america is literally the modern roman empire

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > america is literally the modern roman empire

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etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Fojar38 posted:

chinese history is basically a constant cycle of dynastic collapse actually

Also lots of foreign invaders from the Mongols to Manchus stirring things up.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 18:50

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 07:10

Quirk: Oct 11, 2004; You might surprise yourself.

When it hits the fan I'm hanging the bankers burning corpses from light poles. Black male in America trying to find a job during the recession? Lol, I'll eat human flesh before I eat garbage again. Come on domino effect, can't wait to try on Americans what those crafty narcos have come up with :dance:

# ? Feb 1, 2015 18:59

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

Quirk posted:

When it hits the fan I'm hanging the bankers burning corpses from light poles. Black male in America trying to find a job during the recession? Lol, I'll eat human flesh before I eat garbage again. Come on domino effect, can't wait to try on Americans what those crafty narcos have come up with

Someone get this pleb some bread to placate him

# ? Feb 1, 2015 19:03

Edgar: Sep 9, 2005; Oh my heck!
Oh heavens!
Oh my lord!
OH Sweet meats!; Wedge Regret

We won't be like rome unless there is bas reliefs of dicks everywhere .

# ? Feb 1, 2015 19:04

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

im p sure the only reason china wasnt constantly a big pile of warring kingdoms after the collapse of the han dynasty had more to do with the fact most of those areas were insanely poor and not worth fighting over anyway, whereas basically all of the western and eastern roman empire were lands worth having besides the north african coast and most of the middle east outside of anatolia

# ? Feb 1, 2015 19:13

Fasdar: Sep 1, 2001; Everybody loves dancing!

gnarlyhotep posted:

it'll all go down the drain eventually, it always does

but the ancient Chinese dynasties are truly impressive, they were stable for centuries

What's really nutty is that it seems, from archaeological data, that many South American civilizations had extremely long cultural tenures as well. Except western diseases raced across the continent's trade routes, killing them all some 150+ years before colonialists would actually physically reach their cities, so all their agricultural technology and whatever it was that drat-near terraformed the infertile jungle floor along ancient roadways is pretty much lost to us.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 19:16

Quidam Viator: Jan 24, 2001; ask me about how voting Donald Trump was worth 400k and counting dead.

IMHO O TEMPURA, O MORES

# ? Feb 1, 2015 19:50

Quidam Viator: Jan 24, 2001; ask me about how voting Donald Trump was worth 400k and counting dead.

But seriously, folks, as a Latin teacher, we're in the late stages of our republic right now. You are decisively NOT guaranteed Caesar or Augustus; you may be assfucked in a totally different way. However, our great emergence onto the world stage in WWII (Punic Wars) has made us a superpower, elevated the rich and connected to levels of wealth previously unimaginable, and destabilized the basic values and processes that made us a successful power to begin with.

As far as I'm concerned, the most telling similarity is the death of the Cincinnati. There was at LEAST a mythic basis in Rome, which was just about as real as it ever was here, that our George Washingtons were farm-born, agrarian heroes who did not crave power for power's sake, but for the greater glory of Rome or the US. Even up through Lincoln, you still had presidents consistently trumpeting their log-cabin birthplace and not actively campaigning, as that might damage the nobility of public service.

Of course, behind the scenes, it was just ugly power grabs, just like here. But the nation as a whole was made up of actual land-owning white people, whose slaves worked the family farm. After WWII, however, the Romans just went on this amazing spending spree, and the quality of life for most of them and their socii, or half-assed citizens like freed slaves and Mexican immigrant workers wasn't TOO bad. But since the multinational corporations and Senators sucked up so much of the new wealth brought by the Punic Wars, they started offering credit to normal Romans at ridiculous rates since prices had gone up so much during the 1970s.

Pretty soon, the citizens had been impoverished, Bank of America foreclosed on all the Roman citizens' farms, and turned them all into Time Warner/Comcast style merger megafarms called latifundia where the former land-owning citizens, along with freed slaves and Mexicans, all had to be wage slaves working the same land that they USED to own. To keep everyone from revolting, they just gave them welfare and low-cost broadband so they'd be too busy posting on the internet to revolt.

