With the loss of fiscal solvency comes a loss of sovereignty.
After the fall of the Roman Empire of the West in AD 476, the Emperor Justinian came to power in Constantinople, the capital of the still existent Roman Empire of the East. With the help of some able generals, Justinian was able to reclaim portions of North Africa and Italy previously lost to the Germanic invasions. His wars of early sixth century AD devastated the Eastern Roman population with crushing taxation. While Roman armies of the East reclaimed portions of the former Western Empire, they were unable to establish a tax base, and the core Greek-speaking population in Constantinople and Anatolia had no more to give. Justinian’s hold on his reclaimed territories was tenuous and short lived. The Romans would never again be a dominant power, instead, a people in decline.
By 2011, under the new president, Barack Obama, the federal budget ballooned to $3.5 trillion dollars with projected revenues of only $2 trillion. Mid-year 2011, US creditors China and Japan began to signal that they had no more desire to invest in our debt. Moreover, American entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were projected to be equal to the entire revenue collected from taxes. This meant that America would need to borrow or create $1.5 trillion in fiat money before it could pay one soldier’s salary or fuel one fighter jet. Spring 2011, the midpoint of Obama’s first term in office, polls indicated that 70% of Americans believed that the country was “headed in the wrong direction,” a euphemism for decline.
Thats right: seven in ten Americans believed that the country was in decline!
Law #1: No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving. (Hanson’s Law)
Law #2: In battle, free men almost always defeat slaves. (Herodotus’ Law)
Law #3: Appeasement of a ruthless outside power always invites aggression. Treaties made with ruthless despots are always fruitless and dangerous.
Law #4: If a people cannot avoid continuous internal warfare, they will have a new order imposed from without.
Law #5: When a free people, through taxation, is deprived of its ability to acquire wealth and property, collapse is presaged.
Law #6: To hold territory, a state must be populated by those loyal to the central authority. When immigration overwhelms assimilation, the fall is predicted.
Law #8: Debasing the currency always destabilizes the governing authority.
Law #9: When a civilization accepts the propaganda of its enemy as truth, it has reached the far side of appeasement and capitulation is nigh.
Law #10: Declining civilizations will always face superior firepower from ascending civilizations because sovereignty is only temporarily uncontested.
