In the good old, brutal days, an empire faced a clean, honest choice: it devoured its rivals, or its rivals devoured it. Victory paid dividends you could weigh and count — booty, tribute, and slaves.
I remember Vietnam, they didn't quit, our political class sold us out. I participated in that mess! Based on reading about 5000 years of history, it shows the Persians won't quit either. We either "finish" the job or walk away as we did in Vietnam.......sadly.
It would indeed have been child’s play to keep us off the shoals of destruction. But our leaders, elected and otherwise, have proven to be less than competent navigators and captains of the good ship USA. They, and we collectively, have pretended that we are entitled to unlimited bounty. The consequences of such naivety are now evident.
Not incompetent; they are in fact quite skilled at pillaging the treasury, sending the sons and daughters of its founding stock to die in useless wars, and importing third world barbarians to man their fields, factories, delivery trucks, and landscape businesses.
Agree with the first half of your reply, but not the second half. I am thankful for the “barbarians” who do the work no one else will do: cleaning, landscaping, roofing, painting, harvesting, etc.
The absence of imported competition would require our native sons to perform such work but of course if it weren’t for the low cost of hiring it out to said imports perhaps the lazy, soft natives would do it themselves. But what is the cost of cheap imported labor and fast food modernity? A crumbling homeland populated with entitled citizens who can’t even change a tire.
It is true that Rome fell to Odoacer in 476 AD. But that wasn’t the end of the Empire. The Eastern half continued for almost another millenium. Indeed, under Justinian. The Eastern Empire had managed to reconquer Italy and recover Rome by 565AD.
Italy was then slowly abandoned, but the Eastern Roman Empire kept going through many ups and downs for another 900 years, far more than the 250 with which you credit it.
Bill's candid remarks about our nation's proclivity for unnecessary wars and for evermore debt are worrisome, especially as it is likely a Democratic Administration will be ensconced on January 20, 2028.
Democrats are likely to sail the ship of state into ever deeper debt -- not by needless war -- but by expanding access to the public trough.
Just as we underestimated the tenacity of the VietCong, so did we underestimate the fire power of Iran. The experts doing intel f____d
up and should be fired. And what of Israel licking their wounds? They have been secretive about their defense failure but insiders say the
damages were substantial.
And the parallel Bill draws between Vietnam and Iran is dead on. The VietCong never surrendered nor will
the Iranians. JF
I remember Vietnam, they didn't quit, our political class sold us out. I participated in that mess! Based on reading about 5000 years of history, it shows the Persians won't quit either. We either "finish" the job or walk away as we did in Vietnam.......sadly.
Jim Marshall
Our fake money is just more evidence we are ruled by an extraconstitutional crime syndicate.
It would indeed have been child’s play to keep us off the shoals of destruction. But our leaders, elected and otherwise, have proven to be less than competent navigators and captains of the good ship USA. They, and we collectively, have pretended that we are entitled to unlimited bounty. The consequences of such naivety are now evident.
Not incompetent; they are in fact quite skilled at pillaging the treasury, sending the sons and daughters of its founding stock to die in useless wars, and importing third world barbarians to man their fields, factories, delivery trucks, and landscape businesses.
Agree with the first half of your reply, but not the second half. I am thankful for the “barbarians” who do the work no one else will do: cleaning, landscaping, roofing, painting, harvesting, etc.
The absence of imported competition would require our native sons to perform such work but of course if it weren’t for the low cost of hiring it out to said imports perhaps the lazy, soft natives would do it themselves. But what is the cost of cheap imported labor and fast food modernity? A crumbling homeland populated with entitled citizens who can’t even change a tire.
It is true that Rome fell to Odoacer in 476 AD. But that wasn’t the end of the Empire. The Eastern half continued for almost another millenium. Indeed, under Justinian. The Eastern Empire had managed to reconquer Italy and recover Rome by 565AD.
Italy was then slowly abandoned, but the Eastern Roman Empire kept going through many ups and downs for another 900 years, far more than the 250 with which you credit it.
Superb stuff, Bill. Nowhere is there a better summation of our state of the union.
Bill's candid remarks about our nation's proclivity for unnecessary wars and for evermore debt are worrisome, especially as it is likely a Democratic Administration will be ensconced on January 20, 2028.
Democrats are likely to sail the ship of state into ever deeper debt -- not by needless war -- but by expanding access to the public trough.
Well