The Greek Olympiad was quite professional, and lasted for over a thousand years.

I was countering your point that the Roman Empire is “overrated”. That’s right up there with your ludicrous claims that the Founding Fathers were atheists.

Anyway I wasn’t even referring to the Roman Empire; I was referring to the citizen soldiers of the Roman Republic. The United States of America is a Republic, we are not an Empire. There is no Emperor, we extract no taxes from foreign colonies or provinces.

You are confused because we are a Superpower. Not the same thing; not the same thing at all. We do not conquer and take territories in the name of the USA; but we DO liberate the oppressed. George Bush liberated millions during his time in office. Try to get your head around that.

Balconesfault:

The Olympics are amatuer, my point was professional sporting events. Anyway NASCAR outdid the Modern Olympics in the first 25 years of it’s 53 year history; never mind going back to professional chariot racing’s 600+ year continual history in ancient times.

Um, the Mashall Plan? The Free Trade regime? Most empires do their best to milk the provinces, even if in the long run they spend more on their military to hold territories in subjugation than they make off tribute. The US not only rebuilt its enemies after WWII but threw open its economy to all comers. Yes, this tended to reward foreign elites (latest beneficiaries: the Communist Party of China) not the great mass if people, but the point is that the reward went to people overseas, rather than accruing locally. We have no equivalent of the Roman provincial governors who amassed fortunes by essentially stealing everything in their provinces not nailed down or red hot, then spent lavishly on bread and baths and circuses to protect their popularity at home, and their good name for the ages.

ERe: Conservative Catholics, for instance, are often pretty clear that there is an overall political template for society that has the earthly Church somewhere near the top.

Well, yes, you can find the occasional odd theologian (or self-justifying ruler) who will claim to find a template for worldly affairs somewhere in the Christian faith, but these efforts have never been widely accepted. There have been multiple such systems over the centuries: from the “God-guarded” city of Constantinople, to Holy Mother Russia, to Innocent III’s grandiose claims, to Calvin’s theocracy in Geneva, to the propagandists for absolute monarchy, to the assorted Dominionists and Reconstructionists in the US today. None of this gained permanent and universal credence, in the same way that all Confucianists agree about the proper conduct of the state and all Muslims see a caliphate as the proper (if perhaps only eschatological now) governance of Islam.