Well said,. Dave. I think there are other parallels. Rome, Athens, London and now Washington have all reached a point where their mechanical systems and technologies were head and shoulders beyond those of the nations of Africa, Asia and India. in each case they sought to keep their huge economic and technological gears turning through imperialism. Our Founding Fathers represented the incredible proposition that we could export, instead of enforced technology, a few central ideas germane to all humans and by doing so, could ensure the rest followed suite. In each of these national histories, the time came when the adventures of exporting by force became a national pastime, and those adventures in each case were followed by the decline and collapse of the empire so begun. Instead of exporting ideas, as we did to Japan, we are exporting force and conquest using higher technologies.

Rome did the same with its roads and bureaucracies, England with its early Industrial Age methods and organizations, Athens as well. Persia did it also, and lay in ruins not much later.

Gives one to think, doesn't it?

I am still puzzling over these links. It is almost as though getting too far ahead leads into a natural life cycle of adventurism and imperialism, which leads to downfall. Tricky slope indeed, eh, wot?


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