There has always been something about the Roman empire that has fascinated countries and people throughout the ages. There is no doubt about it, the Romans were a great civilization and were capable of many advanced concepts such as taking care of the poor, furnishing pretty good medical services and building structures that have withstood the test of time. Roman society lasted for quite a long time. It is suspected that the name Rome came from the Greek and that it meant braveness and courage, but this has never been fully proven. Supposedly Rome was founded in 753 B.C. By the time of the late fifth century Rome was finished. You can say they had a pretty good run and even though they may have been finished as a society, they certainly left their mark on all of us. Not everything Roman was good however. Romans could be a very bloodthirsty group as witnessed by the type of entertainment they enjoyed, which included watching people being eaten by wild animals. They were also very warlike and conquered almost all the entire regions around them. Their army was a precision machine and few could stand up to it, even when they outnumbered the Romans by over 10 to one. An example of what I am talking about \was when Julius Caesar with an army of about 35,000 men built a bridge across the Rhine River and went into Germany, Even though he was outnumbered almost 10 to one, the people of that country were so in awe of what he had done, that they fled. He then went back across the river tearing the bridge up behind him. This was an engineering feat that we would find hard to equal today since the bridge was built in about a week.

Many have likened the United States to Rome. Do we have the same mentality as the Romans? In some ways we seem to be traveling down the same path, but it is obvious to almost everyone that our span of greatness will certainly not last anywhere near as long as the Roman one did. I think that we began to really flex our muscles about the time of the Spanish America War. At that time there was growing support in the US for Cuban independence. The US had received urgings from both the US consul general who was the nephew of Robert E. Lee and from Fitzhugh Lee a former Confederate General, for the safety of American citizens in Cuba. They claimed that the situation in Cuba was becoming very explosive and dangerous to Americans. The Americans sent the USS Maine into Havana harbor to protect our interests. On February 15, 1898, at a little after 9 p.m., the USS Maine exploded and we immediately blamed the Spanish government for sinking her and declared war on Spain. Ships of that day used coal to power their steam engines and from this coal came coal dust, which is very explosive. We knew this at the time of the explosion, but Americans everywhere were demanding the war and were convinced the sinking was the fault of the Spaniards. We immediately gave in, since this suited our interests. We had all these new ships at the time and we knew that the aging Spanish fleet was no match for us. We also knew there was much to be gained such as Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Purto Rico. The Platt amendment was pushed by those who saw the US as a Roman style imperial power. It forbade Cuba from doing anything on its own without US consent and give us the rights to build a giant naval base on the island. Today that naval base is still there and it is Guantánamo Bay.

Did we take advantage of the situation, did we act as the Romans would have? It certainly seems that way. There was even a time during the buildup before World War II, where it seemed that we might embark on a course of war against Great Britain. This was a time of great distrust and a battleship arms build up. The British were worried that we were getting too powerful and everyone in the world was committed to building battleships. We know that we never did go to war with Britain at that time and as a matter of fact we became their staunchest ally in World War II, when things could have turned out differently. During World War II we were forced to expand our forces, it was not something that we would have done otherwise. By the time the war ended, we were the most powerful nation on the face of the earth because we possessed a weapon that nobody else had. The weapon was so powerful that no nation dared challenge us in a war. I am talking about the atomic bomb. We had the world's only nuclear bomber force, but this advantage did not last very long.The Romans on the other hand had the world's most efficient fighting force, having standardized all the weapons and uniforms. A Roman soldier who lost his weapon during battle, could just pick up another from a dead or wounded soldier and know exactly how to use it, because he had been fully trained on that type of weapon. Not only that, but the swords that the Romans carried had been designed for close combat and that would insure than the swords were far more deadly at close range. That was the Romans secret weapon.

