Fall
Paul from Canada believes he is "witnessing the fall of the U.S. empire. Would a civilized country limit health care and food assistance for the poor; leave crops rotting in the field; destroy educational system; target woman and attempt to eliminate their reproduction rights while refusing to help resulting babies; abuse desperate immigrants; pretend to believe in Christianity while perverting and debasing its tenets; refuse to protect the earth from destruction? The world is watching."
He may be witnessing the fall of the U.S. empire because some of the policies of the U.S. over the last century have been following a pattern that historians describe concerning Rome. I see the same pattern being reproduced in Canada and many other countries. Paul seems to be misidentifying the problem. So let us clear up the facts first.
First, Americans do not "limit health care and food assistance for the poor". There is no limit on charity and Americans have a record in the past of being some of the most charitable and giving people on the planet. I assume that Paul thinks that the U.S. government should be providing "health care and food assistance for the poor" but th government of the United States is not in the charity business. It can only give away what it first takes from others or borrows against the future of others. Although the United States government could take charitable donations and redistribute them to the needy that is not the way it operates. It is an institution of force and authority.
As a Christian, I do not believe we should apply or depend upon men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority one over the other because Jesus said we were not to be that way. He admitted that other governments of the world were that way but he clearly prohibited his followers from such covetous practices through the government as the socialist do.
The fall of Rome was attributed in part to the free bread given out by the government which changed the industry of Roman people to a state of indolence and self-indulgence. As the people developed "an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force" they grew so "accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others" they could no longer see the moral hypocrisy f their covetous practices. They would eventuall "institute the rule of violence; until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch."[1]
The Pharisees had fallen into the same way of thinking.