Are WE The 21st. Century Roman Empire?

From 510 BC until the First Century BC the Roman Republic ruled what was the Roman domain. Following Julius Caesars' defeat of Pompey in 44BC he was appointed Dictator and thus began the Roman Empire that lasted until 476 AD when Germanic hordes over ran and conquered the Western Roman Empire. The Byzantine and Eastern Empires lasted for almost a thousand more years.
The Western Roman Empire failed because of the inability to field legions large enough to defend against the continual onslaught of invading hordes.
Why? Because Rome had become so decadent, riddled with disease, famine and debauchery that the Romans lost the will to defend themselves. Eighty percent of the population had migrated to the Eastern Empire and those remained had become "pacifists" who wanted the available money ,that was in short supply despite increased taxation, be spent on roads, aqueducts and public housing. The army that was 3 million strong dwindled to less than 500 thousand.
Not only had the Romans become "pacifists" but they were witness to political corruption, debauchery and the number of prostitutes in Rome at the time of its' fall was 32,000! People ate and drank until they became ill, and their favorite pastime was to go to the Colosseum to watch people kill each other all day long. In short they were a society that decayed from within.
Some unnamed philosopher once said, " Civilizations don't die. They commit suicide"!
The way the leaders of this great country are acting makes me wonder if we are trying to emulate the Roman Empire.
A few of the absurd items in the News these past few days make me wonder if we have lost our way?
Troops in Iraq about to go into battle are given a card with rules of engagement made up by military lawyers with no combat experience that tell the troops: "Use minimum force necessary to decisively eliminate the threat". If this is not ambiguous enough and confusing to our troops let me remind you that all the junior officers have already spent months in a camp in the United States that emphasizes that weapons are not always the best way to win a war. Shoot first or be killed seems to be put behind "think about it before you pull the trigger". We can expect more body bags with this kind of logic running our fighting forces. Where are the Modern day Pattons' when we need them?
On the Home front Senator Feingold and Congressman Conyers are doing their best to make it impossible to identify terrorists in all forms of law enforcement including federal, state and local. They are pushing for a law which would make it a crime to imply any kind of profiling in identifying suspected terrorists. Who do they think the 19 terrorists were who pulled off 9/11? A group of seventy year old men from the Knights of Columbus?
FBI agents are forced to take a "sensitivity training" course that is being taught by members of CAIR. Some of whose members have been charged with crimes!
The Secretary of the Treasury has hired an advisor on Islamic banking. He is legitimating a fraud by doing so. Islam had no banking until 1975 when Saudi Arabia had so many petrodollars it had to find investments in the West. Prior to this Islam was dictated by the Quran that bans interest as "usury".
A recent poll by the Islamic Society of North America found that by 3-1 Muslims in the U.S. believe we are waging a war with their Islamic religion! When will the American people wake up to the threat? Will it be in time or will we be so weak we quit the fight for our God given rights and values?