Civilizations are impermanent, according to optimists. Simple accumulations of wealth and power are bound to fail, according to pessimists. I am somewhere in between, a firm believer that nothing can be sustained over the long term, with human fallibility precipitating the final collapse. The greatest of all early civilization was that of Athens. No society since 450 B.C. has even come close to matching it. What country or state could match philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, playwrights such as Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes, artist-architects like Phidias, and leaders such as Pericles? Not to mention military geniuses like Themistocles and Miltiades. The Athenians were so wise that at times they elected leaders by drawing lots. They instinctively knew that power corrupts, hence they drew lots and the winners were top bananas for one year only. Yet this perfect society of about 30,000 lasted for a few generations at best. Sparta, and ambition to expand, ended the greatest civic experiment ever.

The Politically Incorr... Morano, Marc Best Price: $8.67 Buy New $14.99 (as of 05:10 UTC - Details) Sparta, of course, lasted even less. Famous throughout history for its doomed stand at Thermopylae, and immortalized as the epitome of martial prowess, this bravest of all societies simply ran out of men. (My mother, grandmother, and grandfather and their grandparents, and their grandparents, were all pure Spartans, and I’m rather proud of that.) Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world but died too young to leave an Alexandrian culture behind.

“At some point civilizations resemble the human body. Age cannot be denied, nor can death.”

Then came Rome’s time, which lasted close to 1,000 years. It ended due to overstretch, and, as Gibbon said when asked why Rome fell, “We should be asking why did she last as long as she did.” A civilization whose growth has exceeded the limits of what is physically possible and whose development has engendered social, fiscal, and political problems with no feasible solutions is bound to fail. At some point civilizations resemble the human body. Age cannot be denied, nor can death. Byzantium came next and lasted almost as long but never had the imprint of Rome as the Byzantine Empire was always under threat and attack from the east and the west. But it oversaw the spread of Christianity, something no other civilization ever accomplished. Byzantium collapsed in 1453, and the Ottomans came next in line.

Mind you, until now I’ve been writing about empires, easily mixed up with civilizations. The Chinese civilization has been around forever, as has the European one. The French and British empires were just offshoots of the latter. As is—yes, you guessed it—the American one, now in its peak and with the inevitable flatterers predicting it is here to stay.

Both the British and French empires are now seen as an evil, especially by the left, but in my book both empires civilized as well as exploited. And both Brits and Frogs learned about owning and selling slaves from African and Arab slavers. As did the Spanish, whose empire actually covered most of the New World. Hypocrisy about the past is ever present, and history is written by those with an axe to grind, mostly if not completely by those on the left. Which brings me to the American empire or civilization, although the latter naming may raise loud guffaws by ever-envious Europeans.

The Case for Christ: A... Strobel, Lee Best Price: $1.95 Buy New $4.96 (as of 11:57 UTC - Details) America is not yet 250 years old but remains the global bastion of personal freedom. American boys have twice gone over to Europe to fight and liberate countries, not for conquest, but for the simple belief that freedom is worth dying for. Freedom, of course, is always under threat, especially freedom of speech, with woke doing its best to control it. Woke was basically antiwhite, and despite Trump’s efforts, only last week right here in these United States, I witnessed an example of the war being waged against the white man.

White Afrikaner farmers, descendants of the Boers, who actually founded South Africa 500 years ago, have been under murderous attack since white apartheid gave up power to the black majority 35 years ago. Their once-upon-a-time profitable farms have been taken away without compensation and run into the ground by the blacks. Because white farmers had their farms taken away, The Donald allowed sixty of them to immigrate to these shores. And guess what? All hell broke loose among media pundits of the left-wing persuasion, angry that sixty poor whites had landed on these shores. “Why these whites after the pausing of other refugee programs?” 12 to 20 million illegal mostly brown and blacks in the country, and the media pundits are screaming about sixty white farmers who are here to work. Nice! No country whose fourth estate works tirelessly against the common good can survive, says the great Greek philosopher Taki. America has allowed millions of Central Americans and millions of Africans to these shores, and one day soon whites will be a minority. That is when the great American experiment in liberty will come to an end. According to the great Greek philosopher, that is.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

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