It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => History => Topic started by: whimsicalmamapig on October 27, 2013, 06:38:21 PM
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I am growing weary of those who compare the ancient Roman Empire to America. The facts just do not support the comparison on any but surface coincidences.
From its start, Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder. It absorbed its conquered foe, romanized their government and utilized the assets to support Roman society.
I know a comparison could be made with the infiltration of our businesses into almost every corner of the globe and the dispersal of our troops after WWII in many strategic locations, but we, as a nation, did not invade to confiscate land or plunder, rather we stayed only to restore and renovate and then turn over control back to the locals. Our dispersal of troops was the result of our defense of our ideology against the threat of communism.
Our system of a federal republic that attempted to assure a government of the people, by the people and for the people was created by men wanting to free themselves from tyranny.
Rome was the result of a growing oligarchy, needing land and wealth and using its military as a means to that end. The roman army was rarely used as a defensive force. The roman senate was an oligarchy that only represented the needs of that class, slaves being the main source of labor and free citizens having, originally, little impact on the decisions of government.
If anything, our citizen soldiers have far more in common with the Greek hoplite than a roman legionnaire.
The structure of the Roman Empire was an ever developing bureaucracy needed to keep the vast empire in coordination. In the end, it was the bureaucracy that was the last remnant of the empire that allowed Europe to continue its evolution after the slow death of the empire.
In America, it is the growth of a useless bureaucracy, whose purpose is to consolidate power into a smaller, more compact entity, (the federal government) away from the dispersed yet functioning states. This is the opposite of the direction taken by Rome.
As to the growing underclasses, it is true that both Rome and America created a large, unusable underclass, Rome by jobbing out the work to the citizens of their conquered states and the US by some misadventure in socialism and bleeding heart liberalism (add white guilt to that, noting that the romans felt no guilt about anything)
Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.
We are experiencing the opposite by the consolidation of power and control to DC and our decline in trade is due to decisions made by the federal government by trade agreements and tariffs.
The ultimate ends may be similar or not, but we are not Rome even though I could think of several emperors I could compare to Obama. Our military is not the brutish attack dog that was the roman legions, and there is very little about innate roman culture that would be comparable to us except for our affinity to trade and commerce and one heck of a large tax system.
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We are not Rome, although we are becoming a 'gladiator' entertainment culture of death. Pax Romana is a lesson for us as it pertains to the downfall of an empire and what comes after. After Rome came the muslim horde, initiating the Dark Ages. Once Pax Americana is gone, once the stabilizing influence that is the US that keeps the world running fairly smooth is no longer, a newer and more harsh Dark Ages will befall us. And an old problem will resurface, the muslim horde trying to stamp on humanity their 7th Century values. There is simply no country in the world who can take our place, or at least one we can trust. Would I trust a Pax China? Not hardly. And Britain's (or Europe's for that matter) best days are behind them. At this time, we are the last best hope for this planet. At least we were until Barry #occupied the White House.
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I agree that there are many surface similarities gladiator/football bread and circuses, but the down fall of rome had nothing to do with islam as the "official end of the roman empire in the west" (remember it continued another 1000 years in its eastern doppleganger) was 476 ad and Mohamed was born med 600's ad.
the "dark ages" weren't really that dark, we refer to it as dark because there is a dirth of information, hence the darkness, but there was the beginning genesis of western culture going on thanks to the remnants of roman bureaucracy and the rise of Christianity.
we are comfortable living in the end result of the western cultural evolution, of which we are the final chapter, and imagining all of western civilization trying to accommodate into a far eastern or Islamic cultural milieu is causing much angst among those who see what is happening, but the majority of the horde, like the citizens of rome before the gothic invasions, do not see what is happening.
our solution to this problem will not be "roman" but if citizens who understand the founding fathers do not gain control of this ship soon, we should all become used to being a subservient society.
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I am growing weary of those who compare the ancient Roman Empire to America. The facts just do not support the comparison on any but surface coincidences.
