re: #30 Robert O.

And you know what, I have always wondered what it was like to live through the downfall of the Roman Empire. How could such a strong centralized state, so magnificent in its cultural and scientific achievements, collapse into an orgy of religious-fascist non-entities, condemned to the Dark Ages (Europe’s own doing!) for 1,000 years before finally rescued out of the pit hole by foreign powers (read Arabia and China) who kept human civilization alive. Each time I probe this unsettling question, I keep coming back to conservative “State’s Rights”, “end the federal government”, “bring back religion”. Are we seeing the collapse of a great modern nation in real time?

Well, it didn’t help that there were large “barbarian” populations on Rome’s frontier, constantly putting pressure on them. All those wars were draining. Even China got taken over by the Mongols. Rome lasted quite a long time, considering.

I’m more interested in what would have happened if Europe, which was just emerging from the Middle Ages, had not been saved from a Mongol invasion by sheer dumb luck.