A short Story -- The rise and fall of an empire

A short Story

The rise and fall of an empire

A beautiful evening in Alexandria, in a famous restaurant on the sounds of light music, I overheard an interesting discussion between three guests on a table next to me; it was about the controversial phones tabbing by the U.S. administration revealed by Edward Snowden. I was extensively tempted to participate in the debate, but at the last minute decided to write this short story that will indicate what I wanted to tell them, hoping one day they will read it.  

Empires have risen when wise men talked people into uniting together forming a more powerful union and ruling them selves by means of freedom and democracy, forming an elected body of administration, vested enough power to guard their safety and welfare, but not enough power to oppress them.

By these arrangements an empire was on the rise; but as time goes by individuals start to reap the rewards of freedom and democracy in a growing financial stature, and as their position grow stronger, their belief in the fundamentals of freedom and democracy grow weaker, forgetting that values were the direct reason of their progress, they start backing up the administration.   

And soon the administration discovers that they are doing a very difficult job protecting those pezzonovanti(s), and start asking for more powers to facilitate their job by monitoring and  sometimes arresting some people suggesting they pose a threat.

Strangely enough, the people, manipulated by those pezzonovanti(s), accept, knowing that as rich and strong as they became, the administration cannot harm them; giving up the ideals that made their fortune in the first place. Forgetting about what the founding fathers have stated more than two hundred years ago that in a society under the form of which the stronger faction can unite to oppress the weaker faction, anarchy is said to rule.  And suddenly everything falls in line; exceptionalism, talent, geniuses start to evade, as they have evaded under the Nazi. Soon an empire starts falling, because the nation is contradicting the very fundamental principles that made their progress.