The Choice America Is Making

[BlueStarLizzard]

I don't idealized them. I also don't think that since they don't adhere to the same standards that you hold hundreds of years later that it discounts the fact that they were in fact a force for religious tolerance. And none of that matters at all in regards to the point I made in bringing them up.

Yet you have been consistently touting them as morelly superior, which made them, supposedly, able to do something you hypothisis that the current generations can not.

Rome wasn't built in a day and civilazations have risen, fallen and then risen again.

And survival has much more to do with it then freedom, anyway.
Some will, some won't, and moral highground will be a liability rather then an asset when push comes to shove.

And since the really big shakers and movers of the civilizations of past and present seem to grow and expand in terms of philosphical freedom each time, the next one will likely be even more free then America.

[Balog]

I have not claimed them as morally superior. Morals are not the same thing as work ethic, willingness to sacrifice, and dedication to the future generations vs current pleasures. Your attempt to put words in my mouth fails as hard as the rest of your argumentation and your grasp of history.

[Lee]

That's a good article.  Very true.  Unfortunately, we only have two political parties, and they agree only on one thing...spend spend spend. You can raise taxes until there are no people left to pay them, or you can reduce spending.  Also, like Rome, we need to reduce the impact of people and events outside of our borders, whether it's foreign wars, or unlimited/unregulated immigration.   

[BlueStarLizzard]

Actually, I disagree. Many of our ancestors literally sold themselves into slavery for 7 years in hopes of achieving freedom and opportunity. No one (excepting recent immigrants) in our current generation has any concept of not belonging to the richest, most powerful, and generally most free country in the world. It's the difference between a kid who pays his way through college and a trust fund baby who has it handed to him along with the keys to that brand new BMW.

If this isn't claiming the moral high ground, I don't know what is.

Just because the silver spoon aspect of the current generations is part of the cause of the forseen failure, doesn't mean it won't also end up helping the reestablishment.
People on high learn a lot when they fall. The hard way.
You write off a huge group of people, simply because they've never had to make these choices. You have no clue where they will all fall. You assume too much.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

I don't idealized them. I also don't think that since they don't adhere to the same standards that you hold hundreds of years later that it discounts the fact that they were in fact a force for religious tolerance. And none of that matters at all in regards to the point I made in bringing them up.

tolerant?!
Before white settlers arrived in Maryland, the Algonquin and other Native American tribes occupied the region. By the time Annapolis was settled in 1649, the Algonquins were gone from the area, forced out by raiding parties of the Susquehannock tribe.

The original white settlement of the area near Annapolis was at Greenbury Point, although the land is now mostly covered by the Severn River. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Puritans living in Virginia were threatened with severe punishments by the Anglican Royal Governor if they did not conform to the worship of the Anglican church. Then Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, offered the Pilgrims generous land grants, freedom of worship, and trading privileges if they agreed to move to Maryland, which he wanted to have settled. In 1649 they started a community on a site at the mouth of the Severn River on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay.

The Puritans named their new settlement Providence. In 1650, Lord Baltimore, the overseer of the colony, granted a charter to the county that surrounded Providence. He named it Anne Arundel County after his beloved wife, Anne Arundel, who had died shortly before at the age of thirty-four. But the Puritans refused to sign an oath of allegiance to Lord Baltimore, in part because he was a Roman Catholic. In 1655 he sent the St. Mary's militia, headed by Governor William Stone, to force the Puritans into submission. A battle between the two groups took place on March 25, 1655. The Puritans won the conflict, which was the first battle between Englishmen on the North American continent. Eventually, Maryland became a royal colony. The capital was moved further north in 1694 to the site of present-day Annapolis. By that time, for reasons unknown, the Puritan settlement of Providence had all but disappeared.

[Balog]

Compared to the actual world they lived in they were, yes.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/enquirer/king_philip.htm

[RoadKingLarry]

Historically, how have civilizations fallen apart?

Here's a few thoughts on that subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire

[MicroBalrog]

Here's a few thoughts on that subject.

It's widely thought among historians today that Gibbon was wrong, you realize that, right?

[roo_ster]

It's widely thought among historians today that Gibbon was wrong, you realize that, right?

