Plato

Are you talking about America's people, Ned? Or our you talking about America as a whole, government and all. If you are talking about America as a whole then what about Iraq? How can you say that all we want is to be left to ourselves when right now soldiers are dieing over a conflict outside of our borders? Now, of course this is our problem because of 9-11. But are we dealing with it in the right way? We could just as easily put the man power thats being used up in our little "war" into protecting America itself on our grounds. If you are talking about America's people then i totally agree with you. Our government, spefically Bush (no offense to any Republicans), needs to stop this war in Iraq and focus on the protection of our country inside our country. Bush justified the war by searching for weapons of mass destruction. But where are they? Not only has that justification failed but for some reason U.S. Senators are talking about a connection to Hussein. Where has this connection showed up? Only in the governments minds. All Hussein was, was a nasty dictator, not a terrorist.

Corporations put more money into politics than anyone else in America. And in my opinion they do have a major effect in the outcome of elections. Maybe not the big elections but at least enough of the small things to be noticed. There was, in fact, a law that was going to be passed that stated that no person (or corporation) can donate more than $2,000 to a single canadite. This would greatly put a stop to corporations ruling over the standard citizen because most people in the U.S. can afford that kind of money. However, many corporations did not want this to happen (for, hopefully, obvious reasons) and crushed this with an advertising campaign that fed off of our peoples ignorance. I don't think that congressman are greedy and self-centered, but they certainly want to be elected. If politics were you lifes work wouldn't you want to be elected into office? Even though anyone can be a politician, some don't have the funds to keep up with the fast paced advertising of America. These congressman need the money so that next time they come up for election, they can beat their opponent. The best way to do this is to accept donations, and the best donators are the ones with all the money. The corporations. But to keep the flow coming, they need to push for laws to be passed that the donating corporations want passed. Its a simple win win situation with a little stomping on the little ones along the way. Maybe Rome isn't all that like America. So maybe that isn't what we should be comparing. Rome was a huge empire that eventually messed up a led itself to its own downfall. Following the same principle, America is a modern-day empire that could very easily mess up and lead itself to downfall. We should discuss what problems we are faced with and how they could affect America in later years.

Will you people please stop being so childish about everything. All that this thread is doing is reinforcing my belief that American politics is full of name-calling and slandering. The point of this site is to discuss topics of interest not repeatedley put down your opponent and continuely state that you are right trying to prove yourself with facts. Facts are nothing, principle is everything.

Fast Ned is right. There is too much name calling going on in this board and not enough about the topic. If anyone can remember, the topic was about comparing Rome to America and how NewGlory thinks America will fall. The fact that America will fall is INEVITABLE. The question is really when this will happen. Many things need to be factored in to find the answer and the argument about inferior/superior weapons is a major one in this world. But if it continues at this rate, i don't see an answer coming anytime soon. Right now, it is obvious that America has better weapons. But why is this so? Because of years of devlopment and research. Not many countries can compare with the time that has been spent in this area. This goes for the Romans too. They did have superior weapons and they did have superior strategies. Unfortunately, enemies like Hannibal found out ways to beat them. The use of war elephants and his encircling tactic worked well against the Romans but they still could not be defeated. But that was only on the battlefield. It was said before that many Romans were killed at Cannae but the Romans still won...on the battlefield. However, the effect that this battle had upon the Roman people was a great factor in its decline. The citizens didn't want to fight in the army anymore. This could easily happen to America. In vietnam, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died. Of course this had a negative effect on American citizens wanting to enter the war. Even soldiers already in Vietnam wanted to get out. Many thought it lucky to step on a landmine and get their leg blown off just so they could get back home. If we keep getting into wars, America's army will virtually disappear just like Romes. But wars and armies are not the only factors of a countries decline. Another reason for Romes decline was corruption in the government. Many people may not think that this is true with America but it is, just in a different way. This is the same principle of minority groups taking over but with corporations. Aren't corporations choosing the elections of today? Politicians aren't for the people anymore. Most don't even say what they want to say anymore. They are told what to say by the people who give them the most money. A good example of this is in Florida. Florida's big crop is sugar. Huge fields of these line the roads in some places. To care for these fields, phosphorus is sprayed in overwhelming (and very wasteful) amounts. This phosphorus builds up and in the next big rain, is washed away to the Everglades. Environmentalists have tried hard for this to stop because it is killing off this national park. Many times, legislations have been proposed but then they have been crushed. Is this because they were bad for the people? No, it is because big corporations (like Florida sugar) can feed off the peoples ignorance. Not only that but they have the money to do whatever they want with our government.