Unfortunately, the fall of Rome is a pattern repeated by empires throughout history ... including ours?
A group of libertarians gathered in Las Vegas recently for an event called "FreedomFest." We debated whether America will soon fall, as Rome did.
Historian Carl Richard said that today's America resembles Rome.
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry -- the same TV commentator who said Americans need to stop raising kids as if they belong to individual families -- had an extraordinary explanation for why the city of Detroit sought to declare bankruptcy last week: not enough government.
There are now 175,000 pages' worth of federal laws. Local governments add more.
I'm not so cynical that I think politicians pass laws just to control us. Someone always thinks: "This law is needed. This will protect people."
You pay taxes? You contributed to the $2 billion your government gave Egypt this year. And last year. And every year -- for 30 years. Most of it went to Egypt's military. How's that worked out?
Many libertarians, outraged by how our government spies on us, call me a "traitor" because I'm not very angry. I understand that the National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls could put us on a terrible, privacy-crushing slippery slope.
People say America is a free country. But what if you want to drink, have a cigarette or make a bet? Government often says "no" to protect us from ourselves.
As Americans obsess over NSA spying, abuse by the IRS and other assaults on our freedom, I can't get my mind off the thousand other ways politicians abuse us.
Europe's struggles prove that "austerity" fails!
So say the Big Spenders.
With a condescending sigh, they explain that Europe made deep cuts in government spending, and the result was today's high unemployment. "With erstwhile middle-class workers reduced to picking through garbage in search of food, austerity has already gone too far," writes Paul Krugman in The New York Times.
Plan to drive more this summer? Annoyed by the price of gas? Complaining that oil companies rip you off?
My kids moved out! I have two empty rooms in my apartment. Maybe I can rent them? A tourist visiting New York City could have a different experience, and save hotel money. I'd make money. Wouldn't it be great?
Are you a real man (or woman)? Do you have "grit"?
Compare yourself to the man on the $20 bill: Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.
Forty-three million Americans moved from one state to another between 1995 and 2010 -- about one-seventh of Americans.
It's good that we can move! Moving provides one of the few limits on the megalomania of state bureaucrats.
Americans have moved away from high-taxed, heavily regulated states to lower-taxed, less-regulated states. Most don't think of it as a political decision. They just go where opportunities are, and that usually means where there's less government.
They're leaving my state, New York, in droves. California, despite its great weather, also lost people, and wealth. Other biggest losers were Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio.
Most Americans -- even those who are legislators -- know very little about the details of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. Next year, when it goes into effect, we will learn the hard way.
Many people lazily assume that the law will do roughly what it promises: give insurance to the uninsured and lower the cost of health care by limiting spending on dubious procedures.
Don't count on it.
Consider just the complexity: The act itself is more than 906 pages long, and again and again in those 906 pages are the words, "the Secretary shall promulgate regulations ..."
I wrote recently how teachers unions, parent-teacher associations and school bureaucrats form an education "Blob" that makes it hard to improve schools. They also take revenge on those who work around the Blob.
Even parts of government that look like a business never get run with the efficiency of a business. Just look at the post office.
People say government must "help the little guy, promote equality, level the playing field."
Environmental activists and politicians would like you to think that we must love their regulations -- or hate trees and animals.
The Senate did something this past weekend it hasn't done in four years: passed a budget. The law requires the Senate to pass a budget, but Congress often ignores its own laws. For most of Barack Obama's presidency, a series of continuing resolutions kept the money -- your money -- flowing. Now the Senate wants to add a trillion dollars of new taxes, even more than President Obama seeks. Despite our growing debt, the Senate wants to fund things like the Senate barbershop, which loses a third of a million dollars every year.
Shortly after I did my first TV special on education, "Stupid in America," hundreds of union teachers showed up outside my office to yell at me. They were angry because I said union rules were a big reason American kids don't learn.
Celebrities are now upset about fracking, the injection of chemicals into the ground to crack rocks to release oil and gas. With everyone saying they want alternatives to foreign oil, I'd think celebrities would love fracking.
