Collapse of the Empire

What causes empires to collapse? Throughout history, we have seen empires come and empires go and when they go, they all go the same way.

Countries do not start out as empires. Most countries are formed as a way to escape from an empire. The U.S. is a prime example. The British Empire was one of the most powerful in history. Their goal was to control as much of the world's resources as possible.

The problem with world control is the costs. It costs a lot of money to maintain an army and station citizens in all parts of the world to make sure things run smoothly. How is an empire to pay the bills? By collecting taxes.

Americans decided that they were paying too much to Britain in the way of taxes and so they revolted and the rest, as they say, is history.

The British Empire eventually collapsed as all empires do. What caused the collapse? They ran up huge debts trying to maintain control. They became the world's policeman and became hated around the world. When the collapse started, no one stepped forward to bail them out. Instead most countries stood and cheered.

Read that last paragraph again and see if you can pick out any similarities to the British Empire and the current state of affairs in America. See them? We are heading in the same direction and the end result will be the same. Our empire will collapse and most of the world's people will simply stand by and watch the show.

Where is our leadership you may ask? Good question. You would think that any person qualified to lead the greatest country on earth would be required to know a little bit about history. You know the old saying, "those that don't know history are destined to repeat it." Unless you are deluded into believing that somehow this time, things are going to be different.

One of the most important traits of a good leader is the ability to admit error and move on. Harry Truman used to have a plaque on his desk that said "The buck stops here." Here was a leader that understood the importance of accepting blame for errors in judgment and acknowledging brilliance in subordinates.

Iraq has devolved into all out civil war. Our soldiers are stuck in the middle. I am sure that everyone from the president on down wanted badly for Iraq to become a democratic society, beacon of freedom in the Middle East, but it is all too apparent now that the Iraqis don't want the same things that we do.

A good leader would acknowledge failure and bring our troops home. That would be the right thing to do. Instead we have a leader who refuses to accept reality. If George Bush were the leader of any other country on earth, we would be actively seeking to have him brought up on war crimes for his actions.

Our empire is heading for collapse. It will be a painful time for us here at home. Some other country will rise to power in the world and try their hand at empire building and we will be left in the dust, just like Rome, Great Britain, Greece, and all of the others that came before.