Huck: No exporting democracy

A very dangerous foreign policy naïveté. Let's have none of it.

Good words but spoken more from a political expediency stand-point rather than the man's ideological viewpoint. I do not trust him.

I am deeply saddened to see our country tramping further down a wayward path of zealot values through support of such extremists. Sure, it would just fine if some of us could easily escape to other lands; but as it is, the zealous religious right is taking over here and act as though we ought all feel, walk and quack the same. There is a failure of tolerance in this country. Let's pull it back together and get the religion OUT of politics.

Otherwise - Germany, Canada, France, others - I hope you will start plans for a generous outflow of political refugees should the likes of Mike Huckabee get into office. This country is imploding and the biggest symptom is the explosion of religion and those who feel oh so entitled as to inflict their own values on others, despite the pain and hurt of it, while trying to indoctrinate 'the world' with a mystical message that has nothing to do with politics.

Trisha said, "...those who feel oh so entitled as to inflict their own values on others, despite the pain and hurt of it"
Of course, people who are not religious don't do that. Abortion on demand, gay marriage, that sort of thing, those are just reasonable, those haven't been inflicted on anyone.

I guess it's true that we all see and hear what we want to see and hear. As I look at today's America, I see an implosion, one already taking place that's of a different sort than the one described above. It looks an awful lot like what occurred in Alexandria, Rome, or some of the other great civilizations that stood at the pinnacle of world power at one time. There's a myriad reasons why they fell, but at the top of the list were heady immoral practices and a narcissism much like exists in the U.S. today (or that the exreme liberals would have us embrace). Now that's implosion, and with it the death of a nation.

I'm not sold on Mike Huckabee or any one candidate yet. But those that that inspire us to live on higher ground certainly have my ear. I'd prefer they not make it up either. I like the fact that Biblical principles (that undergird nearly every aspect of the American tradition) are the plumb line. What I hope for is wisdom, studious reason, and rock solid application of the national will (the one that's instructed by something more noble than a cheap Kumbaya). Afterall, "Noble men make noble plans; and by noble plans they (we) stand". (Is 32:9)

Trisha writes: "This country is imploding and the biggest symptom is the explosion of religion and those who feel oh so entitled as to inflict their own values on others . . . "

Trisha, you overlook one salient fact: economics, whether it's the populist kind, the free market kind, or the state-control kind, is all about choices and, therefore, the "infliction of their own values on others." I'm pretty sure that those Iowans who caucused for Huckabee last night were more concerned with the disparity of their economic conditions and those of the "leaders" than vice versa. NAFTA, after all, imposes the doctrine of open trade on a whole cohort of American workers without their consent.

aaron
And here I thought it was running out of neighbors too plunder, spread too thin and a mass of non-Romans in the military, but you're right, it must've been the (subjectively)immoral practices in the bathouses that did it.

It is rather funny that conservatives like to compare this to the 'degeneracy' of Rome as it collapsed, but fail the notice the actual causes of the collapse, which was the Roman empire spread itself too thin using a mercenary army and bankrupted itself, after it converted itself from a Democracy to an Empire. And let's not forget the switch from religious freedom (At least for recognized religions, although sadly not for the apparent Jewish cult called 'Christianity'.) to enforced-at-spearpoint Christianity, which resulted in a lot of extra pointless fighting with non-Christians.

There might be analogies with the US, but they don't have anything to do with the left. (I personally think such analogies are somewhat stretched until we start electing generals to run our country based on how many people their army has under its control.)

Now, if you want to argue that the current 'degeneracy' is a sign of the collapse, and caused by the same thing that caused it in Rome, that might actually work, but it's not a cause.

I don't know how degeneracy would even manage to take down a government. 'Time to vote on next year taxes.' 'No, let's have an orgy instead of running the government!' I mean, seriously, people, that's what you imagine destroyed the largest empire in this history of man?

Krauthammer had a great piece today at www.townhall.com on what nurturing democracy in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan might look like.

Christianity was never "enforced-at-spearpoint" by the late Roman Empire.

So Theodosius never made paganism punishable by death?

It is rather funny that conservatives like to compare this to the 'degeneracy' of Rome as it collapsed, the actual causes of the collapse, which was the Roman empire spread itself too thin using a mercenary army and bankrupted itself, after it converted itself from a Democracy to an Empire.

I could go into pedantic Byzantine evangelist mode and note that the Roman Empire didn't die until 1453, but I don't like to be that predictable. :)

More to the point, while I don't buy into the "Toga! Toga!" explanation of collapse, the quoted section is itself an inaccurate description of the death of the Western Empire in 476. The Empire stopped expanding after the brief settlement of the province of Dacia (what is now Rumania) in the 160s. In fact, there is a very good argument in historical circles that the Empire didn't expand enough, at least as regards securing shorter, more defensible frontier on the Elbe (as opposed to the Rhine). But, Teutoberger Wald and all that.