I disagree. Rome started as a Republic, and went through the same stages of decay we are seeing. Yes, They grew by Military conquest and violent plunder. They also grew by trade. The US grew (as the British Empire did) by trade as well, and our far reach in this world, with military bases in nearly every allied country ( and many only tentatively so) is largely because of our Military participation in world wars. The US has NOT been a peaceful nation. I don't mean that as a condemnation, but simply as a fact. As much as Pacifism and isolationism may have suited and benefited us, you just can't be the biggest kid in the schoolyard and get away with that. Yes Rome may have been more aggressive about it, but I don't think that makes them fundamentally different - and the number of wars fought for Rome increased and the republic failed and became corrupt. You know, just like we are seeing here now.
The Goals of the Roman senate as established were not to create an oligarchy- human nature did that. The founders saw that, and tried to do it one better.
Not sure what you mean by ", it is the growth of a useless bureaucracy, whose purpose is to consolidate power into a smaller, more compact entity, (the federal government) away from the dispersed yet functioning states. This is the opposite of the direction taken by Rome." Rome also consolidated power away from the City States it was contrived from.
Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.
This only happened to the degree that communication was impossible. Anything that could be controlled from Rome was, and client states requested resources and Men from Rome..
The ultimate ends may be similar or not, but we are not Rome even though I could think of several emperors I could compare to Obama. Our military is not the brutish attack dog that was the roman legions, and there is very little about innate roman culture that would be comparable to us except for our affinity to trade and commerce and one heck of a large tax system.
We are very much like Rome before the emperors. Obama is attempting to cross the Rubicon now. Our Army is the formidable one in the world ( were we to give them rules of engagement that would let them do their jobs) Saudi Arabia is demanding they be used as attack dogs for them right now in fact, and Obama tried to oblige. Rome was a western civilization like ours and we have more in common with them than you might think, especially since our Founders formed this country with the Roman Republic very much on their mind. Point is that history doesn't repeat, it rhymes. No we are not exactly like Rome. But I don't see that we are unlike Rome in anyway that would be meaningful to providing us a different fate than what Rome suffered.. other than the fact WE ARE ARMED. I can only hope it makes all the difference.
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My understanding is that they had a short period (11 years) between Julius and Augustus, in which the republic tried to re-establish itself. It failed, obviously, and Augustus ruthlessly killed those who had tried to restore the republic.
I fear that I DO see MANY similarities. Certainly there are some differences, but they appear minor to me. Obama-Nero is fiddling as we speak.......the original Nero blamed Christians and began a great persecution that continued even beyond his reign. I am not confident that we shall have even the 11 years, after Obama Ceasar is finished with us.
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I guess I'll add to your weariness, I think there are plenty of comparisons to Rome, as Weisshaupt recapped quite well. And Romans in their early years very moral and family-oriented...and when those morals began to erode so did their society...not unlike what we see in America today. And the Dark Ages were called dark because outside of isolated monasteries the world was feudal, subsistance-oreinted and hard...much of the knowledge of Rome and its engineering expertise went dormant...not awakened until the Renaissance. We are not Rome, but there are too many similarities to dismiss out of hand.
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I've seen it said that history doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme with itself
I'm also in the similar to Rome school.
Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder
I'd say that is exactly what we have been doing since the Korean War
If anything, our citizen soldiers have far more in common with the Greek hoplite than a roman legionnaire.
At the risk of offending some here,we don't have a citizen army.
That ended with the draft.
We have mercenaries. The volunteer army is just hired guns.
They are used for every purpose except defending our national interest.
We are an occupying force with bases all over the world
From its start, Rome was a culture that expanded its wealth and power by war and plunder
Manifest Destiny? Westward expansion?
Trade was essential to both empires, but roman trade was curtailed by invading hordes from the east, requiring its client states to fend for themselves with less regularly maintained trade routes and the dispersal of power away from Rome/Ravenna to the outlying provincial capitals.
Our foreign policy is to defend the petro dollar. And to benefit the multi national corps.
That's enough offending for this post.
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I think comparisons to Rome can be made precisely because our Founders looked to Rome for inspiration.
In setting up their own republic, the American Founders looked to the Roman Republic as a model for what they should be and to the Roman Empire embodied by Caesar as a portent of what they feared the republic could become. Americans feared that liberty was fragile and that the republic could be undone by the ambition of one man.
