As the Roman Empire wound down, it became more and more rigid. The forms of “this is how things shall be done” became fossilized and inflexible and incapable of adapting to changing conditions. People who had the courage to try to change the system were rare, and generally got either kicked out of the system to be ostracized and condemned, or were killed.
As a result, during the disastrous years when Vandals were attacking Italy from the east and Germans were attacking Gaul from across the Rhine, the Empire lacked the ability to adapt, and collapsed. There had been 40,000 soldiers in the Roman legions only a few short years before, but most of those soldiers deserted when anti-immigrant activists threatened their families (most of these soldiers were immigrants) and they decided to protect their families rather than to protect Rome. And then they killed their best general because he had the audacity to tell them that they should pay off the Vandals rather than attempt to fight because they had nothing left with which to fight… Romans did not pay off barbarians, went the thinking. It simply was not done. And so Rome fell.
And so all Empires fall, from lack of courage and fossilization.
There’s a bunch of people protesting and mailing electoral college electors asking them not to install Donald Trump as President, citing the horrifying people he has announced as his new cabinet and Russian interference as reasons. They are wasting their breath. While it is legal under the Constitution for the electoral college to install anybody as President that they wish, regardless of who they were pledged to support at the time they were selected, it is not going to happen because it has never happened. It is not done. Anybody who would dare to buck this tradition would be ostracized and driven out of politics. To buck tradition would require courage, and courage is something that is sadly lacking in declining empires.
And so all Empires fall, from lack of courage and fossilization.
– Badtux the History Penguin
