Anonemiss:
“That was exactly Caligula’s point when he appointed his favourite horse as a member of the senate; maybe one day the commander-in-chief will appoint his poodle to the senate, just to make a point.”

That expresses my intended point better than I could have done. What I mean when I ask is, “How long will America believe in itself enough to make wry little jokes like appointing poodles to senates?” Rome believed in itself for centuries after Caligula; I fear America may not last as long. The superficial forms may break down within a generation.
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Fabius Maximus: Who can accurately predict the future? To do so requires knowing what is in people’s hearts. I am confident that America will beat the odds and build an even better future. That is faith, not logic.

1) Sorry to disappoint; I am not the Pete Peterson who worked for Nixon. He’s a little older than I am. Worse, my real first name is Robert; but all Petersons get called Pete unless they fight it. I chose the path of least resistance.

2) I really appreciate the way that you (Fabius Maximus) have been trying to develop and to quantify statements. (In a good way, not Macnamara’s “body counts”) “There are few absolutes of any kind”– how true and how seldom remembered!

3) When anonemiss (comment #13 above) said “someday a commander in chief will appoint his poodle to the senate” I thought immediately of the exchange between Lloyd George and Balfour, in around 1907– Balfour had proudly described the House of Lords as “the watchdog of the British constitution” and Lloyd George retored ” Watchdog? It is Mr. Balfour’s poodle.” I thik we already have too many poodles in the Senate.

4) When people talk of the factors leading to the fall of the Roman Empire, I think instead of how many years it lasted in good condition– the time of the Five Good Emperors lasted more than a century! If one looked at the Roman Empire in say 280, would we be able to see that the decline and fall was already well in progress? (Gibbon obviously thought so)
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Fabius Maximus replies: Thank you for your comments!
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Why is Rome always the standard of comparison? It was extraordinarily long-lived, and hence an outlier. What about the Athenian Empire, or Lydia, or any of the hundreds of short-lived “great powers” of the ancient world?
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Modern times have proved difficult for “great powers”. Spain’s Empire was great for two centuries. The Brits had a large profitably Empire for one or two centuries, depending. Russia took much of Asia, and held it for almost two centures (and still owns much of the eastern half).
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Unfortunately, we build the American Empire in the post-colonial era. The rise of 4GW means that empires are no longer profitable. I doubt our Empire, our time as hegemon, will last until the 100-year mark.

“He describes how by late Republic times the Roman people had lost the will to govern themselves.”
Did they forget where they put it? The Roman people never governed themselves, the rise and decline of the republic paralleled a process of economic transformation from farming to agriculture, from small-scale to large-scale, from free-labour to slave-labour and of course the growth of globalisation (or at least mediterranean-isation).

The economic transformation of the US economy in the last two generations presages the decline of the US republic [The US will not become like France & Germany, Fabius, you are quite mistaken there.].

Robert Petersen said : “But it is still the best thing we got.”
This is not an argument, it is a mental failure to analyse and solve the pressing problems of the age. Such false assertions have been made by great thinkers in all kinds of times and they were always not true. This mental and philosophical exhaustion manifests itself not only in politics but in all aspects of society: arts, science, etc. (see my post about such claims in science)
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Fabius Maximus replies: “Roman people never governed themselves” These sweeping generalizations are a bit much to take, and they keep cropping up in this discussion. Few things in life are binary; in most things there are magnitudes, degrees. Unless you standard of comparison is Heaven (but you have to die to get there).
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The Roman people had considerable influence in their government, growing after the posting of the laws — then peaking — the fading to zero. To sweep all this away, saying it was all a mirage, is imo absurd.

2.”the Constitution seems likely to become a purely procedural document, much like that of the former Soviet Union, and equally effective at preserving our liberties.”

The fall of Rome was not IMHO military defeat as much as moral defeat, accompanied by a very miserable standard of living for Romans. America could fall, not from foreign invasion, but because it obeys the short-sighted commands of its Neroes and Caligulas. Recall that in the last days of Rome, a baker’s son was obligated to be a baker, a carpenter’s son was obligated to be a carpenter, etc.
America, once the land of social mobility, could suffer a similar lack of freedom in the lives of its citizens.
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Fabius Maximus replies: I do not understand your point. The original reference was to military defeat, comparing our natural defense to Rome’s. I replied much as your did, that America seems unlikely to fall — as Rome did — from external military invasion.
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Taking it one step more, of course there were reasons for Rome’s military defeat. There usually are reasons other than the straight-forward ones of superior numbers and/or technology.

An emblematic but interesting fact is that until the end of the 19th century US Senators were not popularly elected, but appointed by the governors of their states.

Gabriel Kolko’s book, The Triumph of Conservatism, makes a convincing case that the major legislation of the “progressive era” was orchestrated and written by the business class.
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Fabius Maximus: Yes, I believe citizen control over the government was greater before the New Deal. For one thing, it was far smaller in every dimension — making some degree of control easier.
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Consider the ratio of representatives to their population served — far smaller than now (Chet Richards discusses this in his new book, “If We Can Keep It”). Look at government (all levels) expenditures as a fraction of national GDP.

“At some point in our future the Constitution seems likely to become a purely procedural document, much like that of the former Soviet Union, and equally effective at preserving our liberties. Our rights will exist only on the sufferance of the government and our ruling elites. This is already true in the UK, as their “unwritten constitution” protecting the “rights of Englishmen” has blown away like smoke in the wind.”

The changed role of Congress is a example of the above transformation. Congress becomes a player in the allocation of power and income among factions of our ruling elites, not in any meaningful sense a legislative body.

It is a duty of each American to be involved with America, not to “wreck it and run” with the ill-gotten gains.

The “right people” are not simply a single class, with one set of interests and one agenda, but rather a crowd of special interests jostling together, compromising when necessary, hoping to gain relative advantage. This is the view of Madison in the 10th Fed paper. The national government is the place where these battles are fought. It is not a place where the interests of the people –”the many” in the founder’s words — are considered.

Fabius’ confidence that the people could regain their democracy, “if they only have the will”, seems to me naive. I think the best we can hope for, at this moment, is that a saner, more cautious segment of the propertied class eventually regains control from the current lunatic fringe. Then we might return to what Michael Parenti calls “Democracy of the Few.”
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Fabius Maximus: I always find interesting the believers in Zeno’s paradox — that movement is impossible. It sounds good, but is of course absurd. Change, evolution, is the essence of life — and therefore of history.
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I gave two examples of valuable Congressional hearings that both gave us new information and had a powerful influence on public opinion — and could have listed many more. The last was 1973. Any suggestions of such hearings in the last five years? Ten years?
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As for faith being “naive”… faith is always naive when it is mosted needed.