B.P. Terpstra
Many factors led to ancient Rome’s fall, say politically-correct experts. True. At the same time, there were many reasons to explain her rise too. Also forgotten: some stand out more than others. Thus, to ignore history’s greatest forces is to ignore her most important lessons.
Standing on the work of the late historian Will Durant, Rabbi Daniel Lapin turns to big-picture ethics. “Excessive regulation, excessive government size and intrusion, and excessive and abusive taxation policies were only the tip of the iceberg. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, and fall in population. Sexual excess may have reduced human fertility. Contraception, abortion and infanticide had a dysgenic as well as numerical effect. The dole weakened the poor and luxury weakened the rich. Immigration brought together a hundred cultures whose differences rubbed themselves out into indifference.” Socialism and adults-first libertarianism were married.
Returning to Esolen, one can’t ignore preindustrial climate changes (another politically-incorrect factor because there were no electricity-running houses or energy-hungry cars to blame). Rome had lost battles. However: “At Adrianople it may be said that she lost her first war. Then in 406 there was a particularly cold winter – global cooling makes for rough times – and the Rhine froze over. Rome had only had to post troops at the fords, but now the Germans crossed the ice with their herds and families whenever they pleased.”
Secular thinkers, from Edward Gibbon to Nietzsche blamed Christianity on weakening Rome’s pagan military complex, or to paraphrase Esolen: Christians are chastised for being pacifists on Monday, on Tuesday they’re portrayed as warmongers. But secularists were wrong: “Christians formed a significant portion of the legions, even before Constantine legalized the religion in 313 with his Edict of Milan.”
Nor were there insurmountable theological hurdles. While the Christians’ messiah encouraged his disciples to hold their weapons back, he never told them to throw them away. To the contrary, the flexible Jesus asked them to carry swords. While passive aggressive cheek turning worked well in some personal situations, physical responses worked better in other contexts.
As a politically-incorrect heretic, I see state-supported mockery of the traditional family and unbearable tax burdens as companions, with natural climate changes and tribal immigration tipping civilizations over. Rome was not immune to reality. When you witness taxpayer billions squandered on the divorce-and-abortion revolutions think of her.