Comics wank colliding with political wank: Like matter and anti-matter ...

[box_in_the_box]

I look forward to seeing the perfect storm of wank calm and rational debate that will ensue in the comments, between competing factions of both superhero comics fans and public policy ideologues.

Superman supports health care and welfare!



From back in the day when Superman used his moral force to say we should do this because it's the right thing to do for our neighbors, never mind if it cost us some tax dollars.

Of course, today he'd be attacked for his position because, after all, he's an illegal immigrant.

And like so many other illegals, we just want him to clean up our messes and do the jobs we can't do for ourselves for non-existent pay, but that doesn't mean we have to acknowledge when he might have a point.

But I could be mistaken. Is there someone out there who can explain why Superman is wrong?

(Hat tip to Kevin H and Wesley Osam.)

This was originally posted online near the end of August, but I don't recall seeing it on this comm, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

Comments

[jarodrussell]

Rome is the example I've always heard: they stayed well-balanced until they taxed their outlying acquisitions heavily to sustain the welfare lifestyle of central Rome, and it all came to a head when the outer regions revolted. That seems to be similar to the problems facing countries like the U.S. and Britain today, only replace "collecting taxes" with "selling debt."

[halialkers]

Except that's not quite what happened. What happened was that Rome went from an oligarchic republic that brought freedom to places by killing 1/3 of it, enslaving another 1/3 and Romanizing the rest (sounds rather familiar) to strongman rule, by virtue of civil war and one general winning and establishing a system that sorta worked. Then another civil war occurred because said general never set up succession. Then that went to absurd extremes in the second century and Rome was never able to really restore authority over the tribes in Western Europe. QED.

[twigcollins]

The Fall of Rome is so interesting, as it just sort of, kept falling. Falling out of the Empire tree and hitting every branch on the way down.

[halialkers]

Well, not quite. Its eastern portion went through two phases of monotheism, one Christian, one Muslim to the degree you could say that the Roman Empire was forcibly dismembered at the Treaty of Lausanne. And arguably under the Ottomans the Roman Empire reached heights it never did under the Christian phase.

[twigcollins]

Yeah, but I've heard a lot of people discuss "The Fall Of Rome" as if it was this one-time event that just happened one day. Usually because they have an agenda as to Why The United States Rome Fell, and it's more convenient for them that way.

The detailed history is much more interesting.

[halialkers]

Well, even with the fall of the Western Roman empire you can date it from the Battle of Adrianople, from Alaric's sacking of Rome, or even at the absolute latest from the Roman Emperor Justinian sacking Italy to Hell and gone.

And funny you should say that, the motivation for Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was fear that the British Empire itself was headed to a decline and fall. Now, in hindsight that seems ludicrous, but the book itself was published after the 13 Atlantic colonies had broken away so that didn't seem so far-fetched at the time.

[khamelea]

The British Empire did kind of fall, eventually. No?

[halialkers]

Depends on how you view the Commonwealth of Nations (which conveniently excluded all the non-white majority states).

[jarodrussell]

Me thinks I'm going to have to spend some time researching Rome this week.

[arilou_skiff]

Bollocks, Rome failed for a very large variety of reasons, but actual luxury spending was not one of them.

The most important (although there were a bunch of factors that contributed to a declining tax-base, like environmental decline, and new virulent diseases) was probably that the fact that they kept paying huge sums for armies that constantly rebelled. (Which meant they had to pay MORE money to put down those rebellions)

Like every empire they faced the problem of what the heck do you do to keep the guy you gave an army from just using it against you? The end result seemed to be "create an ideology that emphasizes loyalty to the sovereign" only by the time that got around the western empire was the playground for Franks and Lombards.

The real simple reason is that roman generals stood to gain more by fighting for the throne (or trying to set up their own personal fiefdoms) than defending the borders.

[halialkers]

And this was because of a failing on the part of the civilian authorities to decide "Well, shit, there's no viable Caesar. So how do we handle this?". The soldiers simply did what soldiers in ancient times did, and it was the damn fool idiot Octavian's fault that his little idea didn't work. The Pagan Roman system, like the USSR, held within it the seeds of its own destruction.

[arilou_skiff]

As our favourite jewish carpenter said: "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword." The same roman armies that built the empire was what brought it down, the barbarians just picked up the scraps that were left.

[halialkers]

Except that the Western Roman Empire did implode and the Eastern Roman Empire survived until 1922, yeah. And given that the Islamic Janissaries were worthy heirs of the Pagan Legions in full....what goes around does end up coming around.