The Mythology of Decline

November 2011

America may yet be dragged down by the deadweight of defunct ideas once thought progressive. More likely, I reckon, is that the founding fathers will once again be vindicated. They trusted in the good sense of the American people. Gibbon was right to continue his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for another thousand years after the sack of Rome: his real subject is the persistence of Roman ideas and institutions long after their creators. Indeed, he might have found continuities long after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which he made his terminus ad quem. Indeed, the last legitimate heir of the Roman emperors has only just died: Otto von Habsburg. And Rome still has its pontifex maximus. So it is with Western civilisation, which survived even the most destructive wars in history; so too with the United States, which has been able to flourish in good times and in bad thanks to the foresight of its founders.

Nobody has written the decline and fall of the American Empire for the excellent reason that there is no such thing; a republic may, like Venice, endure for a millennium. The United States is already older than all but a handful of polities (including the United Kingdom, which was formally created a full quarter of a century after 1776). Yet the US is still constantly rejuvenating itself. Next year's anniversary of the War of 1812 is a chance for the two great Anglophone nations to reflect on how past and present differences have been outweighed by our common heritage and shared sacrifice.

Whether or not one or other is in decline at any one time — and often enough, as with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, their fluctuations are — Great Britain and the United States stand or fall together. Not the least of the reasons why I look forward to the resurgence of America under a new president is that I am confident that Britain, too, will follow suit.

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Lord Truth

February 28th, 2012
3:02 PM

Doc says,as of course most Americans believe, that The Founding Fathers..Constructed a government that strictly limited power, and divided it three ways... In fact the American system of government is merely an exact copy of the British system existing in 1776.There is a House of Commons..the Repressentatives,AHouse of Lords..the UNELECTED Senate (unelected until 1919) and a King whose powers are almost exactly those of George III His abilities to act are very limited as were GIII except for going to war.All discussion used the name King until it was realised that King was inappropriate for an elected monarch and President was chosen instead George III was a constitutional monarch and although Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence,laughed at the rubbish he wrote about GIII being a tyrant ..saying I had to write something... much harm has been done over the years by those foolish lies Americas present problems come from copying the original British system producing endless blockages of political movement. In Britain where suspicion of the monarchy was endemic ,the monarchs powers were gradually stripped away until when Victoris arrived in 1837,she had only the power to choose the head of the military, a power removed a few months later.Since that time all British monacrchs have been little more than cardboard figures their ultimate power of refusing to sign an Act they found repugnant easily forestalled by forced abdication or changes to the constitution.America is still living in 1776. I have often thought that American politics that the world generally regards as boring would instantly spring to life if the Americans used the word King instead of President.Then the real picture would fall into place and everything become clear.

Paul Harmon

November 3rd, 2011
11:11 PM

Very good Doc. I agree with you completely.

Carl

November 3rd, 2011
10:11 AM

Minor quibble-The PLA missles would most likely be aimed at the US 7th Fleet (Western Pacific) instead of the 6th Fleet (Mediterranean)

Doc

November 2nd, 2011
5:11 PM

I like your optimism, and I hope you're right. However, we are a wicked people, and we get the gov't we deserve. I don't think the Founders '...trusted in the good sense of the American people.' They trusted in God, most of them, and they knew that people are basically wicked, not basically good. So they constructed a gov't that strictly limited power, and divided it three ways. Besides allowing a branch of gov't that had not descended as far into wickedness to block the wicked designs of another branch, it plays the wickedness of one branch against the other, often resulting in a most laudable gridlock. “No Man’s life liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session” (Twain; possibly apocryphal). Unfortunately, eventually We the People succeeded in emulating the Israelites of old. They rejected the prophet Samuel, insisting on having a king. Here they had a direct line to God for any problem, and they wanted a king instead. One assumes that they were not all witless. Therefore only being in a state of denial can explain their demand for a king. Likewise, We the People have inherited our own Book of the Law; not God's Word itself, which is not after all a document directly prescribing a form of gov't, but the Constitution, which was clearly largely influenced by the knowledge of human nature granted by the Scriptures. And, like the Israelites, we have rejected it. At one point the Israelites completely lost their Book. We have not lost ours; rather We the People have allowed and encouraged our legislators to trample it into the dust, honoring it with their lips while their (and our) hearts are far from its principles of strictly limited gov't. We may bounce back. But it's hard to see how we can avoid the equivalent of societal meltdown. Raising taxes sufficiently to meet even a fraction of the 'entitlement' costs in the coming years will only ruin the economy further, resulting in less tax income, not more. Cutting the 'entitlement' payouts sufficiently to substantially ease the budgetary strain would have to be draconian enough that we might as well end them and be done with it. But without a growing economy to provide the employment and entrepreneurial opportunities the poor so desperately need, that way lies disaster. Plus, ending the entitlements is so politically unacceptable that hardly anyone except a few Libertarian and Constitution party 'cranks' even mention it. Rare is the politician willing to state the obvious, to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, that the 'entitlements' (SocSec, Medicare, Welfare, etc), as well as a whole vast swathe of other nearly untouchable Fed agencies (EPA, OSHA, FDA, ATF, etc, etc) are grossly unConstitutional. If we are granted a revival of common sense by the Lord, and we flock to the standard of the Constitution, and we insist that our legislators end the bureaucrazies that throw, not sand, but boulders into the gears of the economy of the Republic, then we might successfully grow our way out of this. Otherwise, this does not end well.

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