Republic or Empire?

[armbarchris]

Sorry crip, but I had been thinking about that pic when I saw your your post and couldn't pass. The point I was trying to make was that is says in the OP "ROMAN republic or empire." Romasn have nothing to do with starwars, although if one only read the title I can see why you'd think that.

There were some individual emperors who clearly had issues, but over all the Empire was, in the beginning, much stronger than the republic. The republic had some serious flaws. But then, after a while the Emperors stated to become weaker and weaker. On top of that a number of other factors such as drought, the Huns displacing other tribes as they moved west, the decline in loyalty among generals and soldiers, the serious inflation from money being spent outside the Empire, etc. came along. Some of those, but not all of them, could have been prevented if certan measures had been put in place before hand, but some were unavoidable.

[Pieman]

lmao... for all those people that thought of star wars, im with you.
I saw the title came here thinking to get into a long sci-fi movie dispute...
Only to be disappointed with a subject that i do not really care about.

*Starts reading about Roman Empire and Republic*
*Falls asleep after first line*

[Axer NZ]

I did, And still dont understand.

ROMAN. As in, based in ROME. Which is not the same as Coruscant, last I checked.

I dispute that these were outside of governmental control.

Oh, so the emperors controlled the weather and all of the raiders that sacked Rome and things like that. Obviously.

Hey, in absolute fairness, that was my original thought too! The title of this thread sort of leads straight to that conclusion...especially if you consider the sci-fi guy who wrote it.

As for being on track, I think the Republic was a great idea, but the Empire was far more successful...at times. As with any endeavor, one strong leader will do a better job and provide more cohesiveness and unity of vision than a group of people. It works great as long as you have a brilliant and humane leader. When you get a psychopath in office or someone with serious personality defects, that's when it all falls apart. The key to a Republic is that it provides protection against the one guy in charge being a monster.

Well put. Also, IF this thread was about Star Wars, there wouldn't be any contest. It's a choice between a just, peaceful government and a tyrant who murders his subjects, buries them beneath taxes, and can shoot lightning made out of EVIL from his hands!

[Pieman]

Pfft. In Star Wars Palpatine gets OWNED by Darth Vader. So much for his lighting

And besides, Mace Windu would have killed him long before that, if Anakin hadn't interfered and betrayed the Jedi.

How great can his lightning be when all you need is a lightsaber to reflect it right back at him? Sounds like a good way to get yourself killed.

(Yesh, i is a Sci-Fi Nerd)

[trogdor1316]

Didn't the Republic blow up the Death Star? I thought they won?


EDIT: Damn. Someone already made that joke.

[FoxyBunny]

How on earth can you possibly say "no contest"? Puhleez....you're just jealous that the Empire gets spiffy uniforms and the Republic is stuck creating ridiculous hairdos.

[Heraclius]

Well in terms of overall success I would say that the Empire was more successful. But the Republic laid down the foundation that allowed the Empire to be so successful, so I'd say it could go either way.

[pialpha]

I'm waiting for Conrad to see this and post a 1000 word essay....

[Brightfang]

lol im sad.. i saw the title and thought Star Wars..

[Heraclius]

As am I Pie. I was going to (to keep up with my second resolution), but I can't be bothered to at the moment. I'll make a longer post at a later date.