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While the example of Sparta inspired some of the American Founders, the history of Athens troubled them. Athens was a democracy, the Athenian Assembly being made up of every adult male in the city. But Greek democracy often led to demagoguery. For every virtuous Pericles produced by the Athenian assembly there was a conniving Alcibiades. The problem was so great that the custom of ostracism was invented, in which a man deemed dangerous to the city was sent away in permanent exile. Democratic Athens, Americans knew well, executed Socrates and grew into an empire that tyrannized its neighbors.
Americans were, however, influenced quite a bit by one Romanized Greek thinker. They read the Hellenistic historian Polybius’ description of the ideal government, which was a mixed one, combining elements of the three general types of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—the rule of the one, the few, and the many. The problem according to Polybius was that these forms inevitably degenerated over time into, respectively, tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule.
Polybius’ ideas were adapted and expounded upon by Roman thinkers, like Livy, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Cicero. It was primarily these Roman authors that fired the American imagination in the attempt to resurrect republicanism. Thomas Jefferson called Tacitus “the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example.” John Dickinson owned a copy of Tacitus’ Germania and praised the Roman as “that excellent historian and statesman…whose political reflections are so justly and universally admired.” The challenge for republicanism, according to the Renaissance humanist Niccolo Machiavelli, was to break the cycle of decay that Polybius had identified.
Americans thus turned to the proper structure of society and government as the solution to republican longevity. Republics—whether of the Ancient Greek, Renaissance Italian, or early Roman variety—had traditionally been small in size. It was an axiom that republicanism, if it could work at all, could only work in a relatively small area, where the customs, manners, and habits of the people were uniform. After all, these things are what unites people. James Madison famously addressed this concern in Federalist 10. Madison acknowledged that “faction,” defined as a group—whether in the minority or majority—that seeks to oppress the rest of the citizenry for its own benefit, would inevitably arise in republics. The cure, Madison said, was not to destroy liberty by trying to give all the citizens of a republic “the same opinions, the same passions, the same interests,” but rather “to extend the sphere” of the republic—to expand its geographic borders—so as to encompass so many groups of diverse interests that no one can dominate the others. “Extend the sphere,” Madison wrote, “and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”
link (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2013/04/the-american-republic-and-the-long-shadow-of-rome.html)
There, in the struggle of Roman civilization against barbarism within and without, is our own struggle; through Rome’s problems of biological and moral decadence signposts rise on our road today; the class war of the Gracchi against the Senate, of Marius against Sulla, of Caesar against Pompey, of Antony against Octavian, is the war that consumes our interludes of peace; and the desperate effort of the Mediterranean soul to maintain some freedom against a despotic state is an augury of our coming task. De nobis fabula narratur: of ourselves this Roman story is told.
link (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/01/will-we-learn-from-rome.html)
But as we all know, the republican spirit of incorporation disappeared rapidly once Cato the Elder got his way and the ancient (and perhaps useful) enemy was no more. It is a commonplace that the Roman Republic was ruined by success, both in the Punic Wars and in the East (Macedon, Parthia, etc.). It is more appropriate to say that the harm was done by the form of that achievement, and by the time that it required. External pressure had been necessary to the development of a balanced constitution and a cohesive interdependence of the classes, a community of older (patrician) and newer (plebeian) families.[20] Yet, contrary to many authorities, this dependence was in itself nothing ominous or unusual. Some of it is visible in the history of every healthy nation—an oblique proof that enemies can motivate a people to perform their best. Instead, the real problems were (1) removal of the Roman armies from the category of citizen-soldiers into the classification of full-time military professionals; (2) the consequent decline of home agriculture and village life; (3) the growth of large slave-operated, absentee-owned estates; (4) the large concentration of wealth in a new group of imperial managers and international traders; (5) a great dependence on foreign food and the skills of educated foreigners; (6) a sharp decline in character among the plebeians of the city—the emergence of a useless, dishonorable proletariat. Without a rural nursery for virtue or a necessary role for all citizens, and with Romans in the army detached (and almost in exile) from the motherland, the ground had been cut from under the institutions of the old Republic.[21] Add to these harbingers of disaster the decline of the official Roman religion and the concomitant “passion for words flowing into the city,” the foreign rituals and forms of speculation, and we can understand why old Cato drove out strange priests and philosophers.[22]
link (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/05/teaching-for-republicans-roman-history.html)
There are days and, then, there are days.
