journaldan

The problem with religion, is that it is populated by people, who are imperfect and therefore spoil, to one degree or another, everything they touch. So, your question is a bit like asking if agriculture is good for the world. It can't be seperated from the imperfect people who practice agriculture. Neither can religion. So even though I believe there is one religion that is perfect, it is practiced by imperfect people. It is perhaps the ultimate irony.

The fact that something failed does not in and of itself mean that it was flawed. There is a life cycle to all things. I think there are elements of shared executive power that can work. There are limits to this, however. As mentioned by Ursus, however, this sharing of power doesn't work well during a "crisis" situation, such as war. The concept of the "senate" electing the "consul" isn't terribly different from the Prime Minister-Parliament model of today, where the people do not directly select the Prime Minister, rather they vote for a member of parliament who then selects the PM. Of course, in these days, members are generally aligned with a particular PM candidate prior to the election. I think that I would find the Parliamantary system limiting. I often find myself voting for federal/state representatives of one party and voting for president/governor of another party. This was particularily true in the past when I lived in regions were one party dominated local politics and presented the only realistically viable candidate(s) for a particular office.

A country/state/city could certainly adopt a building/architecture code that would give an outward appearance of Roman culture, but I doubt that a Roman culture could be truly reproduced today, other than in some type of RomanWorld theme park.

Just as a point of observation: Over the years, thousands of US soldiers have been assigned to and lived in Korea. I doubt many of them have picked up much more than the most basic of passages, if anything. This would seem to support the notion that few Legion "grunts" would have picked up much Greek.

There has been a certain segment of "nobility" that has served in the officer/leadership ranks of armies/navies. By and large though, in pre-modern times, this was the path for second (or third, etc) sons, the ones who did not stand the gain the inheritance. One can never paint any class/segment of population/etc with one broad brush, but I would be willing to place a sizable bet that it generally hasn't been the rich who have gone off to war, at least in terms of the same relative proportion with which the middle class and poor have gone off to war.

Actually, I don't think the concept of the rich not wanting to serve in the military is anything new. In the American Civil War, well-to-do people could hire a person to serve their enlistment if a draft notice came. A similar type of pattern could be found in the U.S. Revolution from Britain in 1776.

I think the world is headed toward some type of confederation. We now have the Organization of African States, though I may have the name wrong; the aforementioned EU; and other entities such as the World Court and World Trade Organization that have some overarching powers. I doubt the U.N. will ever be the organization that leads the world, but something else will probably eventually rise up. One possible model could be the confederation system used by Canada.

pompeius magnus: What do you see as the signifcant "bugs" in the imperial government during the time period you reference?

Two tracks: 1) Is a "united" world, operating under some form of single federation or other system of central government, the eventual ideal? 2) In the parliament system, it would seem to me that the lack of clearly defined and pre-determined election cycles is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, legislators have to function like an election is years off, allowing them to do the things that truly need to be done. On the other hand, any single major issue vote may be enough to prompt a call for a national election. It would seem like this second scenario would be enough to completely stymie the system.

We've discussed communism and what country we would most like to live in. Following up on those themes, what system of government works best? What system would work best if the entire world were ever to operate under one world government, more or less a United States of the World? Any thoughts?

Of course he could have. The question is, would he have been successful?

I knew a guy once that just moved to Ireland. Just decided one day to move. I think he left about a week after making the decision. Pretty gutsy, really. Though, I suppose people do that all the time in deciding to immigrate to the USA. I wonder what percentage of people, even in the most developed countries, ie USA, England (yes, I'll include Italy), live most of their life within 250 miles of where they were born. I would say that percentage remains high. Even within a 100-mile radius the percentage is probably still pretty high.

No, no. I am not trying to be xenophobic or any of the other things I often am, I am just saying a guy should follow his dreams. Or have a plan to do same.

So pompeius, why don't you live there? I mean, why not just go?

Laws are written by the powerful and their representatives. Who then do the laws, generally speaking, protect? As a broad example, it is illegal to trespass on a person's land, because those who own land are in a position to create a law to make this fact so. If I may interject a quote that has remained with me for a long, long time now, I remember once an old issue of World's Finest, a comic book that features Superman, Mr. Law & Order for the American Way, and Batman, the Dark Knight of Justice. In the particular story, the two superheroes were fighting a crime ring. At one point, the crime guys are outside U.S. territorial waters and object that Batman is dragging them back inside the two-mile limit to face the long arm of the law. To this complaining, Batman says: "I am more concerned with Justice then I am with the law." I have remembered that quote for about 30 years now.

Boy, you guys do a god job.

I think a good argument could be made that a national health care system has a certain degree of "communism" attached.

The article above originated via the Scripps Howard News Service, which syndicates to many newspapers. It seems that with sports, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Even as no-questions-about-it Christian, I think anyone who takes a "The Romans (or, more likely, 'The Jews') killed Jesus" attitude is really missing the whole point of the book.

Well, there you go.

Kind of makes you wonder what happened to the Old Caledonia, doesn't it?

Where in the Sam Hill is New Caledonia?

It might be true that the carriers will become obsolete, but I am sure we will continue to build them -- it brings lots of jobs to lots of Congressional districts when you build a carrier.

The U.S. has by far and away the largest, most advanced military in the world. Britain has a strong military and North Korea has enough "toys" to make me worried. China is also to be reckoned with, based on size of its Army if nothing else. Without doing any research, my gut guess would be that, in no particular order, the top 5 militaries in the world are: USA Russia China North Korea Britain This assumes we are talking about organized, uniformed militaries, not irregulars/guerillas/terror agents. The difficulty in ranking military strength is what do you go on? Number of personnel in uniform? Number of fighter aircraft, and if so, do you break out aircraft purchased after a certain year (assuming that the more recent the year, the more advanced the weapon systems). How do you determine overall comperative strength of modern Armies, vs. modern Navies vs. modern Air Forces. If country A has a big Army and strong Air Force but a weak Navy, does country B's strong Navy but moderate Army & Air Force trump that? As a side note, I happened to be in San Diego this past week and witnessed the first homeporting of the US Navy's newest aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan. I read in the program from the ceremony that the U.S. Navy has the same number of aircraft carriers as all other world navies combined and each of the US carriers are larger/more capable than any of the foreign makes & models.

Good point about the access to the Atlantic stifling the growth of Italy and fueling the growth of others. As to the EU's GDP vs. the USA, the EU is far, far away from being a cohesive single unit.