Is America Becoming Rome Versus Byzantium?

  • oeb11
  • 10-14-2021, 08:20 AM
https://townhall.com/columnists/vict...ntium-n2597413


Source: Townhall Media/Julio Rosas








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In A.D. 286 the Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire administratively – and peacefully – under the control of two emperors.
A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe and northwest Africa. The Eastern half controlled Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and northeastern Africa.
By 330 the Emperor Constantine institutionalized that split by moving the empire's capital from Rome to his new imperial city of Constantinople, founded on the site of the old Greek polis of Byzantium.
The two administrative halves of the once huge empire continued to drift apart. Soon there arose two increasingly different, though still kindred versions, of a once unified Romanity.
The Western empire eventually collapsed into chaos by the latter fifth century A.D.
Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly 1,000 years. It was soon known as the Byzantine Empire, until overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D.
Historians still disagree over why the East endured while the West crumbled. And they cite the various roles of differing geography, border challenges, tribal enemies and internal challenges.
We moderns certainly have developed unfair stereotypes of a supposedly decadent late imperial Rome of Hollywood sensationalism that deserved its end. And we likewise mistakenly typecast a rigid, ultra-orthodox bureaucratic "Byzantine" alternative that supposedly grew more reactionary to survive in a rough neighborhood.

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Yet in both cases, separate geography multiplied the growing differences between a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian and older civilization in the east, versus a more or less polyglot and often fractious Christianity in the Latin West.
Byzantium held firm against ancient neighboring Persian, Middle Eastern and Egyptian rivals. But the West disintegrated into a tribal amalgam of its own former peoples.
Unlike the West, the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies, was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism -- the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture and history.
By A.D. 600, at a time when the West had long ago fragmented into tribes and proto-European kingdoms, the jewel at Constantinople was the nerve center of the most impressive civilization in the world, stretching from the Eastern Asia Minor to southern Italy.
There is now much talk of a new American red state/blue state split--and even wild threats of another Civil War. Certainly, millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past.
More conservative traditionalists head for the interior between the coasts, where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity and unapologetic traditionalists.



These modern Byzantines are more apt to define their patriotism by honoring ancient customs and rituals – standing for the national anthem, attending church services on Sundays, demonstrating reverence for American history and its heroes, and emphasizing the nuclear family.
Immigration in fly-over country is still defined as melting pot assimilation and integration of new arrivals into the body politic of a hallowed and enduring America.
While red states welcome change, they believe America never had to be perfect to be good. It will always survive, but only if it sticks to its 234-year-old Constitution, stays united by the English language, and assimilates newcomers into an enduring and exceptional American culture.
In contrast, the more liberal blue state antithesis is richer from globalist wealth. The west coast from Seattle to San Diego profits from trade with a thriving Asia. It is bookended by the east coast window on the European Union from Boston to Miami.

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The great research universities of the Ivy League, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and the University of California system are bicoastal. Just as Rome was once the iconic center of the entire Roman project, so blue Washington, D.C., is the nerve center for big-government America.


The salad bowl is the bicoastal model for immigration. Newcomers can retain and reboot their former cultural identities.
Religion is less orthodox; atheism and agnosticism are almost the norm. And most of the recent social movements of American feminism, transgenderism and critical race theory grew out of coastal urbanity and academia.
Foreigners see blue coastal Americans as the more vibrant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan – and reckless – culture, its vast wealth predicated on technology, information, communications, finance, media, education and entertainment.
In turn, they concede that the vast red interior – with about the same population as blue America but with vastly greater area – is the more pragmatic, predictable and home to the food, fuels, ores and material production of America.
Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.
But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than it is that either region would ever start a civil war.


Comment - A very interesting, cogent, Historically based analogy
One teh DPST racist marxists will be unable to comprehend - due to their rejection of history, science, math, and rule of law equally for all.



Buck fiden
From my cold dead hands!
VitaMan's Avatar
Town Hall ?
We are in truth much like the Roman Empire.

I am sure that in 200AD, Romans were sitting around the Forum discussing how good life was. After all. They were the World Super Power. How could thing go wrong.

They forgot what got them there.

In the beginning, only Roman Citizens were allowed to fight in the Legions. Only Roman Citizens could be in the skilled labors. Only Roman Citizens could be part of the Republic with their vote.

