The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Now I know that the American Experiment was not originally conceived to be or to become an empire in the same way that the Roman Empire did. Yet the similarities between the two entities has got to grab the current citizens' attention. Furthermore, this is far from the first time that discussion of the topic, the title of this entry, had been bandied about. My contribution to the topic is, I hope, a bit different.

Everyone knows that the fall of the Roman Empire really happened rather slowly, over centuries, and the causes have been debated for years. Nevertheless, most agree that a shift in values - that is, a culture shift contributed to the demise. This is where I believe the similarities are most striking.

I am a moderate Republican. I think that viewpoint obviously colors all of the perceptions that I have regarding the precipitious slide that America is experiencing. This posting promises to be a bit different from here, as I plan to make observations, and not to comment on the significance thereof.

1. For more than 150 years, American values were heavily influenced by a small pocket of people known as the Pilgrims, and their counterparts, the Puritans. As evidence, I mention merely the tendency in two directions - prudery, and industry. Those of us who are correclty classified as baby boomers have witnessed the eradication of conservative morality. From sex and nudity to profanity and tastelessness, our media - TV and film - have reflected a pendulum swing away from that prudery. Presently, almost anything goes. As to industry, the American commitment to work has waned as well. Whereas the parents of baby boomers took sometimes annoying pride in accounting for their capacity for work, the next generation has made "money for nothing" their aim and a point of pride.

2. Patriotism is no longer universally applauded and practiced. Our parents were eager to complain and debate the relative merits of whatever policy prevailed at the time, and even the Vietnam era objectors tended toward a belief in the peaceful protest. Today, what we are witnessing is a tendency toward violent protest for its own sake, to the point where the target of the protest is incnsequential. Rather, the prepondernance of flash mobs speaks to a belief that the individual dissatisfaction is cause enough to wreak harm on anyone within arms' length, even if the victim has nothing whatsoever to do with the point of the protest. In short, previous values tended to respect the rights of the collective individual over the rights of the individually dissatisfied or disaffected. Again, the Vietnam era protestors sometimes wrought serious harm, but the undercurrent seemed always to value the Amercan citizenry. That is, the aim seemed to be the betterment of the country.

3. Our Congressmen are no longer committed to the betterment of the country either, and this is not an indictment of every congressman, but rather an indictment of the system and its values. Clearly, the American people have no great objection to the compensation package of our political leaders or we would have had backlash along the way. Today though, the populace has recognized that while we were tolerant of perks and privileges, the politicians have been raiding the cookie jar. I doubt you could find a regular citizen in the country who really believes that a congressman should be compensated for life, that congressman should have a gold-laced health plan for which they pay nothing, that per diem expenses, on top of a generous salary are warranted.

4. America's foreign policy has failed to live up to its principles. Though we have maintained a presence of some kind in many countries across the globe for a long time, our presence has usually been welcomed or easily tolerated, as we were not in the business of disrupting the course of life in those countries. Recently though, our presence has become unwelcomed and intrusive in many places. The military presnce in Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq are unwelcomed incursions, sure. But the current aim, as I perceive it, is to play watchdog for the world. I may be under-informed, but our objectives seem to be duplicitious, even to me, an American. (I should emphasize that this is a perception that is surely the result of my own ignorance, as the information that we hear is so sparse.)

Again, I won't elaborate on these observations; the judgments are up to you.