Comment by vimacs2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vimacs2 | Hacker News Reader

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The only objection I have to this post that I have is the notion that there was a democracy there to begin with. Before Julius Caesar attempted (unsuccessfully) to monopolise power in the Old Republic, there was already a ever widening chasm between the farmers that made up the bulk of Roman citizenry and the people in the Senate.

All Caesar had to do was harness this growing discontent of the masses through his fake populism and having undying loyalty in much of the army helped as well.

It took just one generation after Ceasars assassination for the establishment of the Imperium and the dissolution of the Republic.

Trump might or might not be reinstated but the beginning of the end of the American experiment has already been set in motion.

The only way to save it is through a radical reorganisation of power to counter the one to come but the establishment want to keep returning to the supposed Utopia that was in place before Trump - missing the obvious fact that it was their "utopia" that lead to Trump in the first place.

> The only objection I have to this post that I have is the notion that there was a democracy there to begin with.

Sure, it's probably pointless to try to argue that there was some specific point where it changed from "is a democracy" to "isn't a democracy," or to try to argue that it's "55% a democracy now." The actual point is whether there are important institutions that have weakened or failed, whether there is indication that this will continue, and what the consequences will be.

Wasn't there a history of political violence and rabble rousing in Rome for a century or two before Rome? I thought the Imperium cleaned up a lot of the problems that Rome had for a while, at the cost of the democracy (which was really a plutocracy, until populism become more effective).

I could be wrong, since it's been some years.

Yes there was and sure, in the short term the Imperium seemed a good deal - until the wrong person takes the position of emperor which inevitable lead to mass terror and destruction. Something which had happened a number of times in Rome's history.

What does a "radical reorganization" look like in this case?

Dissolution of the US federation.

Yes as well as the republic itself. It's a garbage system designed to keep power out of the grasp of the commons, which only has merit in relation to even worse systems like monarchies or fascism.

This is a rewriting of how terrible the senate was at the time. Caesar took the existing tyranny of the senate and substituted it for tyranny of an emperor.

This is the key that people often miss in this regard. The staggering ROman Republic was hardly a great country.

The exact same thing could be said for the American Republic. There are millions of people living below the poverty line, a stratified society in both financial and political terms, and widespread racism and sexism.

Also, common to Rome is the notion that they are a special people who deserve dominion over the rest of the world. It might be shrouded in more egalatarian language (cue the exporting "freedom" talk) but barely so.

I actually think the American experiment needs to end. What we have was never democracy nor was it meant to be. America was simply a playground for European nobles to send their second and third sons off to either make a fortune or die; then those surviving second and third sons decided to form a government that their families couldn’t claim as their own.

We need a new American experiment that is actually government by the people. One that doesn’t take ownership of other people as a founding principle (but you know, it’s cool because we took it back).

Slavery existing at the time this country was founded does not make it a founding principle. The only constitutional component of slavery was intended to reduce the power of slave states, and most of the country abolished slavery by 1804.

The entire structure of the senate is designed to give maximum power to the slave-holding states, and every political decision in the country before the civil war was made with the aim of preserving their power in mind (this counts for the electoral college too).

This is the reason votes in rural areas count so much more than urban votes. Because rural areas in the south were heavily populated by enslaved people and the slavers (meaning not just the title holding slave owners; many people who did not own slaves were still fundamental players in the system of slavery) held a lot of influence.

I think you're confusing cause and effect. The constitution was an agreement between states, and the senate was a compromise to ensure signers would retain power even if their population was dwarfed by other states. It is highly unlikely that it was intended to empower slave states; when it was created, only Massachusetts wasn't a slave state. Same goes for the electoral college.

Also, in 1790 the US was much less urbanized. 5% of people lived in cities (vs 80+% today), and the economy was primarily agricultural. It was not a world in which the rural-urban divide was particularly significant. All states were rural states.

If every political decision in the US before the Civil War was made with the aim of preserving slave state power, why is it the South that left the Union? Couldn't they have just used their power?

I'd like to correct my previous comment. I said that the three-fifths compromise was the only consitutional component of slavery; in fact there were two others. The fugitive slave clause, and a clause forbidding the federal government from restricting the slave trade. I apologize for these errors.

> If every political decision in the US before the Civil War was made with the aim of preserving slave state power, why is it the South that left the Union? Couldn't they have just used their power?

They left because they were worried about losing their power — the northern population grew much faster than the south, and as the country expanded west most of the settlers were from free states, bringing attitudes about slavery with them. Things had reached a point where even deep compromises couldn’t tip the scales in the slavers’ favor, so the slavers decided to withdraw to attempt to preserve their power.

There were a significant number of northerners who were active abolitionists and not involved in politics. John Brown is an American hero in my mind. Slavery was doomed regardless of the political order, but the political order tried to protect it nonetheless.

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