Maybe so, but most historians today aren't worth a plugged nickel.  If that consensus was formed after 1960, I'd be predisposed to disregard it.

An attorney analyzing the decision, however, probably would have been surprised to see that the works of history upon which the Montana court relied were all published before 1977. She might even have wondered whether the court's reliance on older works suggested that it had ignored newer, perhaps contradictory, publications. But for anyone familiar with how the contemporary academy approaches U.S. history, the court's inability to find recent relevant works could have come as no surprise at all.

The study of U.S. history has transformed in the last two generations, with emphasis on staffing positions in race, class, or gender leading to dramatic declines in fields viewed as more "traditional," such as U.S. political, constitutional, diplomatic, and military history. And even those latter areas have been "re-visioned," in the word coined by an advocate of the transformation, Illinois history professor Mark Leff, to make their approach more accommodating to the dominant race/class/gender paradigm. In the new academy, political histories of state governments--of the type cited and used effectively by the Montana Supreme Court--were among the first to go. The Montana court had to turn to Fritz, an emeritus professor, because the University of Montana History Department no longer features a specialist in Montana history (nor, for that matter, does it have a professor whose research interests, like those of Fritz, deal with U.S. military history, a topic that has fallen out of fashion in the contemporary academy).

To take the nature of the U.S. history positions in one major department as an example of the new staffing patterns: the University of Michigan, once home to Dexter and then Bradford Perkins, was a pioneer in the study of U.S. diplomatic history. Now the department's 29 professors whose research focuses on U.S. history after 1789 include only one whose scholarship has focused on U.S. foreign relations--Penny von Eschen, a perfect example of the "re-visioning" approach. (Her most recent book is Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War.) In contrast to this 1-in-29 ratio, Michigan has hired ten Americanists (including von Eschen) whose research, according to their department profiles, focuses on issues of race; and eight Americanists whose research focuses on issues of gender. The department has more specialists in the history of Native Americans than U.S. foreign relations.

IOW, pretty much worthless.

[MicroBalrog]

Maybe so, but most historians today aren't worth a plugged nickel.  If that consensus was formed after 1960, I'd be predisposed to disregard it.

AFAIK we simply have possession of more documents today and have better understanding of the archaeological record.

The study of U.S. history has transformed in the last two generations, with emphasis on staffing positions in race, class, or gender leading to dramatic declines in fields viewed as more "traditional," such as U.S. political, constitutional, diplomatic, and military history

The 1940's and gave us tards like Beard.

The modern day gave us Cecilia Kenyon's trampling of Beard.

[roo_ster]

AFAIK we simply have possession of more documents today and have better understanding of the archaeological record.

The 1940's and gave us tards like Beard.

The modern day gave us Cecilia Kenyon's trampling of Beard.

Good points. 

I still see 18/29 of the faculty at the school in question as being race/class/marxism 'tards.  I think the proportion of bilge vs useful output is less favorable today.

[RoadKingLarry]

It's widely thought among historians today that Gibbon was wrong, you realize that, right?

Actually no. My formal education in world history and especially that era, is severely lacking.

Just grabbing at the low hanging fruit.

If there is a reputable online reference that you know of I'd appreciate it.

[MicroBalrog]

Sadly the last time I actually took a course in Roman history was when I was a puny undergrad student. It was with the late, great Professor Ze'ev Rubin.

But last I checked, the current theory was that the Barbarian attacks played a far more important role in the collapse of Rome than its corruption did.

...holy sh*t it's my third year in grad school wtf.

[Tallpine]

Sadly the last time I actually took a course in Roman history was when I was a puny undergrad student. It was with the late, great Professor Ze'ev Rubin.

But last I checked, the current theory was that the Barbarian attacks played a far more important role in the collapse of Rome than its corruption did.

...holy sh*t it's my third year in grad school wtf.

Let the record reflect that I made no comment about where the Barbarians might come from this time. 

[kgbsquirrel]

Let the record reflect that I made no comment about where the Barbarians might come from this time. 

Jose is at the gates? 

[lee n. field]

Jose is at the gates? 

Jose is coming here for work, not crossing the Allegheny Mountains on elephants looking to sack the Imperial Capitol.

[kgbsquirrel]

....looking to sack the Imperial Capitol.

I dunno... There seems to be a potential argument there.