Glenn Beck, National Decline And The Story Of The Roman Empire

[Valin]

Forbes:

Jerry Bowyer

4/26/12

 

In my last installment in this series I argued that talk show host Glenn Beck was raising legitimate concerns about the state of the nation, but that he had a history of predictions of imminent disasters which did not pan out. Why didn't they? After all, the left really does have a strong totalitarian bent. No nation is guaranteed eternal life, let alone eternal prosperity and hegemony. And the United States is, indeed, aggressively moving in the wrong direction.

 

So why didn't the dollar collapse? Why is it still the reserve currency of the world? Why don't we have hyperinflation? Why did gold stall and then fall last summer? Was there a food shortage? Nope. Widespread urban violence? Nope. Depression, stock market collapse, bond market collapse? Nope, nope and nope. Why not?

 

Because that's not how it works. Great nations do not suddenly lose reserve currency status or hyperinflate or collapse economically—not unless they lose a war or are destroyed by natural disasters. The archetypal decline and fall story is that of Rome. It was the eternal city, supposedly, but nevertheless its gates came crashing down and its cities were trodden over by rude barbarian feet. And all of this happened just as the great classical philosophers had warned it would.

 

The Catos and Ciceros of Rome warned about the decline of Rome as it was first turning away from Republic and toward empire. But Rome didn't actually 'fall' in a definitive sense until 498 years after the death of Cicero and 499 years until after the death of Cato. The process of lost freedoms, corruption, imperial overreach and decay, and final definitive collapse lasted almost as long as the rise of the Roman republic; the great age of political warning appeared as the midpoint of Rome's history, not the end. The classical conservative statesmen were right, but premature. History, like Clouseau, declared, "Not now, Cato," and delayed its judgment for half of a millennium.

 

(Snip)