Grant writes about the The Fall of the Roman Empire, in his book by that title. He focuses on “the decay wrought by clinging to the alluring fantasy that past success guarantees future success, without any nasty sacrifices by the ruling elites.”
"Enmeshed in classical history, all [the Roman] can do is lapse into vague sermonizing, telling other Romans, as many a moralist had told them throughout the centuries, that they must undergo an ethical regeneration and return to the simplicities and self-sacrifices of their ancestors.
There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. His whole attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.
This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.
This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions,
there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all."
“Roman elites in Gaul were still writing letters to one another complaining of the breakdown of everyday life right up until the system collapsed.”
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
–Yuval Noah Harari
Yes, says Constitutional attorney Robert Barnes.
The SAVE Act was approved in the House and President Donald Trump is pushing the Senate to vote now and pass the controversial voter ID bill aimed at keeping non-citizens from registering to vote.
Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution provides for Congress to regulate Congressional elections, providing that the times, places and manner for holding state rules governing such elections to federal legislative office “may at any time by law” be altered by Congress.
Article IV, Section 2 provides that citizens of each state must be entitled all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states, while Article IV, Section 4 requires the federal government to "guarantee to every state” a “republican form of government.”
Amendment XIV recognizes “the right to vote” for “citizens of the United States,” with Section 5 giving Congress the power to enforce.
Amendment XV recognizes the “right of citizens of the United ...
We're not being asked by the administration. How many young men will have to die? How many young men are we willing to sacrifice?
How much debt will our surviving children need to cover in years to come? Forbes is keeping track of those fiscal numbers. Within days of the assaults on Iran, the costs were staggering: $300 million for three F-15E jets downed by “friendly” fire. $630 million to transport troops, ships and aircraft to the region in advance of the attacks. More than 50,000 troops deployed to the region. $13 million a day just for two aircraft carriers stationed nearby. $43.8 million for 1,250 Kamikaze drones. $2 million each for Tomahawk missiles. $12.8 million each for anti-ballistic missile interceptors.
Forbes estimates that Trump’s military strikes in Iran have already cost American taxpayers over $1 billion, “with a price tag that could approach $100 billion, depending on how long it can stretch on.” The total economic cost of the conflict “could ...