@Bacle -- debate is fine, but I must insist that if you're going to debate, you do actually respond to what I say, not to what you've made up yourself. From your responses, it's clear that you have an entirely imaginary and incorrect understanding of my views, so until that's corrected, we'll get nowhere.
As opposed to what, thinking that Rome was the pinnacle of human society and that it is the standard all western gov need to look to for predicting their own futures?
The modern world's standards and practical reality are what people can actually plan around and operate under the assumptions of, instead of thinking Caesar had all the answers and that all human civs follow Rome's patterns.
I don't think Rome was the "pinnacle of human society". The whole point of macro-historical analysis is that specific cultures aren't as "special" as they think they are. Nor is it my view that the universal empire is inherently desirable; just that it is inevitable. On average, all eras of a culture's history are as "good" and "bad" as every other era. Just in different ways.
I certainly don't think Caesar had "all the answers". On the contrary; I view populism as the ultimate conclusion of a culture's "modernity", and as such Caesar ended the Classical "modernity" (the Hellenistic Period) just as Alexander commenced it. If I viewed the Universal Empire as inherently desirable, my view would be that
Augustus had all the answers.
He didn't. Although his ways did prove quite successful, compared to all the alternatives. What he put in place survived, even when some of his successors were literally insane. If you manage that, you've built something pretty sturdy.
Finally, you seem to miss -- again -- that the comparison isn't that everything has to follow Rome. It's that every High Culture that emerges follows the same pattern, due to human nature being the same. We don't "copy" Rome; it's that Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, China... and yes, the West... are all governed by the same universal precepts. The precepts of human nature.
It's the reality of the modern world, and you can act like 'modern' is a bad word, but it won't change a damn thing.
Deal with the reality of the present day, instead of thinking that people of the past had all the answers and context to deal with today's issues.
Here, too, you misunderstand. And persistently so, to the point that it might well be deliberate.
My point is not that "modern" is bad. My point is that treating modernity as if it were
special is bad. My point isn't even that the past is good, or has "all the answers". My point is that to understand things properly, you need to see the big picture, not just a small piece (e.g. modernity) that you happen to
like.
The USA was created with our own rules, our own view of what it is to be a nation and civilization, and learning from the past is what the Founders did when they rejected just copy/pasting Europe's Old World bullshit onto the US.
Which frankly is something you Euro's can never seem to accept; that the US and US culture/civilization are not and never will follow the same patterns/cycles Europe seems to view as inevitable.
There were Romans who felt the same way about the Greeks. You protest loudly at the comparison with Rome, but you repeat the same arguments that Cato made back then.
He was wrong about it, too.
If America had declined to fight the Spanish-American War, had refused nascent imperialist involvement in the Caribbean and the Philippines, had stayed out of the Great War... then perhaps your isolationist sentiments of republican exceptionalism could have had some merit. In the same way, had Rome stayed a local power, a purely Italian republic, then surely it could have
remained a republic. That's what Cato wanted; for supposedly "exceptional" Rome to go its own way, separate from the old ways of the Hellenes. Just as you would like America to be separate from the culture of Europe.
Cato didn't get his way, and you didn't get yours. The imperial ambition has
already won. For better or worse. (In fact, for better
and worse.)
So really, you're the one who's obsessed with the past. You pretend to live in an old republic that no longer even exists in reality. You're not just stuck in the past... you're stuck in an alternate history!
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Are you ok with the idea of people earning citizenship through military service?
The system might be fine-tuned to take it into account. For instance, migrants might serve as auxiliaries in the armed forces. A term of ten years (or five if actively deployed) may reduce the process by one generation.
So consider it like this:
-- Bob migrates, and is not a citizen.
-- His son Bill is born in the country, and is not a citizen.
-- His grand-son Burt is born in the country, and is not a citizen.
-- His great-grand-son Bart is born in the country, and is not a citizen.
-- His great-great-grand-son Ben is born in the country, and is born a citizen, because three generations before him have been born there.
But the alternative is:
-- Bob migrates, and is not a citizen, but serves in the Auxiliary Forces.
-- His son Bill is born in the country, and is not a citizen, but serves in the Auxiliary Forces.
-- His grand-son Burt is born in the country, and is born a citizen, because his father and grand-father served in the Auxiliary Forces, speeding up the process by two generations.
That does not strike me as particularly unreasonable, since military service demonstrates a commitment to the nation, which should properly be rewarded. But I still do not think that it should be an "instant entrance ticket".
In any case, the upshot is that I want them to be able to prove that they actually want to become an American and have made significant efforts to become one rather than risk handing a colonist citizenship.
reason.com