- Start Inching toward The LifeBoats

Rome fell, in large part, because a great many Romans never believed it could. If you think about the scope of what the Roman Empire accomplished, such a big mistake becomes easy to understand. Rome ruled the world from Persia to Britain. Their military forces had vast technological and training advantages and were usually fighting against what amounted to the local village strongman and his friends. They built structures and cities which were unprecedented in scale and built to last a thousand years. Their libraries, their knowledge their civilization, were all the dominant force in the world. And yet Rome still fell.

Rome wasn’t beaten by its illiterate foes from the north, the Vandals and the Goths. Those tribes just inherited the already hollowed out empire. By the 4th century the northern tribes were fighting against a civilization that lacked the will to prevent its own destruction. It was the empty shell of the former Rome. It had all the structures and size, but it lacked the guiding purpose. By then the empire had spent decades focused on pandering to the frivolity and ego-centrism of its rulers rather than those tasks which brought the empire greater strength. And that had sapped the once great Roman army (and for that matter the Roman people) of their will and their reason to fight.

But to the ruling classes of the day it must have seemed a small issue. Why not focus on ingratiating and politicking? The empire was as permanent as the sun right? Nothing could ever topple the greatness or Rome… nothing could even compare with it. So if the resources of state were being spent on the excesses and extravagances of the emperor du jour, what of it? “It’s not like the empire will crumble if one more palace was built or if another military campaign was put on hold till next year” they must have said to themselves. It’s no doubt they had an equivalent to global warming and Guantanamo which they felt was far more important than reinforcing some garrison on the Danube. They were more concerned about what made the powerful people feel good about them than addressing the genuinely critical issues of the day.

Decisions like that were slippery slopes. No one could imagine the empire withering no matter how severe the excesses, and since that was so, no amount of excess could ever be seen as too severe. It didn’t matter how much was wasted or how it was thrown away. All manner of arbitrary and capricious behavior was tolerated, and even supported by those whose politics were favored. In their minds it could do no harm because Rome was as ever present as the sheltering sky.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going here. Our empire, the empire of the west, is pretty clearly in decline. And the thing we have to fear isn’t the Arab world or the Chinese. The idea of them ‘conquering’ the west is as unrealistic as some Dacian village strongman and his 40 farmer/soldiers conquering Rome. It’s not going to happen… in truth, it never was. What will happen however is that they will be the people who inherit the shell of the once great western world, after it’s been hollowed out by the western liberal intelligencia, and their focus on the frivolity and waste of modern liberalism.

Some might have a hard time imaging that. But suppose the Obama administrating after winning a second term, takes a look at the multi-trillion dollar deficit they’ve created and then decide that the only way to pay for it all is with a mammoth tax on ‘the rich’. Suppose they implement a return to the tax levels under John Kennedy where the top individual income tax level was set at 91%? That will cause economic activity to slow, but more important, it will take away the incentives for the rich to remain American. They want to use ‘patriotism’ as the chain with which they make the productive into slaves for the benefit of the unproductive. But they forget that the rich can simply leave.

My wife has an old friend from childhood who is now a neurosurgeon, and teaches at an Ivy league Medical School. Like most people who escaped communism, he’s a conservative by today’s political standards. He’s done well for himself in America, but faced with the idea of punitive taxation, nationalization of his industry, and restrictions on his business and freedom, he’s now thinking about leaving. That’s lucid and rational if you ask me. He’s worked hard and is entitled to make the most of his effort. No one ever gave him anything in America except opportunity, and now that he’s made the necessary investment in money energy and time, the government wants to effectively renege on the deal. But he’s having none of it.

Where is he planning on going? Bahrain. He can work there with no tax liability which will greatly increase his net income. He’ll be working with cutting edge technology and top level people. He’ll be providing his service for whatever the market will bear, and doing so with relatively few restrictions. In short, he’ll have the kind of life there that he originally came here to the US to get. But now that the kind of opportunity he was looking for has become a thing of the past in America, he’s going to go where it’s still a thing of the present. And I’m sure he’s just one of the first of many.

Obama wants him to share the fruits of his labor at the point of a gun. But the net result is that instead, the Arab world will get a first rate medical mind and better access to the best care available. That won’t affect me at all because if I need a neurosurgeon I can always afford to get on a plane and go see him. It will be harder for the poor to get a good doctor, but that’s the way it goes. After all, they will still have hope. But they had better hope they don’t need a neurosurgeon because all the best ones will be living in the Persian gulf. I guess that’s one of those issues they never quite thought through. How exactly does free medical care for everyone work when all the best doctors have gone to live in other countries?”

The Arab world isn’t going to defeat the west militarily. That may be the stuff of Iranian election speeches and terrorist PR videos, but no one seriously believes it. But the fact is, the Arab world doesn’t have to beat the west because the west is beating itself. All they have to do is offer the west’s most productive citizens a better deal than they would otherwise get in their home countries, and in a decade or three they’ll be the top dog. And with the west thoroughly hollowed out by its focus on frivolity and egotism, there won’t be anyone left who’s able to stop them. Animals will have rights in America, and producing CO2 will be illegal, but no one will be able to get a decent doctor.

On its current trajectory the west will collapse under its accumulated debt burden, sometime in the next 18 years or so. You can’t tell any difference between our two political parties based on policies but even if you could it wouldn’t matter because neither has the political will to change our course. Eventually it will be clear to everyone that, like Rome, we’re on a failing trajectory, but by then it will be too late. So while Obama is fiddling and we are waiting for the fire to spread from California, and Michigan and New York, the smart move is to start inching toward the lifeboats.