More on Rome

Two immediate responses on the previous post regarding Rome are worthy of special attention. The first by Charles Anderson from whose excellent website The Objectivist Individualist most of the material was obtained. [Correction: The original material was from 20smoney.com ]  Mr. Anderson replied:

Few Americans know enough history to be able to draw any parallels with the fall of Rome or the failure of democracy in Athens. Few Americans understand that the American principle of government is that legitimate government is defined in the Declaration of Independence as that government which protects the equal and sovereign individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Few understand that the Constitution attempts to limit the federal government to just this purpose by only allowing it to have a few enumerated powers mostly pertaining to dealings with foreign governments and external persons, while retaining all other powers for the states and the People. Few understand that when Teddy Roosevelt said he would do whatever he felt needed to be done provided the Constitution did not explicitly say he could not do it, that he threw the Constitution away because it made no attempt to enumerate all the infinite number of powers a megalomaniac might dream of claiming. Most Presidents since Roosevelt have substantially followed Teddy Roosevelt’s lead and bought into his claim that one need not fear the concentration of power in the hands of one man. As a result, most Presidents have taken on powers they have had no idea how to use wisely for they have hugely underestimated the impossibility of one man understanding the incredibly complex individuality of individual Americans. These Presidents and our Congresses have sought to substitute their judgment for that of every American seeking to realize his own chosen values in voluntary association with others in the free market of ideas, goods, services, and personal relationships with disastrous results. They have made it clear that government is nothing but brutal, ignorant force.

Some Americans are awakening from their government-controlled schools indoctrination in socialist thinking and starting to take an interest in the American principle of government and in American history. Many of these people are in the Tea Party movement. Many are now reading Atlas Shrugged, The Road to Serfdom, Free to Choose, Liberal Fascism, Thomas Sowell’s books and other sources pointing them toward the importance of choosing your own values and being free to live your life in accordance with them while using the free markets to associate voluntarily with others for a multitude of purposes. I hope this reawakening continues until the socialist scourge is obliterated and dares not raise its head again. If that is to become true, then we must wrest control of our schools and colleges from the government which works tirelessly to suppress this knowledge and to promote government-empowering socialism.

The second, from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, is a reference to a book dealing with the fall of Rome written in 1939. The book compares the Fall of Rome with the then unfolding New Deal put in place by Roosevelt (and his predecessor, Hoover). The book is on-line for those interested and looks very intriguing given what is happening now in this country. From the book’s introduction comes the following:

It is an attempt to provide an objective survey of instances of government intervention in the ancient world. Many of these were so like experiments tried in the United States in recent years that they may fairly be classed as New Deal measures. I have tried to show what these experiments were, why they were tried, and how they worked. Making allowance for the differences between ancient and modern society, I have ventured to call attention to certain warning signals from the past.

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