See, none of us actually DO any of the things that originally made America special and great when we emerged in the late 18th century, but we still cling to the veneer as if we still do. Now, all of our presidents come from dynasties, just as in the late Republic. We're all bought and sold by larger interests instead of being a nation of freeholders. But we still get suckered by the fake Cincinnatus act that everyone from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin puts on for us. Fuckin Huckabee is cooking squirrels in a popcorn popper, and we eat the poo poo up.

Meanwhile, we have a "literal" triumvirate of a few powerful people who hold all the actual power, and our senate is full of "good men" or Optimates who scream only for jingoism and the maintenance of traditional family values. In the triumvirate, we have Crassus (The Kochs and Waltons, etc.) representing pure wealth, Pompey (the military-industrial complex), and Caesar (for lack of a direct comparison, all populistic things like Obama, Hollywood, the music industry), and together, they all make sure that they're the ones doing the loving, and we're the ones getting hosed. THAT'S TOTALLY NOT GAY.

The one thing you can be sure of is that just like Late Republican Rome, Late Republican America is little more than a flimsy facade covering the worst, most degenerate, filthy, overweight, ignorant nonsense, and the rest of the world is still following us and afraid of us because of the memory of our greater times and our over-bloated military.

Collapse is inevitable. The only fun is in seeing how the thing explodes.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:13

sexy young infidel: Nov 13, 2014; Faggot of the Year
2012, 2014

you know, this is a little wierd, but I could swear i've seen "As a Latin teacher," posted before, somewhere on this forum. This is gonna bother me all day

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:29

BigBallChunkyTime: Nov 25, 2011; Kyle Schwarber: World Series hero, Beefy Lad, better than you.; Illegal Hen

Zippy the Bummer posted:

the one percent are the equestrian class or whatever that controls everything behind the scenes, or sometimes out in the open gently caress it

the president is the emperor, lets be honest

the legislature opweratees the same as the senaten imperial rome

there is the wealthy romans who had no role in government byut were rish as gently caress

there are the semi-wealhty merchant class, the amerucan middle class who are citizens who do well enough for themselves but have a wealthier patron (business owners)

poor citizens, the plebian class, most Americans

slaves (immigrants, prison inmates)

the imperial capitol, Washington DC, has government buildings that literally model ancient roman buildings

the imperial military bestrides the world like a colossus, except literally this time, unlike when the Romans said it and it was kind of figurative

Also we feed christians to lions on a regular basis.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:31

Gobblecoque: Sep 6, 2011

op literally doesn't know anything about rome lol

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:40

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Gobblecoque posted:

op literally doesn't know anything about rome lol

yeah the roman empire never had nukes and wouldn't have any problems dealing with something like ISIS.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:41

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

Quidam Viator posted:

But seriously, folks, as a Latin teacher, we're in the late stages of our republic right now. You are decisively NOT guaranteed Caesar or Augustus; you may be assfucked in a totally different way. However, our great emergence onto the world stage in WWII (Punic Wars) has made us a superpower, elevated the rich and connected to levels of wealth previously unimaginable, and destabilized the basic values and processes that made us a successful power to begin with.

As far as I'm concerned, the most telling similarity is the death of the Cincinnati. There was at LEAST a mythic basis in Rome, which was just about as real as it ever was here, that our George Washingtons were farm-born, agrarian heroes who did not crave power for power's sake, but for the greater glory of Rome or the US. Even up through Lincoln, you still had presidents consistently trumpeting their log-cabin birthplace and not actively campaigning, as that might damage the nobility of public service.

Of course, behind the scenes, it was just ugly power grabs, just like here. But the nation as a whole was made up of actual land-owning white people, whose slaves worked the family farm. After WWII, however, the Romans just went on this amazing spending spree, and the quality of life for most of them and their socii, or half-assed citizens like freed slaves and Mexican immigrant workers wasn't TOO bad. But since the multinational corporations and Senators sucked up so much of the new wealth brought by the Punic Wars, they started offering credit to normal Romans at ridiculous rates since prices had gone up so much during the 1970s.

