Washington DC the New Rome? Pagan’s Opinion

I just finished Al Gore’s “The Assault On Reason”(via cd) and am once again astounded by the liberties that the Dubya administration took during their time in office. George W. Bush made the Oval Office powerful and inviolate in a way that would have made Nixon weep for joy. While listening the the litany of crimes recounted to me once again I couldn’t help but draw a comparison to the Roman Republic in my mind.

The shift from Republic to Empire began with Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla.  Both seized power in unprecedented ways. Marius was elected consul seven times and brought about reforms in the military that gave generals more influence over the legions. In essence, a general loved by his troops could count legions of armed men as his clients. Sulla used this to his advantage, declaring himself dictator for a period of time while he enacted legislature to shift the balance of power in favor of the Senate (the patrician aristocrats) and away from the Plebian Council (the common people); and marching on Rome herself, crossing the sacred Pomerium forbidden to active generals, not merely once but twice. The unprecedented and astounding acts of these two men were the groundwork upon which Gaius Julius Ceasar would build his perpetual dictatorship.

Each of these men’s acts taken seperately and in context can be seen in a reasonable manner. Colleen McCollough’s Masters of Rome series does an admirable job of just that, providing reasonable justification for their actions. Marius’ opening military service to the capite censi, the poorest class of Roman, was necessary at a time when the youth of Rome was exhausted by war. Sulla felt it necessary to cross the Pomerium in command of legions to end the political violence in Rome. Ironically, his conservative policy proscribed 1,500 nobles, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 people. Ceasar marched on Rome to preserve his dignitas and ensure the future prosperity of his troops which depended on him for settlement grants.

The danger in these precedents is that each of these actions were unilateral. Disregarding the mos maiorum, these men established power without the prior consent of the People and Senate of Rome. Even Gaius Julius Ceasar, who was loved by the army and the people of the Roman Republic did not derive his dictatorship by their active wish, but by their passive silence.The result of this silence was the Second Triumvirate and Caesar Augustus. The Republic became a dictatorship not by one man or one decision, but by a series of decisions reasonable in their own contemporay context that proved to be open-ended steps by which may rise ambitous men.

Compared to the individual steps made by Marius, Sulla and Caesar, Dubya’s assumption of power is a large leap. Although his actions have small precedents in Nixon, McCarthy, FDR, J. Edgar Hoover, Wilson, McKinley, Lincoln, Monroe and Adams, the extent of his assumption of power might be reasonably compared to Sulla crossing the Pomerium with troops in tow. We know Sulla’s march on Rome changed the political power structure forever. In what ways will Dubya’s precedents be used by his sucessors?

Current President Barack Obama has overturned Bush’s policies on stem cell research, women’s reproductive health, White House records, off-shore drilling, endangered species, children’s healthcare and private government contracts. He also shut down the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, albeit in a less than organized way. All positive actions and excellent newspaper headlines.

However, when it comes down to the most dangerous abuses of the Bush administration, the unbalance of power in favor of the executive branch, Obama has been less enthusiastic to overturn the decisions of the previous administration as shown by his renewal of the deceptively named Patriot Act. He’s also been criticized for the creation of new White House offices, or “czars”, on various issues which are answerable only to the Oval Office and act independently of Congressional Committees on the same issues. He ended the “War on Terror”, which limited his ability to detain people and suspend habeas corpus at will, but as another blogger pointed out, that’s like saying Bush limited the executive power over C02 emissions. It’s all a matter of preference.

Obama has already made use of executive orders rather than wait for Congress to act. In context this seems reasonable. Congress is a lame duck institution where all the representatives forgot that the the world is changed by those who actually show up. It’s an empty forum, a shambles and ineffective. Sure, part of this is due to the realities of campaign finance, but I refuse to accept that excuse. Hurricane Katrina was a heartless debacle where the House and Senate’s vacation time took precedence over human lives, and for the first time in history Herbert Hoover looked good. When the Mississippi river flooded in 1927 the government response was fast if flawed. When compared with the advances in communication and transportation technology, the government response to Katrina was pathetic.

In a world moving increasingly faster the only way for Congress to be effective is to be present and informed, which they frequently are not. Looking back at the Plebeian Council and Senate during the years of Marius, Sulla and Caesar you find an absent, scattered, ineffective and in-cohesive body frightened of the power of Consuls and generals. With House Representatives and Senators having their loyalty questioned at every dissent to the opinions of the executive branch and being dependent on an ill-informed constituency that derives their information from corporate media driven by profit rather than public interest, is it any wonder that the executive branch is wielding unconstitutional power and influence? Is it an unreasonable fear that the executive branch may grow tyrannical in our lifetime?

Both Rome and Washington, DC are on the banks of a body of water named Tiber, and both have built edifices on land once swampy. Both overthrew kings to build republics that amazed the world. Hopefully, their paths will diverge before it’s too late.

Originally appeared on the Pagan Nerdfighter Blog July 19th, 2009