And Latin Will Be Making A Big Comeback

American Digest is thinking about our "goin' Roman" future:

None of these types, these cheap 25-cents and two Wheaties box-tops cereal premium brains has the wit or the wisdom or the vision to see that their snug little liberal world faded on the falling of the towers, and the only question waiting for America to decide at this moment is whether it is ready to step forward and assume the burdens and gather the rewards of a global empire.

For this is where, at last, the rag-tag haters of America from the Arabian peninsula have led us, and it is a road that now must be traveled. We can travel it weakly and with trepidation -and be killed and crippled as a people and a nation - or we can travel it in strength and with a terrible purpose that brooks no terrorist response without a terrible price being enacted immediately and without reservation.

But will we do this? I do not believe, looking about the landscape of America today, that we have yet reached a consensus to proceed as a nation down that path. If anything, we are resisting the reality and are demanding to be dragged to this destiny. But soon, with I fear, another brutal and perhaps most costly attack on American soil, we will find within ourselves the commitment to go forward. But we will go as the most reluctant imperialists in history.

We are, after all, Americans.

We like to have out little pleasant lives in our little pleasant neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities.

We like to have our families happy and our jobs secure and our leisure abundant.

We like to have enough money to spend and enough to put away for our old age.

We like vacations, and Little League, and puppies and kittens and cute kids.

What we don't like is running about the world, putting out other people's brushfires.

We also dislike giving people a democracy which, since they didn't have the metal to fight for it, they cannot appreciate.

We detest sitting around handing out fat checks and getting our soldiers shot as thanks.

If they could 'include us out' we'd just as soon sit at home and let the rest of the world get sucked down the drain of history which, without the support of the United States in treasure and in lives, would be its fate.

We'll have our empire by and by, but what we'd really like is just to be able to have a really nice 4th of July cookout, a day at the beach, about $500,000 worth of fireworks and then early to bed every day of the year. That's what we'd prefer to have.

What we're going to get instead is an Empire.

And we'd better start getting good at it.

Instead of nothing but aid going out, we'd better start to see a little tribute coming back in.

Time to start to insist on some of those "loans" to the wretched of the Earth getting paid back instead of written off.

Time to think about imposing a 30% fee of all oil profits from Iraq for the next 20 years as a way of showing some gratitude for being saved from having nothing for the next 20 years except a few more mass grave subdivisions in the desert.

Instead of having our troops getting picked off by scum overseas and picked on by traitors here at home in pursuit of office, we'd better start picking off scum in large numbers by land, sea and air assault overseas, and stop electing those who would put them at greater risk once in office here.

It is said that we can't kill all the terrorists in the world, but I have a great faith in the ability of the ammunition factories of this democracy's arsenals to tool up to the task.

I think it is about time that, as Empires do, we start to push the general concept towards various belligerent nations with more testosterone than sense that if they don't like our Stealth bombers, they'll really hate our ballistic missile submarines. I hope we will not have to arrange a live demonstration of their nuclear missile delivery systems, but considering the mentality we are dealing with it would not surprise me if we did.

I have had conversations with various acquaintances about this need to become as Romans and they always caution "Remember what happened to Rome."

I remember well what happened to Rome, but it took a few centuries to build and many more to burn. These days I'd settle for a few centuries of Empire.

By that time the rest of the world might just have enough time, especially the infantalized cultures of Europe and the ossified cultures of the Middle East, to grow up into decent, civilized places where all the citizens on God's green earth could have a nice 4th of July cookout without worrying that some mullah's demented second-cousin is going to turn up with a couple of pounds of TNT strapped to his chest on a red-hot mission from God.

A decent goal for a decent Empire. For once.