In 1948, T.S. Eliot assumed that western civilization moved inexorably toward a new dark age. “We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline,” he lamented. “The standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity.”
One can only shake his head in wonder and bewilderment at what Eliot might write in 2012.
link (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/05/new-dark-age-decline-of-western-civilization.html)
Dr. Birzer asks in A New Dark Age (http://new-dark-age-decline-of-western-civilization)What if the founding of America was the highpoint of western civilization? What if it served as the end of an era, the culmination of all that came before it, rather than the beginning of a new era? In our understandable American patriotism, we call it a “founding.” What if it’s really an “ending.”
Interesting.
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Excellent post LV!
Much of that echoes with my recollection of all my readings of the Founders and the Founding. ::thumbsup::
Many of the Founders knew more than one language and many read Tacitus in Latin and the classics in their original Greek.
And to borrow that Madisonian idea of "extending the sphere" no longer works...there is no frontier...we've been beating at the wall of the sphere and like an over-extended Rome when the fiat/debt kabuki ends the sphere will collapse like air rushing out of a balloon.
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Thank you for this Lady V.
What if the founding of America was the highpoint of western civilization? What if it served as the end of an era, the culmination of all that came before it, rather than the beginning of a new era? In our understandable American patriotism, we call it a “founding.” What if it’s really an “ending
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Another point to ponder...toward the end even Rome's mighty Emperor's had a hard time keeping the masses happy...as more and more wealth became more concentrated in fewer hands and the middle class became more and more squeazed...there was just the few haves at the top, the well tended Praetorians and bureaucrats tended to...and scraps for the rest...
At some point the free shyt runs out and the treasury is bled dry and the jig is up.
Not unlike our own path to ruin.
Our growing underclass...thanks to suicidal progressive insanity...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-28/29-uncomfortable-truths-about-soaring-poverty-america (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-28/29-uncomfortable-truths-about-soaring-poverty-america)
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there has been quite a bit of revision as to our understanding of the decline of the roman empire since Gibbons. I am currently re-reading "the Inheritance of Rome" by Chris Wickham, penguin books, that details the history of the areas that once comprised the roman empire from 500 - 1000 ad. there have been many new archeological studies that have shed new light on what transpired in that period that oppose the traditional ideas of the "dark ages". again, the term dark ages was a name given to the time because of the lack of info about it, not the lack of intellectual activity or commerce specifically.
If you give this book a browse you will understand how a comparison of America to rome is really inapplicable. we share only a similarity because of the size of our economic impact and the size and our legitimately superior military ability. as to the nature of the creation of our 2 cultures, the aspirations of our 2 cultures and the causes of the decline of them, they are really quite dissimilar despite how easy a superficial analogy can be made with just surface info, not the deep understanding of the 2 cultures based on the more boring facts and figures of the 2 cultures.
I hold firm on my belief that we will not gain much insight into the plight of our own predicament by incorrect comparisons to rome. It is much like the use of the term Spartan. The 3rd brigade combat team of the 10th mountain division uses the Spartans as their official brigade logo. My business would make plaques and awards for them and we would place the Spartan iconography on much of their products but if they had read Victor Davis Hanson's summation of just what the Spartans were truly about, these brave young americans would have rejected them entirely, but a few good stories about Sparta has made many feel that the Spartans should be emulated. the same goes with rome, we are not them.
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If you give this book a browse you will understand how a comparison of America to rome is really inapplicable. we share only a similarity because of the size of our economic impact and the size and our legitimately superior military ability.[/url]
and that our republic was designed with the failures of the former in mind, which seem to be failures in "self government' and the vices that men then and now are prey to.
as to the nature of the creation of our 2 cultures, the aspirations of our 2 cultures and the causes of the decline of them, they are really quite dissimilar despite how easy a superficial analogy can be made with just surface info, not the deep understanding of the 2 cultures based on the more boring facts and figures of the 2 cultures.