Pretty soon, the citizens had been impoverished, Bank of America foreclosed on all the Roman citizens' farms, and turned them all into Time Warner/Comcast style merger megafarms called latifundia where the former land-owning citizens, along with freed slaves and Mexicans, all had to be wage slaves working the same land that they USED to own. To keep everyone from revolting, they just gave them welfare and low-cost broadband so they'd be too busy posting on the internet to revolt.

See, none of us actually DO any of the things that originally made America special and great when we emerged in the late 18th century, but we still cling to the veneer as if we still do. Now, all of our presidents come from dynasties, just as in the late Republic. We're all bought and sold by larger interests instead of being a nation of freeholders. But we still get suckered by the fake Cincinnatus act that everyone from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin puts on for us. Fuckin Huckabee is cooking squirrels in a popcorn popper, and we eat the poo poo up.

Meanwhile, we have a "literal" triumvirate of a few powerful people who hold all the actual power, and our senate is full of "good men" or Optimates who scream only for jingoism and the maintenance of traditional family values. In the triumvirate, we have Crassus (The Kochs and Waltons, etc.) representing pure wealth, Pompey (the military-industrial complex), and Caesar (for lack of a direct comparison, all populistic things like Obama, Hollywood, the music industry), and together, they all make sure that they're the ones doing the loving, and we're the ones getting hosed. THAT'S TOTALLY NOT GAY.

The one thing you can be sure of is that just like Late Republican Rome, Late Republican America is little more than a flimsy facade covering the worst, most degenerate, filthy, overweight, ignorant nonsense, and the rest of the world is still following us and afraid of us because of the memory of our greater times and our over-bloated military.

Collapse is inevitable. The only fun is in seeing how the thing explodes.

actually republican america has been gone since wwii

its been american empire ever since and the world is actually better for it

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:46

Mc Do Well: Aug 2, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

America needs a caesar to get our house in order.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:46

naem: May 29, 2011

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:56

SniperWoreConverse: Mar 20, 2010; Gun Saliva

Rome had good roads that last forever but I hit 83 potholes on the way here and almost fell into a sinkhole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdaM5Mv-TTo

# ? Feb 1, 2015 20:57

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

SniperWoreConverse posted:

Rome had good roads that last forever but I hit 83 potholes on the way here and almost fell into a sinkhole

The other roman good idea was they put their welfare queen soldiers to work during the offseason building new roads and other vast public works projects.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 21:01

VendaGoat: Nov 1, 2005

SniperWoreConverse posted:

Rome had good roads that last forever but I hit 83 potholes on the way here and almost fell into a sinkhole

Hail, fellow Pennsylvanian!

# ? Feb 1, 2015 21:02

naem: May 29, 2011

etalian posted:

The other roman good idea was they put their welfare queen soldiers to work during the offseason building new roads and other vast public works projects.

We should do this for real

# ? Feb 1, 2015 21:07

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

naem posted:

We should do this for real

It was mainly a cunning roman plan based on the reality that idle troops would often cause trouble and was also a soft power way to expand the roman empire.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 21:08

Ragtime Cthulhu: Dec 11, 2014

etalian posted:

It was mainly a cunning roman plan based on the reality that idle troops would often cause trouble and was also a soft power way to expand the roman empire.

That's kinda what the Corps of Engineers does, right? But having an ex-Marine brother, I totally support the argument for idle troop labor

# ? Feb 1, 2015 21:12

Nameless_Steve: Oct 18, 2010; "There are fair questions about shooting non-lethally at retreating civilian combatants."

S P Q R == I <3 N Y

# ? Feb 1, 2015 22:13

babypolis: Nov 4, 2009

every waning empire in the past 1000 years has been compared to the roman empire. why do we have such a collective boner (myself included) over these dead assholes

# ? Feb 1, 2015 22:47

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

lol if you think the american empire is waning

# ? Feb 1, 2015 22:48

Blue Train: Jun 17, 2012

babypolis posted:

every waning empire in the past 1000 years has been compared to the roman empire. why do we have such a collective boner (myself included) over these dead assholes

ideal aryan society, they actually exported culture and possessed military might, subjugated most of the minorities

# ? Feb 1, 2015 22:49

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

babypolis posted:

every waning empire in the past 1000 years has been compared to the roman empire. why do we have such a collective boner (myself included) over these dead assholes

because it was a god tier combination of soft and hard power, plus roman language and culture survived the downfall of the empire.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 22:55

Premeditated Toast: Apr 24, 2008; Same as it ever was.

