Attack traditionalists as fundamentalists, reactionaries or terrorists. Attack liberal opponents as socialists or anarchists. Without laws guaranteeing fair trials, it will be easy to allow your opponents to "disappear", or die under "mysterious circumstances". You will now have the support of enough of the population that it will be relatively easy to take over. Many will barely notice a change in slave masters.