Without some idea as to what specific differences between the cultures you feel invalidate the analogy, its hard to really agree or disagree with your assessment.
I think most of us find the analogy holds because the vices of men have not changed, nor am I convinced that the Republic of Rome was formed with the goal of creating an Oligarchy, or ubiquitous centralized control. It was a pact made or share mutual costs, just as our was, or the compact of the Iroquois Nations.
I don't think there is anything in Roman culture that made them more vulnerable to vice, or anything in ours that makes us less vulnerable. The specific nature of what was considered vice, and what wasn't , may differ, but I am not convinced its a relevant difference. It seems the same forces, the same lust, the same human failings, that corrupted their government and culture and are producing the same result in ours.
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I guess without reading the book Mama referenced it is difficult to assess the comparison from that perspective. Interesting discussion though.
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I think we romanticize (pardon the pun) what the romans were, the egalitarian political system that is compared to us was only for wealthy "senatorial" families and not for the poor schlub working the farm. The creation of the roman republic was not to insure the rights of all as much as system of government needed as a result of the Latins subduing their neighbors on the peninsula. They occupied first the peninsula and afterward the Mediterranean basin not so much with the manifest destiny of our forefathers crossing the continent allowing free men to grow and prosper but as the result of their original conflicts with Carthage which was going to "eat their lunch" if the romans didn't conquer them first.
The romans were cruel and selfish in their motivations and their concept of a republic was a pale imitation of the greek polis.
The concept of the citizen soldier, the militia, is truly more greek than roman and the voice of each man, who understood the obligation of freedom was the obligation to fight for that freedom is much more us than rome. we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we are rome, but we must not disabuse ourselves of the idea that power corrupts. that is where I will agree, we are failing because of corruption, not because we are like rome, but because we are less like our founding fathers.
to say otherwise is to excuse our failing and lay it at the feet of determinism as an explanation for that failure.
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We are not Rome, but we are burning.
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If one is looking for linear one-for-one comparisons between one group of people of one era, sure, things can break down, but I don't think anyone here is going to that depth, it is pointless to do so anyway because what does fit and what can be compared between us and them is at the larger macro level. What impels those macro forces may be different but the consequences those decisions create is not. To say "we are not Rome" is akin to saying "we are not Romulans", sure, that is obvious, but people can find common threads, denying that those common threads do not exist or saying that since "we are not them" we by default are better and therefore it is impossible for us to suffer their fate if we commit the same mistakes is intellectually dishonest and means we have no need of history because there is absolutely nothing we can learn from it simply because we are not them.
I have no romantic vision of Rome or any other state of any era (save perhaps our Founding era), the Romans were both brilliant, ingenious and admirable as well as ruthless, devious and murderous. At the same time I have no romantic notion of modern man, we are not superior to our predecessors...we may have impressive technology and spectacular feats and accomplishments...but I am under no illusions that mean, vile and vicious people cannot rise and oppress and terrorize people. Witness Muslim fanaticism, Communist totalitarianism and Fascist despotism of our modern era.
We are not Rome. True. We are both different and similar, better in some cases, worse in others.
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you make a good point, LIbertas, but in essence, it can be a dangerous fatalism to begin to believe that we will follow in the path of rome because of how much we are similar to it and that could forestall actions needed to prevent the fall. I don't think we need to go that way, and to proffer that comparison may be to pre-ordain it.
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you make a good point, LIbertas, but in essence, it can be a dangerous fatalism to begin to believe that we will follow in the path of rome because of how much we are similar to it and that could forestall actions needed to prevent the fall. I don't think we need to go that way, and to proffer that comparison may be to pre-ordain it.
Empires rise and empires fall. That is the lesson of Rome. No matter how powerful and unassailable from the outside you become, you are vulnerable to yourself and your own weaknesses.
I don't feel fatalism about my nation because it is in some way similar or dissimilar to Rome. My fatalism is based entirely in Math, and the unassailable ignorant arrogance of the so called "ruling class" - They are determined to plunge us over the fiscal cliff, no matter what, in order to get a few more months of power, a few more minutes of lavish lifestyle. Nero Fiddled while Rome Burned -- its a well known phrase in our language because it has played out that way again and again in country after country, with ruling class after ruling class. Its a truism of power, no matter who wields the power.