Rome was a republic for roughly five centuries while America has been around for a little over two, a blip more or less. Are we really jumping straight to "Fall of an Empire" period in our paint by numbers analogies here? Also, the income inequality during Rome's time was absolutely ridiculous compared to ours, it was on a logarithmic scale that would make even Ayn Rand blush. Imagine millions of poor masses, then imagine a group ten times smaller than them and ten times richer, that's your lower middle class. Now imagine a group ten times smaller than that and ten times richer, that's your upper middle class, etc. Then you have the Roman Senate, which had a prerequisite that members had to make a minimum income of 1,200,000 sesterces. So in other words, it had always been stacked in favor of the rich, "Republic and Democracy" was always an idealized joke.

# ? Feb 1, 2015 23:19

Imapanda: Sep 12, 2008; Majoris Felidae Peditum

Fojar38 posted:

lol if you think the american empire is waning

it has only just begun

# ? Feb 1, 2015 23:31

raditts: Feb 21, 2001; The Kwanzaa Bot is here to protect me.

Supreme Allah posted:

Togas look more comfortable than pants but I wonder if they were really complicated to put on. Pants are non-comfortable but easy to put on. Togas = opposite, possibly.

You can just settle for shorts, they're comfy and easy to wear.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 00:00

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Wrong OP. We're more like the ever-adaptable Ottoman Empire.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 01:39

Ratios and Tendency: Apr 23, 2010; MURALI

Togas were insanely heavy and you had to hold your arm up all the time and poo poo.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 01:44

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Young Freud posted:

Wrong OP. We're more like the ever-adaptable Ottoman Empire.

it's a good analogy since the US empire has a muslim leader too.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 01:44

buckets of buckets: Apr 8, 2012; CHECK OUT MY AWESOME POSTS
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America had its chance to be great but the confederacy was strangled in its infancy. What we're looking at now is just the last flickers before the candle goes out.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 01:44

chaosbreather: Dec 9, 2001; Wry and wise,
but also very sexual.

pedicabo aut esse fututam

# ? Feb 2, 2015 01:57

Quidam Viator: Jan 24, 2001; ask me about how voting Donald Trump was worth 400k and counting dead.

Fojar38 posted:

actually republican america has been gone since wwii

its been american empire ever since and the world is actually better for it

I would concede if the military was already selecting our president, but since we still have the charade of voting, we still look more like the late Roman Republic.

sexy young infidel posted:

you know, this is a little wierd, but I could swear i've seen "As a Latin teacher," posted before, somewhere on this forum. This is gonna bother me all day

Yeah, sorry. That was probably me. I've made some DnD posts about Common Core, etc.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:18

Man Whore: Jan 6, 2012; ASK ME ABOUT SPHERICAL CATS
=3

Imapanda posted:

it has only just begun

thus began America's 1000 year decline.

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:21

Flavahbeast: Jul 21, 2001

numberoneposter posted:

im not looking forward to the fall

our dollar is already at .79 of USD over two months

haha, ha?

the math checks out

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:25

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

geography makes the american empire literally invincible and it will not end until a space colony rebels

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:45

TEAYCHES: Jun 23, 2002

america is only figuratively the modern roman empire

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:55

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 07:10

Fojar38: Sep 2, 2011; Sorry I meant to say I hope that the police use maximum force and kill or maim a bunch of innocent people, thus paving a way for a proletarian uprising and socialist utopia

also here's a stupid take
---------------------------->

TEAYCHES posted:

america is only figuratively the modern roman empire

well italy's capital is rome and italy is among americas numerous vassals

# ? Feb 2, 2015 02:56

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > america is literally the modern roman empire

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