Who thinks the USA will last FOREVER???

[Tyler Durden]

Poll question: Who thinks the USA will last FOREVER???

And why on Earth would anyone believe so or even WANT to?

The era in human history of the "Water Monopoly" has long passed. Armies and roads cannot preserve the new empires like they did the Romans. We either EVOLVE or PERISH.

Can anyone name ANY non-autocratic system that lived for more than 200 Years? Guess what, kids? This is the VERY FIRST ONE, and the autocracy is already in the wings.

The ages of the Greek and Roman republics lasted less than 200 years each, then autocracy and dictatorship.

The Brits learned a long time back, and had a couple of really nasty civil wars to boot.

WE had our civil war, and we learned NOTHING from a function of government point of view. We're right back to factions trying to rule the roost.

This isn't DEFEATISM; I'm PISSED because I likely won't be around when the new order of Freedom finally makes it on the stage (if it does). I call that realism. As a poster on another thread said, if a car is totaled, you go shopping for a new car. This car has been under water and dried out: it'll run for a while but the chances of it lasting very long aren't good, and the chances of a fire are GREAT. NOT the kind of car you want to keep driving; right?

What do you think? And what's in the wings? Personally I hope we throw out this "country/nation/state" thing. We should have outgrown it years ago.

[bertha katzenengel]

1. "I hope we throw out this "country/nation/state" thing"

What would you replace it with? Erase state lines/laws? One nation, one law: federal?

[Tyler Durden]

2. Can you see any other choice?

I can't.

This is a LIFEBOAT, and the rest of the passengers are getting heartily sick and tired of bailing their end so we can flood our end to have a pool.

Say we stopped pissing in everyone else's tub, stopped paying CEO's more than the GNP of GHANA, and stopped trying to squeeze a buck out of everyone else...Maybe the species might live long enough to figure out how to stop the next asteroid.

[bertha katzenengel]

5. I wasn't really challenging you, just asking.

And your last paragraph is right on point.

[Tyler Durden]

10. Didn't take it that way.

I try to be an optimist, by the way, but my optimism lately has been limited to getting the greenhouse started in Canada before the H5N1 bird flu shows up.

[Squeech]

3. Quibble

About your durations: what are you reckoning as the lifespan of the Roman republic? I thought it functioned pretty much as advertised for several hundred years, from the deposing of the last king until the "Consulship of Julius and Caesar."

But yeah, constitutional America is probably toast.

[Tyler Durden]

8. If I were feeling GENEROUS...

You COULD say from the expulsion of the kings in 510/509 BC to the Gracchi Reforms in 149 BC...350 for an absolute MAX, but I would say when the Gauls sacked in 390 that was likely the beginning of the end of Republic. I mean, come on. There were already military Tribunes with Consular Power in 444: A. Sepronius Atratinus (consul one) and L. Atilus Luscus (consul two).

Republics usually are not run by generals, at least HEALTHY ones.

[Goldmund]

4. "Personally I hope we throw out this "country/nation/state" thing"

That is the basis of any ideal world I've imagined since I was a child.

But I think that it would take not only a social, but a biological revolution to make this actually happen.

On Edit: OR a common external enemy. A nice alien invasion would work.

[bertha katzenengel]

6. The Radical Right things we are on the cusp of a biological rev. anyway:

Gay marriages can't produce children, after all. Why, we'll kill off the race.

[Selatius]

7. Point of clarification

I believe the Roman Republic lasted for roughly four centuries. The last two centuries were generally racked with civil wars though and internal power struggles. It ended with the ascent of Octavian (renamed Augustus Caesar) to the throne and the dissolution of the Roman Senate. But we're splitting hairs here, so no bother.

[Tyler Durden]

9. Republics with Political Cancer aren't in their "Golden Age."

More what I'm looking for.

Say we don't make it another 20 years: do you think Historians will not chart "the beginning of the end with Nixon? Maybe even back to Eisenhower and the start of Vietnam? Maybe all the way back to the Civil War?

We haven't been a very healthy Republic for a long time now, and even at my most GENEROUS, I chart the cutoff at the Gracchi Reforms in 149 BC. Two Centuries of Civil War is a pretty sick little republic in my book.

[Terran]

11. I think dissolution into smaller nation-states is likely, long-term

That's *if* nothing is done about Peak Oil and the global warming. If those come to pass as widely discussed, we will have a hard time holding together a transcontinental nation-state. I don't think we've outgrown the concept, necessarily, but I think the distances involved alone will make it impossible for the US to survive intact; the ability to project power far and wide to keep all 50 states in line will become impaired, if not exhausted. Add to that the existing regionalisms of long-standing, and you have parts of the country declaring indpendence as soon as they stop hearing from DC--especially the South, probably Texas, maybe California. And even holding those places together as individual states may not be possible if there's no energy to run things outside of state capitols.

As far as personal freedom goes, such a process will not be good, for freedom or life or health. But if it stabilizes eventually, some of the new entities could produce some positive developments, culturally speaking.

How soon will these sorts of things happen? My guess is by end of this century. But again, it's all a big IF. If someone in power comes along who actively works to avert or ameliorate the economic disasters ahead, maybe none of this need happen and we'll have a rosy Star Trek future.

[Tyler Durden]

12. BOY I don't know whether to agree or not.

Will a lot of states pissing on each other be better than general chaos? Sounds the same to me.

[JanMichael]

13. We are truly living in a land of illusion.

Perhaps it's been that was for a very long time but I surely see it and even many non-political and republican leaning folks that I talk to have the same point of view.

None of us know however what will happen next.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. "Will America last as long as...the frog?"

(this reminded me of Catch-22)...)

[Tyler Durden]

15. I'm trying to figure out the votes for 1 and 2

Trolls or delusional.

The Visigoths are not at our gates: they LIVE here.

[Mr.Green93]

16. The Southwest will return

to it's rightful owners witnin the next twenty years. (IMO)

[triguy46]

17. When oil goes, we will be right behind.

Its our crack. Gotta have another hit. I would think the economists would be able to predict, dismal though the science be, at what price per barrel the ponzi economy fails. $75? $100? $125? That will precede the actual running out issue.

What changes in your life will occur when the production costs of food increase 5 fold? What will we give up when gas is at $8 a gallon and we are commuting 125 miles each way to be able to afford our 1200 sq ft dream home that only cost us $840,000? There's bubble within bubble, but the ripples will be more like tsunamis.

[Just Me]

18. LMAO "I love this poll" (((THUD)))

nt

[Protagoras]

19. This thread has

dangerous true thoughts.