There are no longer actions that can be used to stop this fall. At least not peaceful actions. The political solutions are off the table because 1/2 of the country have been brainwashed, indoctrinated (http://www.infowars.com/school-test-teaches-kids-commands-of-government-officials-must-be-obeyed-by-all/)and otherwise convinced that People are the property of the state. That "the Wants of an Individual are less important than the well being of the nation" as that grammar assignment suggests. "Gemeinnutz geht vor eigennutz"
These people will not recognize the rights of others to live free. They think of the State as their master , and not as a servant. We are the servants, and they will make us get in line. There is no negotiation, no live and let live. They wish to battle to the death over it, and we will at length be forced to oblige them or accept their chains. For we have seen the movie before. IN Rome, In the British Empire,IN the French Revolution, in China, in Russia, and so on. We know how it has ended every time but one. And that one has the hands of God all over it. We will do what we must, but History does not lend us encouragement. If it is to happen again, it will be with God's providence or not at all.
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And that's the name of that tune. Rome/not Rome is not the point.
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you make a good point, LIbertas, but in essence, it can be a dangerous fatalism to begin to believe that we will follow in the path of rome because of how much we are similar to it and that could forestall actions needed to prevent the fall. I don't think we need to go that way, and to proffer that comparison may be to pre-ordain it.
I do not dispute that, but I ascribe not to fatalism but to realism, the actions required to do so, if one is to be a realist to the level of threat to freedom we face on fronts almost too numerous to enumerate, those actions must be implemented now, it is my sober belief that time is desperately short to salvage the situation. I cannot in good conscious tell people we have time, a decade let alone two or three, to remedy the perilous situation we are in. It seems as if we are a heartbeat away from a situation that is a combination of the period before Caesar crossing the Rubicon, the period before our Civil War and the period before Breton Woods.
IMHO the quickest way to salvage things is for people of reason and intellect in the nation to peacefully agree to an equitable partitioning of the nation. Obviously this is rife with political problems in a point in time where people are so politically polarized. But it is the solution that makes the most sense and avoids all the other entanglements. But nobody is discussing it openly and honestly. We are in this phony war phase where people on both sides are in denial that there is a problem that severe requiring an action that decisive and permanent. I think people thinking that way are fools and are ensuring that a non-peaceful resolution is all but guaranteed. What form that takes is up for debate...continued Federal dominance and imperialization of the executive branch until a dictatorship exists in practical effect or a second civil war that settles the issue to the detriment of one side or the other.
The other event that may overwhelm us and spin things out of control and result in full state tyranny and resistance to it is economic collapse. To think we can continue to print fiat currency, create bubble markets, prop up debt and keep piling on more with deficit spending and avoid a Zimbabawe type nightmare and trigger a larger global collapse and risk real shooting wars is to pre-ordain disaster. Something will fill a vacuum, people may not like it, but it cannot be denied.
We've boxed ourselves into a nearly inescapable corner, the ways out are not pretty, picking the right exit with the least amount of resultant harm should be the focus of our leaders.
Our leaders are not facing realities. Is that my fault? No. Is it yours? No. Is it ours? Damn right it is.
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Here are 2 mp3 files from a talk given by author and social critic Oz Guinness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Guinness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Os_Guinness)) entitled ‘Can Freedom Last Forever?’ Last semester my 16 year old daughter, a junior) submitted a term paper, for which I helped assemble sources, on the Christian roots of the founding of the United States. We used material from Oliver DeMille (http://oliverdemille.com/ (http://oliverdemille.com/)), Mr. Guinness & David Barton (WallBuilders http://www.wallbuilders.com/ (http://www.wallbuilders.com/)) She received an A- on the paper & a B+ for its oral defense in class.
Oz’s main point is that freedom’s greatest enemy is…freedom: given that we can do anything we desire, we ignore the signs and have given up on the “eternal vigilance" part of the necessary maintenance of our freedoms.
