Is it fair to say the United States is the modern day equivalent of the Roman Empire?
The Roman Empire had its ups and downs, but they were nothing like the way the United States is today. Rome had bad leaders, but most of the leaders that came after were able to turn things around. The United States is deep in debt, and a long line of poor leadership will keep things the way they are for a long time. The Roman Empire was a strong nation, and the United States is getting far to many immigrants and people are getting laid off. The Roman Empire and the United States are alike in some ways, but they are too different for anyone to be able to say the United States is the modern day equivalent of the Roman Empire.
Good Roman leaders were able to pull the empire up after a long reign of terrible people, but the United States is too deep in dept and only digging deeper. On today's edition of The Daily Citizen, there is an article about how there is going to be $385K in repairs. Searcy, Arkansas would like to fix their cities sports complex. The fields are a mess, so they are going to spend all their money on fixing fields when they could do much more useful stuff with the money. Sports are important, but the money could be better spent elsewhere. This is how it is all over the US. O'Malley is trying to give money to the illegals in MD so they can go to college. There are so many better uses for taxpayer dollars that LEGAL citizens can use. The US is seriously messed up when it comes to money, and Rome did not have that many money problems.
The Roman Empire had many jobs for people, the United States does not. President Obama was in the news this morning because he is concerned over slow job growth. "He tried to reassure Americans worried about high unemployment and expensive gas that the nation is on a slow, if not steady, road to recovery" (President expresses concern over slow job growth). People are getting laid off for jobs, and many people who are legal US citizens are fighting to get new jobs from illegal citizens. If this is going to improve anytime soon, that would be wonderful, but it probably won't happen. Schools and government businesses are not getting enough money to be able to pay for some people to work there, so they ended up laying off people. The people of the Roman Empire had jobs, unlike many families in the United States today.
People have also changed since Roman times. Education has changed, there are more schools and more topics to learn about. Drugs and abuse have become a major issue that probably was not as common back in Ancient Roman times. "The rapes were violent. They were brutal" (Witness calls abuse tapes violent, brutal). The world today is an awful violent world. Not all people are bad of course, but the world as a whole is getting worse. Nothing can stop it. The Romans were a better, more well-rounded group of people.
The United States could never be considered the equivalent of the Roman Empire. Today, people are struggling with money. Poor leadership is causing people to lose jobs. People are smoking, drinking, and abusing kids. The US is to different from the Roman Empire to be considered the modern one.
Works Cited
"President expresses concern over slow job growth."Opelika-Auburn News 8 June 2011: 1. Newseum. Web. 8 June 2011.
"Panel requests $385K for repairs." The Daily Citizen[Searcy] 11 June 2008: n. pag.Newseum. Web. 8 June 2011.
"Witness calls abuse tapes violent, brutal." Delaware State News [Dover] 11 June 2008: n. pag. Newseum. Web. 11 June 2008.
On your first point, it would be interesting to go deeper into the discussion of sports; after all, one of the mainstays in any Roman city was an amphitheater for gladiatorial combat. Was this not unlike our modern love of football?
ReplyDeleteThat paragraph would be stronger if focused on one topic -- like sports -- rather than getting sidetracked by opinions on state politics.
At the end, you suggest that the Romans were more "well balanced". But was Rome uniformly "better" than the US? Was there no poverty in Rome? No brutal people? I would suggest looking into the stories of what happened in the Subura and the tougher neighborhoods of the city of Ancient Rome. You might be surprised.