Will the US be like a rerun of the fall of the Roman Empire?

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First off, I want to stay away from politics and avoid it like the plague because it causes drama and my father used to be a politician so I have heard enough of it. I am currently going to college working towards a BA degree. I used to teach in China without a degree, but I really wanted to just get a degree so that I will be able to teach English in more countries. Obtaining a degree will open more doors for me...but I am worried about a few things. First off, I am really worried that this Dream Act might possibly make it more difficult for me to receive financial aid to get through college, since there will be illegal immigrants and legal immigrants and a larger population of people receiving financial aid. I know that going to college for some of these people will be beneficial in a sense that they will be given a chance to get educated, which will keep them out of legal trouble and all that. I just don't want to see illegal immigrants receive more financial aid than legal US citizens. I am also just worried about a revolution or another war breaking out, which would also possibly keep me from finishing college in peaceful fashion. Another more recent thought occurred to me. If say I somehow do make it through college and obtain my college degree, but while I'm in Asia looking for a job in the future, but I can't because my degree might "lose its value" due to the hypothetical idea that the US empire fell? Like if I applied to teach at a school in say South Korea, Japan or China, etc. and they decide not to hire me because they require a degree, but in my case my degree might be of no worth because the nation might be nothing left? I'm sure if the US fell or something this serious happened...who knows...Asia might not even feel the need to study American English anymore? I could always fake a British accent haha! I don't mean to sound so dramatic and paranoid, but it is just that things here in the US, especially here in California have just been getting worse and worse at a rapid pace and I still have another year or more of college left and I really think things are just corrupt beyond control and in a sense, I no longer even feel safe in this nation.

I think you are allowing yourself to get carried away by alarmism.

So, a propos your concerns:

As far as the Dream Act goes, I think you need to consider the real barrier to higher education that is poverty--not merely the inaccessibility of financing for tuition and books, but also the impact on the basic academic qualifications for admission, and the ability to meet basic standards of living while studying. If you look carefully at the standard of living of most undocumented aliens, you will probably find that the vast majority of them lack the qualifications for admission to post-secondary education, and lack the means to support themselves during studies, even with government assistance. I think the far greater concern will be that fewer and fewer citizens and permanent residents will be able to afford to dedicate four years of their lives to post-secondary education, further entrenching university graduates as a privileged class.

As for a revolution or war, I think it unlikely that the US will have the financial capacity for much in the way of misadventure for a decade or so. And so long as the price of a Big Mac meal is within the means of workers earning a median wage, I think the possibility of revolution to be remote in the extreme. Occupy Wall Street is important news--but it is not armed insurrection.

Finally, as regards the value of your degree--it lies in the quality of work you have put into it, and the quality of teaching provided to you. Even if we and Mexico were to annex your country tomorrow, the skills and knowledge that you have acquired to date would not be diminished.

All Empires come to an end--yours will be no exception. But the barbarians are not yet at the gate.

("Hmm, Okay, Mexico, we'll give you California, but you have to take Utah, too. Florida is, of course, yours, but we want extraterritoriality over "Canada" at Epcot. We'll give you the same in East Harlem.")

California is a very scary place to be. Then again, its downfall was predictable. Since World War II, the state relied on booming aerospace and defense industries, with all costs paid for by the Pentagon (and therefore all taxpaying Americans). That industry is now moving elsewhere for lower costs. California also has a much more fragile ecosystem than most people realize, which is why I think cost of living there is so high. It's pathetic what that state has become, although my brother lives a nice life over there.
Still, don't count the US out yet. There's a sense of decline that pops up once every generation or so. In the 1970s, lots of Americans thought the US economy was s**t, the Soviets were stronger militarily, and the Japanese were running circles around us. They were wrong on all three fronts.
Today's declinism is just as silly to me. To give you an example, I think China's boom is shallower than it appears. Their property bubble is worse than ours in many ways, and factories are already leaving China for lower cost nations, like Vietnam or Kenya. Thanks to the one-child policy, they don't have nearly enough young workers to replace the aging ones. That doesn't mean China isn't a world power, for they made very real progress. But they aren't toppling the US for at least a few more decades, if ever.

