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America Is Traveling Down The Roman Road

By Dale V. Nobbman

There have been many good roads to travel in America over the past 235 years. They include the roads to independence and democracy, the roads to discovery, progress and success, and trips down country roads, paved roads, railroads, the straight and narrow road, the road to financial freedom, the road to victory, the road to recovery, the yellow-brick road, and best of all, the road that leads toward home, either to our earthly or heavenly home. However, there is one road we do ‘not’ want to travel down as a nation, and that is the Roman road. That road is rocky and will cause us to have a terrible crash. It is a road historically proven to be full of bumps, cracks, potholes, twists and turns. The entire Roman civilization, along with its actual roadways, gradually crumbled into disrepair and decline, which eventually led to the downfall of the great Roman Empire.

The United States of America has the advantage and opportunity to learn from history. We may still have time to detour off the Roman road before it’s too late—before we too come to a dead-end like the Roman Empire—but we currently seem inclined to continue down the Roman road, which if we do, will eventually lead to dire events for our nation. The Roman Empire was in existence much longer than America has been a nation to this point, but today’s world moves much faster than in Roman times, so we don’t have any time to waste in yielding to common sense and making a U-turn off the Roman road. This may not yet be the end of our road as a blessed nation by God—but we can see the end from here if we don’t slam on the brakes!

The downfall of the Roman Empire resulted from a gradual downturn of their political, economic, and military systems, not to mention the decline of social institutions, including their originally established higher social morals. Barbarian (people alien to the Roman culture) invasions and settlement within their empire were the final doom.

Let’s take a look at some of the specific problems that developed within the Roman Empire over the passage of time and see if they ring a bell in the United States of America today. See if you can plug our current ‘buzz words and talking points’ into the corresponding Roman problems listed below. For example, words and phrases such as increased taxes, increasing social class economic inequality, unemployment, political partisanship and finger-pointing, President Obama, Social Security, Medicare, Health Reform, urbanization, illegal immigration, intolerance, Islamists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, the U.S. military budget, war justification, inflation, a devalued U.S. dollar, the CRP agricultural program, governmental bureaucracy, diseases, super-bug bacteria, over-spending by government, budget shortfalls at all levels of government, obsession with sex and sports, Mexico, border fence, crumbling infrastructure, unions, pensions, economy, and enormous debt, debt, debt!! Feel free to insert your own words and thoughts as you read through the following ‘partial’ list of Roman Empire problems which brought about its eventual ruin.

1. Increased economic inequality among its citizens. The Romans implemented a system of tax collection that drove many small-scale farmers and business owners out of business, which resulted in more out of work people being dependent on the government, which placed even more tax burden upon those who could not escape taxation. Sometimes the poor were dependent upon the elite who were exempt from taxation.
2. Incompetent political leadership.
3. Incompetent military leadership.
4. The implementation of substantial political and economic reforms.
5. Cultural and political dilution (barbarization) leading to differing opinions, paths and standards among a diverse population, creating societal problems.
6. Intrusion of alien religious ideas.
7. The Romans fought with most of the Middle East countries and many other countries, resulting in a strained military and a drain on financial resources.
8. High inflation caused by years of Roman coinage devaluation.
9. Land was withdrawn from cultivation on a very large scale.
10. Roman society became more complex as it tried to solve problems, creating new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure and social classes.
11. Urbanization and overpopulation of cities resulted in increased disease epidemics, water and food shortages.
12. An almost non-existent budgetary system, resulting in wasted monetary resources.
13. Moral decay. Sexual immorality and perversion became out-of-control, including rampant homosexuality, prostitution, pornography, orgies, slaves used for sex, increased lust for blood and violence in sporting events, and other debauchery.
14. Diminished fortifications to protect cities from barbarians. Invasions by the Visigoths, Vandals, Germanic tribes, etc…led to a clash of civilization when the invaders ‘settled’ within Roman land.
15. Reduced tax revenue when barbarians wanted to take part in the benefits of the Roman way of doing things, without paying back into the system, resulting in a crumbling infrastructure.
16. The empire ‘spent more money than it took in’ due to the enormous budget it took to maintain the military and infrastructure such as the roads and water supply. This forced the Romans to frequently raise taxes, which in turn caused major economic stress.
17. Additional economic stress was placed on the empire when a greater amount of money had to be spent on social services to keep a restless public happy. This included the promise of pension payments made to retired bureaucrats.

Does this sound all too familiar? Comparisons to our own current predicaments in the United States of America can be drawn from all of the above. The only question now is…if we will choose to continue along the Roman road…or be brave and take the ‘high’ road of doing what is right for our nation’s future and our children’s children. God, and the future, awaits our answer!




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