| | I think that the Aztecs were simply over-run by Spanish settlers (and the new diseases they brought), but I know Rome was over-run only after becoming more and more of a warfare/welfare state -- similar to the direction in which the U.S. has been increasingly headed in the last several years
The Aztecs were mystics, so they fell for what ever the Spanish told um.
Rome is a little more complicated, but at the heart of the fall, in my view (I don't know a whole lot about this) was a collapse of principle, leading to widespread corruption, that eventually allowed Rome to be completely sacked by the Huns and hoards.
A better comparison of a proper Rome would be Israel. Israel isn't about to appease anyone, and Rome shouldn't have either, but they did. So boom, they all fall down.
The Aztecs attempted to appease the Spanish, and got slaughtered for it.
Also, I think it's important to look at one big cultural difference between both civilizations and ours, something that they both had and that we don't have, at least not anymore, and that's slavery. People from those civilizations would be amazed at our intolerance toward the practice of buying and selling people. I can't know if they'd be pleased or not, however, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is, do they recognise the danger in appeasement?
By "increasingly headed" I mean a statist movement in which the velocity has been increased, or accelerated, beyond that same type of movement imposed on us from at least the 1960's (i.e., by Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, or Clinton); and perhaps back to FDR. A simple way to state this is that Bush II increased statism more than any single president in the last 40 years.
Ed, please.... I don't agree with this. FDR is the cause of all of this crap, not Bush.
Just look at our nation right now (for evidence). What do you see?
I see a couple of real "statists" trying to muscle in. I see appeasement to Unions, criminals, and morons, not by the president, but by the general legislature. I see law enforcement that's found it's much much easier to prosecute the victim instead of the criminal, but I see a fantastic willingness of regular folks, and scholarly folks to point these things out. I see a crappy mass media hell bent on half reporting and no reporting. But I see the dissenters of mass media, too, and they get a whole lot of attention. Basically I see a tug of war going on.
This election will be like no other, Ed. That's because people have access to more information than they've ever had before in the history of history. No other civilization has had it so good.
Steve,
I ain't that smart, trust me. ;)
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