All I know is this: No civilization ever collapsed completely in an instant.

The U.S. barely had an empire and it lasted for a short time. We had our little adventures in the Carribean and have terminated them. We gave up the loot, the Phillipines, and Cuba and we hang on to Puerto Rico only because the PR folks want us to. No more Panama Canal.

Good bye empire. Our decline will have almost nothing in common with the fall of Rome.

ruveyn

Stick to teaching English, and dont try to teach history because you obviously have no grasp of it.

Okay.
Lessay the US litereally "repeats the history of Rome".

Rome was the global superpower (rivaled only by the newly unified China on the opposite end of Eurasia) for over a centurey before the fifty year period in which Julius Ceasar died and Christ was born.

The first chapter of Gibbon's 18th centurey classic "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" doesnt begin until two centuries after the time of Ceasar and Christ. And he then fills thirteen surprisingly easy to read volumes (not chapters- hardbound VOLUMES) describing the two centuries of decling and falling before the barbarians finnally starting sacking Rome in the fifth centurey.

The last Roman Emperor was finnally toppled in 476 AD (exactly 13 centuries before our declaration of indenpendence -so its ez to remember).

So the western half of the empire finnally collapsed around AD 500, but the eastern half (which morphed into the Byzantine empire) lasted another 1000 years.

Finnally Constandinople was siezed by the Ottoman Turks in AD 1453 snuffing out the last bit of the Roman Empire- just a fortnight before Columbus discovered America.

So if it takes you two hundred years to get your degree, and you are terrified of the danger that you will live as a long a Methusula ( 1000 years) you might indeed have something to worry about.

Otherwise I would worry more about the instablity of your potential employers: the third world regimes that hire people like you to teach their pupils- than about the USA going anywhere.

Depends which way this next election goes. The current administration is like Jimmy Carter's (though at least Carter had some integrity).

You you said: "So the western half of the empire finnally collapsed around AD 500, but the eastern half (which morphed into the Byzantine empire) lasted another 1000 years."...Ok lets say if the US morphs into another empire altogether...that means everything is ok because the empire didn't fall? It would be a new empire and therefore the old system would be replaced. Although there were many eras that effected modern times, the ideals of the Roman Republic had an early influence that shaped the political systems, education systems and roles of women that prevail in modern Western society. Only through knowledge of how our world came to be can we understand how to further develop and improve it. The governmental sector of the Roman Republic influenced the system used in Western societies today. Now that we can see that new ideologies are being taught from a standpoint, which stand in opposition to the ideology of values of the Roman Republic. Over time, life for citizens in Western civilizations have become less restricting but generally these early Roman standards for citizens would carry throughout much of the remainder of history. Traditions are slowly disappearing along with the dying religions that bore them and the country is moving in an entirely new direction. The Roman empire fell due to its over stretching its borders, which it could not maintain military control over...sounds kind of like what the US does. I already mentioned about the gradual rejection of Roman moral standards. Rome also fell because it opened its borders to non-Romans and non-citizens who do not share the same values...hmmm sounds kind of like the US. For the record, I was not implying that the US was going to collapse anytime soon. I was implying the similarities between the US and the Roman empire that I mentioned above and how this is having a negative effect on the quality of life for US citizens who do share the values of our nation's forefathers. You should think a little more before you start spouting out random historical facts mixed with random adolescent insults. Maybe if you lived a thousand years or so, you could possibly become a mature member of society.

The United States as a country will creak along for at least a hundred more years until the Southwest minus California goes back to its original owners. The U.S. will cease to be the major super-power very soon (within 20 years I would say) but we will not disappear. Britain did not disappear after its Empire fell apart following WW 2. There will always be an England. Likewise there will be a U.S. for some time to come, but perhaps English will no longer be the de facto official language of the country.

ruveyn

Not to worry, the Romans bought Greek slaves to educate their children.

We are more like the Greeks, who rose up and fell, than England, Rome, who had a long run of murder and looting to fall back on.

Rome Eturnal, There will always be an England, and the American view, wait till the next election.