Terrifying/Inspiring Thought of the Week
Photo by specphotops on Unsplash
The average empire lasts 250 years.
The United States will turn 250 on July 4th, 2026.
Is this fact Terrifying or Inspiring?
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Photo by specphotops on Unsplash
The average empire lasts 250 years.
The United States will turn 250 on July 4th, 2026.
Is this fact Terrifying or Inspiring?
No posts
Except that America was not an "empire" until the late 19th/early 20th centuries. It was a fledgling democratic republic founded on a hodgepodge of agendas ranging from Enlightenment ideologies to Protestant-style capitalism. The statement is more accurate about democracies, though, because Egypt, China, India, Iran/Persia, even Rome all had long empires. The Athenian state that we idealize as our cultural ancestor in democracy had a lot of problems and continually devolved into oligarchy and tyranny.