New Game for a girl too busy for new games

...because it would be fun to have something to blog about. I'm following this "soul questioner" thing that has a daily question for you to answer on your own blog and link back to the original. It is some sort of final project for a friend, and while I'll likely not do every question, it could be fun to participate.


"In studying the patterns of History, the potential for collapse becomes very clear: every Empire, no matter how large or powerful, must collapse or be conquered at some point. While the United States being conquered any time in the near future is unlikely, it seems a little more likely that the American Empire could be on the verge of collapsing into chaos and ruin. Bound to happen at some point, what do you think is the likelihood of it happening in the immediate future? What do you think the causes of this collapse would be, or what still needs to happen for the collapse to occur?"


This question is a bit skewed from the perspective of a classicist- all I look at is the Greco-Roman world with some forays into the middle east. The state of the US now, in my opinion, far more resembles that of the end of the republic of Rome, but by no means the Empire. 
The republic, for anyone interested, ended officially about the time Caesar took power, and more emphatically when Augustus did. It ended the legitimate power of the senate, putting power back into the hands of an individual, ending the validity of the term "republic." Rome was desperate for someone to take the reigns and get some stuff done, and that transition was what kept the functioning state going for another ~400 years. Then, of course, a girl has to blame Christianity for some really awful developments and the ranting gets pretty brutal, but the gist of what I'm getting at is that the US isn't much of an empire, and we aren't about to have a foreigner sit on our throne. Will someone, in our lifetime, likely take control to get some stuff done?


I hope so. Gridlock is bad for everyone. I'm betting on Hilary Clinton. She's got so much dirt on every member of congress that as soon as she wins the presidency they'll all be asking her permission to take their kids to dinner. I'd like that. But collapse? Nah. Some strong individual will step forward and fill the vacuum in power that collapse would create very early in the process. 
I'm hoping I agree with most of that individuals views, but if I don't the world is a small place nowadays and I can just move somewhere more accommodating.