Part 1 - http://www.divshare.com/download/24704065-18e (http://www.divshare.com/download/24704065-18e) Part 2 - http://www.divshare.com/download/24704067-d15 (http://www.divshare.com/download/24704067-d15) (approx. 26 minutes each, from RZIM)
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Our leaders are not facing realities. Is that my fault? No. Is it yours? No. Is it ours? Damn right it is.
Should the shooting have started forty years ago? Yes. I'll own that, even at twenty. But, other than that, this is not my damn fault.
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Our leaders are not facing realities. Is that my fault? No. Is it yours? No. Is it ours? Damn right it is.
Should the shooting have started forty years ago? Yes. I'll own that, even at twenty. But, other than that, this is not my damn fault.
In a way it is, Pandora. In order for us to take our beloved country back, we need to face reality, that our government, is greedy and corrupt. The reason why this country is going downhill, is that POS in the Whitehouse, is using and exploiting our weaknesses against us. For example, every time a shooting in a school happens, what does he do?, try to push gun control laws.
Another prime example, when a celebrity comes out of the closet, Gay marriage seems the deal of the day. and it goes on and on. He does this to distract us from the real issues, that get swept under the rug.
What did the leaders in Rome do? They distracted the populace, by having games in the Coliseum, to hide their own deviousness.
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I never make any mistakes in hindsight.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda don't matter.
I'm guessing that 20 years ago that most of us were heady about the Reagan Revolution and the end of the Cold War which we won. (Maybe)
Quite possibly most of us weren't considering the flagrant corruption of both parties.
Ten years ago, we were still basking in prosperity from the bubbles and, in general, supported GW Bush. There was probably some stuff we didn't like but we accepted it.
All we had to do was vote in better politicians.
From what I can tell, most of us here started to realize 5 years ago that we were really screwed.
Maybe not this group, but Americans in general are greedy and corrupt.
Most have the political leadership we want and choose.
We have chosen to be ignorant and willing to be bribed with government largesse which was stolen from our neighbors.
No, our politicians aren't to blame.
We are
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What did the leaders in Rome do? They distracted the populace, by having games in the Coliseum, to hide their own deviousness.
Its our Media that are the real traitors - refusing to do their jobs and report the news, and instead following their leftist agenda to engineer it.
Its their job to keep the frog in the pot and happy till the water boils and they do it willingly. The School teachers do the same thing to the children- ensuring they never learn to think for themselves, that they value dependence. We haven't gotten the govt we deserve because they are using human frailness against us, and have been for so many years, that half the population can't recognize freedom, desire it, or even understand why we are willing to die for it.
Democracy only works with an educated populace and the left deprived us of that. That isn't my fault. And is isn't the fault of anyone here. This rot started in the 1880s with the first nationwide effort at public schools. It started with HOW Lincoln won the Civil war and reformed the union. It started with the public election of Senators ( and sorry ladies) women's suffrage. It continued with FDRs Blue Eagle Laws and entitlements, with the Baby Boomers embrace of SSI, and then made worse by Johnson and his great Society programs. By Nixon the dollar was off the gold Standard. I was three then. Does anyone think we weren't full off the rails by then? Reagan was an odd blip, a deliberate pacification perhaps, to lull those awake back to sleep. They own the levers, they controlled the media then - absolutely. There was no internet. You know only what the big three and the NYT told you. Yes, we are getting the govt we deserve, because THEY made these people what they are - deliberately and with malice. .They made them things who willingly admit that "live and let live" is a philosophy they will reject. They are Reavers. Narcissists, Monsters. Sociopaths.
With the public schools, intelligentsia, Labor Unions, Hollywood, journalism and govt all working to at first import and then create and turn out these vermin, these feral humans, at the greatest rate possible and its our fault now in the modern day we cannot stem the tide? No I don't think so. Yes, vigilance may have stopped them- probably did, but then they waited and tried again, after more of their rot had spread in other areas. This battle was fought and lost before we were born. The cancer got its beachhead, and took root, and spread, speaking the fair words of the devil, wearing civility and kindness as its costume. We never had a chance, because our society was so tolerant, because we were so free. Hopefully in the New Republic it will mean a death sentence to suggest the Constitution be understood in any terms but the original, a hanging offense to suggest another mans labor can be confiscated for the "common good of all", and Nullification will be included in the Constitution such that any law nullified by 25% of the states results in the automatic death of all representatives who voted for it, all Jurists who upheld it, and the President who signed it.