But, they got fa, lazy, and forgot how they became powerful. They had slaves doing much of the work that Roman Citizens used to do. They allowed non Romans easy access to citizenship. But most of all, they started hiring mercenaries to fight their wars.

We are on the same path. We would rather buy cheap shit from China rather than have good paying jobs for Americans. We are flooding our country with illegal aliens who care more about the Country they left than the one they are in.

But most of all, we are hiring mercenaries in this case our own kids, to fight our wars. We promise them benefits so they will be killed, or maimed for life, so we won’t have too.

In the mean time, we all sit around the Forum saying…….”what could possibly go wrong”?
VitaMan's Avatar
Town Hall and objective reporting would be an oxymoron
Unique_Carpenter's Avatar
Rome was not actually a worldwide trade center.
Constantinople was.

Business folks do what's best for business.

Its a bit different sending tax funds to Rome far far away, which is not the same as spending it locally in Constantinople.

The DC politicians should, but won't, learn a lesson about this.
  • oeb11
  • 10-14-2021, 09:55 AM
Thank you - HF and JS

It is immediately evident who reads with a thoughtful, critical mind
And who parrots teh DPST racist, marxist narrative of which they have no comprehension.
VitaMan's Avatar
You yourself could be an oxymoron. You average at least 12 posts on the front page 20.
  • oeb11
  • 10-14-2021, 10:55 AM
Trump and OEB11 live in teh heads of TDS affected 24/7/365
SAD!
VitaMan's Avatar
Not really


You are so obsessed by this forum you probably think that.
That is the real 24/7/365.


How many threads do you have now on the first page ?
  • oeb11
  • 10-14-2021, 02:07 PM
vm - please to realize about obsession

I am not the one using an abacus to count posts, numbers of time I posted 'teh', or teh numbers of times I correctly labelled teh DPST party 'racist and marxist".
U R .


So sad for YOU

Get some professional help- soon.
And a consultation from Sen. Ted Cruz on how to approach debate with cogent adn constructive debate points.
rexdutchman's Avatar
And puddens an chief is burning down the house !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rome was not actually a worldwide trade center.
Constantinople was.

Business folks do what's best for business.

Its a bit different sending tax funds to Rome far far away, which is not the same as spending it locally in Constantinople.

The DC politicians should, but won't, learn a lesson about this. Originally Posted by Unique_Carpenter
No no, mate... THAT is not how it was.
It wasn't Rome - or Constantinople.

It Was Istanbul!

Hmmm... It WAS Istanbul. Now maybe it's Con-stan-tin-ople.

Yep - Istanbul. Not Con-stan-tin-ople.

I think - Istanbul. But just maybe - Con-stan-tin-ople.

Hmmm... forget I posted.

### Salty
VitaMan's Avatar
I am not the one using an abacus to count posts, numbers of time I posted 'teh', or teh numbers of times I correctly labelled teh DPST party 'racist and marxist".
Get some professional help- soon.
And a consultation from Sen. Ted Cruz on how to approach debate with cogent adn constructive debate points. Originally Posted by oeb11

It's not difficult at all to count to 20 and figure out the percentages of threads started in the 20....if you have the proper education. If not, there are always adult education classes. How many do you have at this moment ? If you have trouble getting the correct answer, consider signing up for some classes.



Playing doctor.......again ?


You give the same exact answers to every debate......marxist....DPST... ..Teachers Union Education....socialist...DPST again. That is why it is useless to discuss and debate issues with you....it would be an oxymoron. That is why you are achieving SPAM status.
dilbert firestorm's Avatar
No no, mate... THAT is not how it was.
It wasn't Rome - or Constantinople.

It Was Istanbul!

Hmmm... It WAS Istanbul. Now maybe it's Con-stan-tin-ople.

Yep - Istanbul. Not Con-stan-tin-ople.

I think - Istanbul. But just maybe - Con-stan-tin-ople.

Hmmm... forget I posted.

### Salty Originally Posted by Salty Again
istanbul is constantinople.
dilbert firestorm's Avatar
Town Hall ? Originally Posted by VitaMan
yes its a town hall article, but Victor Hansen is the one who wrote it.


oeb left off the author's name off the article.