As the Romans fought their way across many different countries, their weapons fell into the hands of barbarians and other nationals, thus diluting their advantage. Just as the Romans lost their advantage in weaponry, the US lost its advantage in nuclear weapons. It didn't take as long for us to lose our advantage as it did for the Romans. It was only about five years before the Soviets set off their first nuclear weapon in 1949 . The US tried in vain to maintain its lead by exploding a hydrogen bomb in 1954, but again the Soviets were right on our tail and exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1955. We certainly were not doing as good a job as the Romans would have done that is for sure. We had allowed nests of spies to infiltrate all of our secret nuclear programs and because of this, we were spending billions to develop weapons while the Soviets would just turn around and steal them from us and save all that cost. The Romans probably would not have worried about executing a few innocent people as long as they got the spies that were involved. No we were not a very Roman like adversary.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has embarked on quite a few wars. Our constitution calls for an act of war to be declared only by Congress. Roman emperors would not have liked this very much and neither have some American presidents. They have violated this precept many times by calling acts of war police actions and sending our men and women into harm's way on a whim. This is indeed very Roman like, since these presidents were using imperial power rather than exercising the laws of the land. This imperial power is not being challenged. Oh we hear things like complaints coming out of Congress all the time, but do we see any action? As we all know actions speak louder than words and our deeds of late are really screaming at every American .The message is loud and clear, we are turning into an imperial power. What is the sense of having laws if they are going to be ignored at the highest levels? If a law is made that states that only Congress can declare war and the president sends large amounts of troops into a foreign country to fight, is this not war? Of course it is folks, it doesn't matter what you call it. If I went into a store and stole a book, but said I was only borrowing it, isn't this still stealing? When Americans were given certain privileges under the Bill of Rights, weren't they given to us for our protection? Again the imperial presidency decided that we shouldn't have some of these rights, such as the right to habeas corpus and the right to trial by jury. If this is not the imperial Roman way what is?

The Romans was scared of many of their neighbors and felt that they had to conquer these countries to ensure their own security. We are also scared of our neighbors, so to speak and have demonstrated this many times. An example of this is when we made up a story that we were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin so that we could go to war against North Korean. History has proven that this was nothing more than a lie. We attacked Panama saying that Noriega was a drug dealer, when in fact he had been on the payroll of the CIA for many years. We went into Iraq saying that they had weapons of mass destruction when we absolutely knew just about every weapon that they had because we were their main supplier. The old Roman emperors would have been proud, since they were always involved in different conspiracies themselves. It is a shame to say this, but we just cannot believe anything that we are told by our government. The reason that I say this is that we just have no way of knowing if it is true or not. If you know someone and half the time they tell you things and these things are untrue half the time and the other half of the time they are true, can you ever believe this person? That is sort of the situation we are in with our imperial presidency right now and our Congress is of no help whatsoever.

We are slowly losing all military world dominance. Unlike the Romans we have to worry about nuclear weapons. Even a small country with only a few nuclear weapons can inflict so much damage upon us, that they could ruin our country. .Can you imagine how the Romans would have felt if all around them were countries with armies that were the size and had the capabilities of their own? That is sort of the situation that we face today. We worry about countries like Iran getting nuclear weapons, we worry about North Korea, we worry about China and we still worry a little about Russian. We worry, we worry, we worry. We are very dangerous when we worry. When the Romans worried they invaded, when we worry we look the situation over to determine if our foe is weak enough to conquer and if we feel he is, then we invade. The countries of the world know this and that is why many Asian and Middle Eastern countries want nuclear arsenals. Let's face the facts, we are never going to invade a country as powerful as China, but a Korea, a Vietnam or a Libya doesn't have a chance if they get on our bad side. Another thing that we are always trying to do is to always keep the tension going. We always pick a country to be our enemy and then keep harping on the fact that they are building up their military. China is a great example of this and we love to say that their military budget just keeps increasing, but we never mention the fact that they are spending less than 1/10 of what we do on our military and this is not counting all the black projects. The Roman emperors loved to keep the Roman citizens in the dark and throw them a bone once in a while to keep them happy, such as free admission to the games in the Coliseum.

Today the leaders of our country have even done away with the bone. They have decided that the best way for them to maintain their power is to create as many rich people as they can because this will get them staunch supporters. Unfortunately for us, this richness comes at the expense of the middle class, many of whom are being forced to work harder and longer just to maintain their standard of living. One has only to look at the allowable income tax deductions to see that most of the income tax deductions that were taken away deal with middle-class credits of one kind or another and most of the breaks that are being given went to people with substantial incomes. Is this just a way for the imperial presidency to create a type of Royal class throughout the country that is equivalent to the barons of old and such? Even the billionaire Warren Buffett has complained about the tax laws being geared to the rich.

As the economy of countries get stronger and the economy of our country gets weaker due to the fact that our money is becoming worthless, we are in real peril. The peril may not come from an army trying to invade our soil or a nuclear tipped missile, it may just come from the world banking system. We have left ourselves completely open to being ruined financially. Countries like Japan and China have enough American dollars, that if they wish to return them they could completely destroy our economy. Our imperial presidency has allowed this to happen without even giving it a second thought, by running up the greatest debt in the history of the world. The Russian economic collapse will look like a tea party compared to what will happen to us if those dollars are ever turned in. The catastrophe already has begun. It started when some of the oil supplying countries announced they would no longer use the dollar in trade for oil. Previously the dollar was the only unit of money accepted in oil deals. No, we are not really like the Romans after all, it seems that they were a lot smarter than we are.