Rome Took Centuries to Fall. It May Take the West but Decades

In the movie Gladiator, Djimon Hounsou’s character looks up at the Roman Coliseum and says “I didn’t know man could build such things.”

I’ve felt exactly that way countless times in my life.  Probably the first time was when I was in Normandy, France staring at Mount St. Michel, built on an outcrop half a mile from shore.  When the tide’s out, you can walk there but when in it’s surrounded by water. 

The 13^th century Gothic cathedral sits on the foundation of a Romanesque church begun in the 11^th century.  The spire reaches 500 ft. above sea level and the cathedral is surrounded by a village that looks every bit the 1,000 years old that it is.

I’ve always been amazed at what they could build such a thing with the technology of 800 years ago. The logistics of reaching it were so complex that it was the only place in northern France the British could not conquer during the Hundred Years' War. 

My awe of what those men could build was driven home the first time I visited France where I spent a week seeing glorious buildings that had been standing for half a millennium or more. Prior to my leaving home, Atlanta had just unveiled a new skyscraper.  The week I returned we had a windstorm and that brand new building had to be closed because part of the façade sheared off. 

The juxtaposition of what they were able to do back then with relatively little technology and what we were building with exponentially more was simply staggering. It makes me think of the 1400 ft Billionaires' Row building completed in 2015 that’s now crumbling.

But this is not a piece about how great the old days were and how much they suck today.  No, it’s about how great the old days were and how much it will suck if we don’t protect their legacy.

This piece was inspired by a YouTube video, 25 Famous Classical Pieces You've Heard but Don't Know the Name.  It’s one of those classical music videos to listen to when you need to focus.

But it wasn’t just the music. It was the visuals too. The AI video is filled with figures in 17th- and 18th-century dress performing in front of buildings inspired by Chambord in the Loire Valley, the Doge’s Palace in Venice and the Vienna State Opera among others. 

My mind started racing to many of the grand structures I’ve been fortunate enough to visit:  St. Peter's Basilica and the Coliseum in Rome, Westminster Abbey in London, Neuschwanstein Castle outside Munich and Fontainebleau outside Paris. On this side of the pond I’ve visited the Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam, not to mention Washington’s Library of Congress, maybe the most beautiful building in America. 

There are many places in the world that I’ve not been, and there are certainly structures that are as grand as those I’ve mentioned.  But here’s the thing…  Those structures are merely the physical manifestation of western civilization.  Western civilization is so much more.  The music, the science, the medicine, the art, the fundamental notions of freedom, of equality, of private property, democratic government.  Not to mention the extraordinary economic advances. Other civilizations may share some of those elements, but none has the combination the west does. 

Why does this matter?  Because right now the entire thing is under attack, mostly from within, and unlike the collapse of Rome, which took centuries, this collapse will take decades.

How does that happen? Arrogant elites take advantage of the ups and downs of markets and economies to convince citizens that some magical universe exists where all their needs will be taken care of. But of course no such universe actually exists. Indeed, it’s been tried many times.  USSR. Cuba. Venezuela. Cambodia. North Korea. China.

There’s not a single instance in history where leftists can point to where their Communist / socialist / utopian fantasies have worked at scale for any period of time.  None. Not one.

But that’s the beauty of the left, you never have to prove your theories, you can simply make claims and dismiss anything that contradicts them with some version of “It wasn’t real socialism.” And somehow more than half of Europe and almost half of America are aligning themselves with this demonstrably failed ideology.

The real question is, how were people convinced of such?  Easy.  Academia and the media run point for Communism. They have changed the debate. The debate is no longer about objective reality or facts, but rather “Equity”, essentially equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity or measured by merit. 

And the beauty of the new “Equity” paradigm is that there’s always an endless supply of victims, either citizens unhappy about the success of others, or, if there aren’t enough citizens drinking at the trough of victimization, they import millions from dysfunctional nations around the world and ply them with “compassion” – read more money than they likely ever saw in their lives – who are then trained to demand even more. 

But at some point, there is no more. Whether it’s budget breaking social programs or support for millions of “migrants”, leftist arguments cannot stand up to the reality of math.  The sad fact is that most large western nations are already “socialist” in that they spend unsustainable amounts on social programs, all propped up by borrowing.  Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and the United States all have Debt to GDP ratios above 100% and the UK is at 95%. 

To the degree that western governments can convince markets to lend, it’s only because a sufficient number of capitalist endeavors still exist that the government can shear. But few of them listened to Tiberius: 'It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.' France recently learned the cost of ignoring that advice, having to pay the highest rate in a quarter century for its 10-year bonds.  That’s what happens when government spending accounts for so much of your GDP.

At the end of the day, the convulsions we see in Europe are a result of the perfect storm of “compassion”.  Coddled western leftists have driven their nations to the brink of bankruptcy while at the same time they’ve invited into their midst millions of people who have nothing but contempt for western civilization. 

This leftist cabal has one objective: The destruction of western civilization. The left wants Communism and the Muslims want a Caliphate.  The two are largely incompatible but will team up to destroy the west before turning on one another. 

That’s where we are, with black clad thugs wearing their keffiyehs and carrying Communist flags.  This is not the riots of 1968 that shook Europe and America. This is 1968 on steroids with a Molotov Cocktail in its hand. If governments do not eviscerate this movement, it will bring about the collapse of western civilization. 

That civilization was forged over 2,000 years by men who believed in themselves, were proud of their heritage and constantly reached for new heights in every possible endeavor.  It will be destroyed in a single generation by men incapable of building anything but expert at destroying everything.