Will America will soon fall, as just like Rome did?
By John Stossel
Unfortunately, the fall of Rome is a pattern repeated by empires throughout history...including ours?
A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event
called “FreedomFest.” We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome
did.
Historian Carl Richard said that today’s America resembles Rome.
The Roman Republic had a constitution, but Roman leaders often
ignored it. “Marius was elected consul six years in a row, even though
under the constitution (he) was term-limited to one year.”
Here in America we've accomplished amazing things, but we shouldn’t take our continued success for granted.
Sounds like New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg.
“We have presidents of both parties legislating by executive order,
saying I’m not going to enforce certain laws because I don’t like them.
... That open flouting of the law is dangerous because law ceases to
have meaning. ... I see that today. ... Congress passes huge laws they
haven’t even read (as well as) overspending, overtaxing and devaluing
the currency.”
The Romans were worse. I object to President Obama’s $100 million dollar trip, but Nero traveled with 1,000 carriages.
Tiberius established an “office of imperial pleasures,” which
gathered “beautiful boys and girls from all corners of the world” so, as
Tacitus put it, the emperor “could defile them.”
Emperor Commodus held a show in the Colosseum at which he personally
killed five hippos, two elephants, a rhinoceros and a giraffe.
To pay for their excesses, emperors devalued the currency. (Doesn’t our Fed do that by buying $2 trillion of government debt?)
Nero reduced the silver content of coins to 95 percent. Then Trajan
reduced it to 85 percent and so on. By the year 300, wheat that once
cost eight Roman dollars cost 120,000 Roman dollars.
The president of the Foundation for Economic Education, Lawrence
Reed, warned that Rome, like America, had an expanding welfare state. It
started with “subsidized grain. The government gave it away at half
price. But the problem was that they couldn’t stop there ... a man named
Claudius ran for Tribune on a platform of free wheat for the masses.
And won. It was downhill from there.”
Soon, to appease angry voters, emperors gave away or subsidized olive oil, salt and pork. People lined up to get free stuff.
Rome’s government, much like ours, wasn’t good at making sure
subsidies flowed only to the poor, said Reed: “Anybody could line up to
get these goods, which contributed to the ultimate bankruptcy of the
Roman state.”
As inflation increased, Rome, much like the U.S. under President
Nixon, imposed wage and price controls. When people objected, Emperor
Diocletian denounced their “greed,” saying, “Shared humanity urges us to
set a limit.”
Doesn’t that sound like today’s anti-capitalist politicians?
Diocletian was worse than Nixon. Rome enforced controls with the
death penalty -- and forbid people to change professions. Emperor
Constantine decreed that those who broke such rules “be bound with
chains and reduced to servile condition.”
Eventually, Rome’s empire was so large -- and people so resentful of
centralized control -- that generals in outlying regions began declaring
independence from Rome.
At FreedomFest, Matt Kibbe, president of the Tea Party group
FreedomWorks, also argued that America could soon collapse like Rome
did.
“The parallels are quite ominous -- the debt, the expansionist
foreign policy, the arrogance of executive power taking over our
country,” says Kibbe. “But I do think we have a chance to stop it.”
That’s a big difference between today’s America and yesterday’s Rome.
We have movements like the tea party and libertarianism and events like
FreedomFest that alert people to the danger in imperial Washington and
try to fight it. If they can wake the public, we have hope.
The triumph of liberty is not inevitable, though. And empires do crumble.
Rome’s lasted the longest. The Ottoman Empire lasted 623 years.
China’s Song, Qing and Ming dynasties each lasted about 300 years.
We’ve lasted just 237 years so far -- sometimes behaving like a
republic and sometimes an empire. In that time, we’ve accomplished
amazing things, but we shouldn’t take our continued success for granted.
Freedom and prosperity are not natural. In human history, they’re rare.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed," "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his website at johnstossel.com.
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