Rome on the downturn...

[sobi]

So with all the things going the way they are in the world and more importantly, here in our own country, I've been thinking a lot lately. For the most part, history does seem to repeat itself. That being said, the future of our country doesn't seem to have a rebound in it. Chalk it up to plenty of things that I'm sure could spawn several other threads (or later debates within here), but I don't see our country picking up the core threads of what made this a great country several generations ago.

Conversely, several other countries around hte world have shown real growth economically along with major social policy changes... all seemingly in positive lights. There is also numerous places, while not really making any major steps forward, have continued a slow but auspicious upswing over the decades.

I guess what I'm getting at is that the ol' U.S. is still a pretty decent place to live, but as I'm getting older, I wonder if this place is really going to be that good for my future kids/grandkids. We're well on the road to a police state. The system has proven over time that it grows cancerous and only gets worse. IE - nothing really changes within our government. It almost feels like we're just starting to (as a country) begin simmering when we need a boiling point to just begin to make change. The way those we put in power tend to make laws to "protect ourselves from ourselves", it tends to stifle the components needed to let change take place without things going completely down the tubes.

What do you guys feel about the direction we're headed in as far as the system, if it really works at this point, and if not, what the hell would fix it at this point. I guess I'm starting to feel like the rubes of other countries that our grandparents just laughed at for not knowing what a shit place they lived in due to lies and corruption.

[/rant]

[Hydrosludge]

Just look at our children. That is where we are headed.

[abudabit]

Good riddance to American imperialism.

[WhiskeyWhispers]

I just want to live long enough to see armageddon and the complete annihilation of this godforsaken dump (as in the whole planet). I refuse to either blindly praise America nor blindly damn it, which is all we seem to have in this country. America can seemingly do no wrong or nothing but wrong. So while these two douchebag sides wage war on one another, I just sit back and watch the fireworks, and hopefully they all fucking burn. I'm ready for it.

[abudabit]

I just don't understand what the big deal is about American conquest being on the demise. This is just a small period of the country's history. It doesn't mean the end of the nation, life goes on.

[sobi]

I just don't understand what the big deal is about American conquest being on the demise. This is just a small period of the country's history. It doesn't mean the end of the nation, life goes on.


Not sure if this is directed at my rant or not, but I'm not thinking that the nation is ending, nor was I trying to address any type of "American conquest". Sorry if I confused. It's about the prosperity of the country, and it's citizens... present and especially future. My wife and I will start having children shortly, so their future, and where they live (and how that place will be for them to live) are on my mind a bit more than ever.

[abudabit]

Whenever someone mentions Rome on the downturn, I can only think about imperialism. That's all Rome was.

Need to become America again, we've been Rome for 50 years.

[CougarHunter]

I've had this conversation with a few of the older people that I've worked with over the years. I tell them that they have it pretty good. They won't be around for the fall of America like I will. I don't have hope for us over the next 50 years.

You have traitors to this country holding office in the congress. They pass laws that do damage to us, make us less safe, obstruct good legislation, and spend our money on fucking nonsense, all for a buck. It's no mystery to me what goes on when legislators come to the congress with basicially nothing, and end up millionaires.

You have a war profiteer heading the House right now. On one hand, she does daily damage to the America by trying to undermine the president. On the other, she profits from the very war she says she is against because guess what? Her husband is neck deep in the defense contracting business.

The other side isn't much better.

A presidential candidate passed a piece of legislation a few years back that has his name on it that blatantly impedes on the first amendment. It says that people that want to buy ad time on television cannot get their message out 2 months before an election.

Look at the judiciary. They make shit up and impose it on the citizenry. One example: If I own and live on a piece of land, and a developer wants it to build something on, they can go to the government and legally steal it from me. As long as they build something that brings in more tax money than what I was paying, then it's ok.

The schools are indoctrination centers that teach snitch culture, that the government is your friend, and your parents are wrong. The few parents that actually try to bring their kids up correctly are having that undone behind your back when they go off to school. Faggotry is ok, drugs are ok, but working for a living is not.

[abudabit]

Some people think Rome fell, but I just think they found a better way of living.

[d0uche_n0zzle]

I've had this conversation with a few of the older people that I've worked with over the years. I tell them that they have it pretty good. They won't be around for the fall of America like I will. I don't have hope for us over the next 50 years.

You have traitors to this country holding office in the congress. They pass laws that do damage to us, make us less safe, obstruct good legislation, and spend our money on fucking nonsense, all for a buck. It's no mystery to me what goes on when legislators come to the congress with basicially nothing, and end up millionaires.

You have a war profiteer heading the House right now. On one hand, she does daily damage to the America by trying to undermine the president. On the other, she profits from the very war she says she is against because guess what? Her husband is neck deep in the defense contracting business.

The other side isn't much better.

