Arrogance Alert

Whenever someone wants to insult a powerful country but doesn't really know what he's talking about, you can bet the Roman empire analogy is coming up.

Well, it's happened again. David Walker, comptroller general of the US

warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

I only have two problems with this argument: Walker doesn't understand Rome and he doesn't understand America.

There's still much debate about why Rome fell, and I'm not gonna get into it except to note that all the problems Walker mentions were around during the rise of the empire as well as its fall.

As for America, if we listen to the condesecending elite, we've been teetering on the brink since the beginning. Things are better than usual now, but I agree nothing lasts forever. I just don't think anyone can know that day (though since they keep guessing, they'll have a winner eventually).

Until then, I just wish we'd avoid these pointless parallels.