Moreover, the barbarians employed by the Romans really weren't "mercenaries," either, and when properly integrated into the Imperial forces they worked out fine. In fact, the Huns were repelled at Chalons in 451 because the Romans employed barbarian "federates" as the bulk of their troops. Moreover, the federates were pretty cheap, as the Romans gave them land as pay, land that would otherwise be out of production. Rome eventually lost control of the federates, but that was because of the political rot at the center which lessened its control at the worst possible time.

Nor, really, was the Western Empire destroyed because of the costs of empire. The Western economy rotted, but that was because of blinkered command economy policies coupled with repeated invasions by hostile barbarian nations. The Eastern Empire had a better economy, more stable political order, stronger armies, less devastating invasions and much better leadership. Hence, it survived.

Neither was the situation prior to the Edict of Milan one of "religious freedom" -- everyone in the Roman Empire was free merely to incorporate their own gods into the same broad polytheistic framework. Refusing to participate in the prescribed sacrifices and festivals honoring those gods was criminal. The only notable exemption was for the Jews, an oddball group who were despised by the Romans but excused from generally applicable religious obligations on account of their religion's antiquity.

This disputes what I said how?

Rome knew the surest way of getting rebellion was to mess around with other people's religion. So they pulled all the gods into their system they could, and made exceptions where they couldn't. Everyone happily continued worshiping how they were before.

Yes, people were required to participate in required festivals, but they were required to do so before the Romans showed up. That's why I qualified 'religious freedom'. Societies under Rome had religious freedom, people did not, but they didn't have it before either.

When Rome conquered someone, it looked that their religion, figured out who was in charge, suggested a few minor changes to them to make it fit in with Rome's religion and holy days, and let them keep operating as before if they'd support Rome. As long as the taxes came in.

And, with the Jews, Rome demonstrated that, if the society cared enough about the 'minor changes' Rome wanted, they'd just let them drop and let the religion be totally unchanged. Although the priests supporting Rome, or at least not preaching revolution, was still important, which formed the basis of a few attempts to trick Jesus.

Really? That would have been surprising news to the Gauls, Spaniards, Britons or Carthaginians.

Carthage is an example of exactly what I was talking about. They were adopted Roman gods before they joined Rome, while they were actually at war with Rome!

Not that Carthage was actually really there anymore after Rome 'conquered' it, so I'm unsure as to who you were thinking the Romans were dictating religion to. However, the conquered Carthaginian colonies continued to practice their polytheism mixed with Roman polytheism as far as I am aware. If you know otherwise, please inform.

As for the Celts, they were mostly left along also, except for the Emperor Claudius. The Celtic Gauls were aiming for converts in Rome itself, and that was not approved of by him. (He also almost threw the Jews/Christians out of some city that I've forgotten at the moment, as they kept fighting.)

Claudius is the exception to the rule, during his span, Rome actually started caring about religion for a while as he attempted to 'purify' the Roman religion a little and throw out some of the insanity it has gained over the centuries of importing foreign gods and concepts and holy days.

But a single Roman emperor that was exceptionally hard on other religions influencing Rome's religion does not a policy make, nor does it really contradict what I said anyway because he left those religions alone in their home turf.

In general, Celtic religions continued to function just fine, or, rather, they did as they were slowly eaten piecemeal by Roman religions, or converted en masse to Christianity later.

The druids represented a reservoir of rebellion, or so the Romans saw them, and their elimination had nothing to do with religious practice and much to do with commerce, territorial integrity, and military concerns.

There being so little reliable documentation available, one school of thought refrains from calling it a "Celtic religion", seeing it as more of a spiritual aspect of Celtic culture and society. A support for that was the Celts ability to be selectively assimilative, picking up many foreign concepts and practices over the centuries of their movement across Europe from Asia Minor.

The other point I wish to make is the difficulties the Romans had in selling continued violence and oppression to their citizens. The early Christians were executed for violating civic religious practices (the whole thrown to the lions thing), and Roman propaganda tried to paint them as evil with edicts and announcements concerning their perverted sexual practices, blood orgies, stealing babies and eating them, and the like... much as the later Roman Christians tried to paint pagans.

Just to make sure we don't lose sight of the original topic here, I submit that there is no such thing as religious persecution per se. There was, is and will always be people with the need to take, keep and maintain their power over others, and religion -- its corrupt use -- remains the most efficient way to exercise power over large numbers of people. Sitting in the forest, we (general) can't seem to see it, but the countries out there with our democratic exportation targets painted on their chests, know quite well how it all works.