A presidential candidate passed a piece of legislation a few years back that has his name on it that blatantly impedes on the first amendment. It says that people that want to buy ad time on television cannot get their message out 2 months before an election.

Look at the judiciary. They make shit up and impose it on the citizenry. One example: If I own and live on a piece of land, and a developer wants it to build something on, they can go to the government and legally steal it from me. As long as they build something that brings in more tax money than what I was paying, then it's ok.

The schools are indoctrination centers that teach snitch culture, that the government is your friend, and your parents are wrong. The few parents that actually try to bring their kids up correctly are having that undone behind your back when they go off to school. Faggotry is ok, drugs are ok, but working for a living is not.

Q
F
M
F
T

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

[weakside]

I don’t know, maybe I’m too optimistic but I think everything is going to be fine. Don’t disregard how passionate humans are in their need for survival and growth. In any case, I think every generation believes that things are getting worse and that everything used to be better in the past that it is in their own time. But frankly I think that if you focus instead on the positive things in this country, things are actually improving.

Look, there is no utopia. There are always going to be problems both social and domestic, and as morals change there are always going to be those that believe that shift will be the downfall of us all. But life has always been about making accommodations and modifications to our lifestyles, and that is how it is supposed to be. In fact it’s actually healthy and necessary to sustain life itself. It will all work out.

[CougarHunter]

Some people think Rome fell, but I just think they found a better way of living.

I imagine the dark ages was a blast.

[abudabit]

I imagine the dark ages was a blast.

The dark ages were actually a lot better for most people than the Roman way of living. And the Renaissance was actually harder living than a lot of the dark ages. The names for these ages are very deceptive. The Renaissance was called that because of knowledge of scholars, not because it was some amazing time. And the Roman era, well there were slaves who never even saw the light of day... literally.

If I had to pick between one of the 3, I would definitely pick the dark ages.

[kidconnor]

Got this over a year ago. Interesting without the political bush/gore crap. Guess I will just post it in its entirety.

Subject: The future of the United States?





How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new
constitution
in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University
of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic
some
2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as
a
permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters
discover
they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the cand idates who
promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result
that
every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy,
which
is
always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning
of history, has been about 200 years."

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the
following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000
Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29

Square miles of land won b y:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won
was
mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country.
Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in
government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency
and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with
some
forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the
"governmental dependency" phase.


If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the
USA in fewer than five years.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake,
knowing
that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Thanks for reading.

[askewcore]

http://alltalksports.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/rome.jpg

RACK IT!

[CougarHunter]

Dark ages better eh?

The empire of Rome was split apart by invaders from all corners of the world. In the actual city of Rome its citizenry was killed in the street by the visigoths after a siege of 2 years, who did it for no reason other than to steal their food and treasure. After they sacked the city for 3 days, they left it in ruins. That breakdown of society led the people of the former empire to go from city dwellers that relied on imported food and materials to become the hand to mouth farmers that lived off the land just as they had been 1000 years in the past. (This last sentence should haunt Americans, maybe wake 1-2 up)

Bubonic plague swept across europe from the last remaining capital of the roman empire, Constantinople. It came from the savage third world as does most disease in modern times. It killed between 1/2 to 2/3 of the same populus as above. It did this for about 200 years off and on. It took europe about 700 years (the same amount of time it took to get out of the dark ages btw) to rebuild its population.

Mortality rate of people was 50% of children under 5, and 50% of children 5-12. That means that if you have 4 children, 1 will survive to age 12. You MIGHT live to be an old man of 35.

The citizens of empire went from a very high literacy rate to virtually zero in the course of a couple hundred years. Predominantly the only literate people were the priests and monks of the church. The largest library of books during the dark ages belonged to a priest named something like Beed, and that was an astounding 250 books. He was considered the most literate and learned man of the dark ages.

While all this is going down, warlords were fighting each other over the small remaining pieces of the empire, generally either straight away killing the farmers in their path, stealing their food to fuel their wars, or destroying their farms so that it doesn't fall into the hands of the enemy. Either way, it does not bode well for the farmer that's digging shit out of the ground to eat and maybe live another.

It sounds like a bummer to me maaaaaaaan.

[LiddyRules]

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the
USA in fewer than five years.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake,
knowing
that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. So that whole thing about square miles and great country was just to speak out against immigration? I don't really get how the immigration angle factors into the 7 part fall of democracy plan.

Is there a difference between apathy and being cynically hopeless with a yearning for destruction?

[THE FEZ MAN]

with in the next 100 years we will be insignificant as a world power, since the aliens are going to enslave us all

[LiddyRules]

with in the next 100 years we will be insignificant as a world power, since the aliens are going to enslave us all I still have my money on robots or some sort of Colossus: The Forbin Project dealy.

[weeniewawa]

dark sounds well bad, Renaissance sounds fun, like the faires

our government is taking us down.