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Here's the thing about Rome, and why it is so frequently cited as a cautionary example. Rome was the preeminent power of its day, and for a very long time seemed both militarily and economically invincible. Fast forward to the 20th century, especially the post-WWII era, and the USA enjoys a very similar mythos.
But Rome did crumble away, and that's the point. The same thing can happen to us, and for many of the same reasons.
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We have chosen to be ignorant and willing to be bribed with government largesse which was stolen from our neighbors.
No, our politicians aren't to blame.
We are
No, gawdammnit, "we" are not; they are, and I am NOT part of they.
Do not ascribe the blame to me. I wholeheartedly reject this injustice.
In a way it is, Pandora. In order for us to take our beloved country back, we need to face reality, that our government, is greedy and corrupt.
In no way is it, Tania. I have been struggling against the greed and corruption by not partaking in it and I take no responsibility whatever for those that have succumbed.
Get off of me, y'all; I am not at fault.
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Get off of me, y'all; I am not at fault.
I'm with ya there.
I've been aware of this stuff going on since I was in junior high school ( a few decades ;D). I've been reading and talking and voting about this since I was 18. Back when many conservatives weren't even conservatives and would've thought I was nuts. People made fun of the idea of slippery slope. Well, we're sliding and fast. Phyllis Schfally has been writing about this stuff for decades. Some of her books aren't even in print any more but they stuck with me especially the one she wrote about education. I remember reading that the next thing to worry about after the cold war ended was the rise of terrorism in the 3rd world. Ha! No one wanted to give that credibility.
There were some people concerned about the turn of events in this country long before Reagan but no one was listening.
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Get off of me, y'all; I am not at fault.
The collective “we” is difficult to assimilate when you have been a crusader & a modern day version of Paul Revere via your warning’s, chastisements & sometimes heated arguments with the other side.
Watching & listening to idiot lemmings scream that they want no part of religion, God, conservatism or personal responsibility…in the name of some perverted sense of “freedom” (a condition where one does whatever one wishes, expecting full immunity from the consequences) is maddening.
Psalm 32:9 comes to mind:
9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.
And, because they hoist their lack of understanding upon a banner of pride, faux-sophistication & ignorance of history & the moral law of the creator whom they disavow,
3…the time [has] come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
…and as a result
24 Therefore God [gives] them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Romans 1:24-25
…but to be lumped in with this vermin, when we have stood firm in our conviction & opposition towards cultural & economic perversion is extremely tough to endure, but we know
22 And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
Matthew 10:22
Even so, Lord Jesus…come quickly; my lamp is filled with oil.
(but if I could make a request, just prior to that):
6 Set a wicked man over him,
And let an accuser[a] stand at his right hand.
7 When he is judged, let him be found guilty,
And let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few,
And let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless,
And his wife a widow.
10 Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg;
Let them seek their bread also from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has,
And let strangers plunder his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy to him,
Nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
And in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Psalm 109:6-13
Amen
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Yeah, didn't mean to pick on anybody...I meant "we" in my last post as a collective "we", and in that sense where "we" (the us) went wrong is in trusting politicians. Like many here I thought we hit a stride in the 80's with Reagan that would not lose steam for decades...we were on the up-swing as a nation, we had a leader we could trust and who spoke the truth and in a way we all identified with, we had record numbers of democrats defeated in elections and switching parties...everything was euphoric and appeared unstoppable...
But in the back of our minds, especially as we entered Reagan's second term and began to think about his successor, we knew Bush wasn't the one to take the torch of the Reagan Revolution and carry it forward...(I would have preferred Jack Kemp as I recall)...then we saw how the media pounced with glee on the Iran-Contra thing and what a sideshow that was...once again highlighting the media as enemy, not just democrats and their rotten unionistas...
We voted for Bush because we had no other chance. We may have not known it as the time but the Ruling Class snuck back from under the cracks and made sure their guy got in. Once that happened the betrayal was complete...and once Bush started backsliding on the Reagan Revolution it fell to Congresscritters to hold the line and they had mixed results at best. The brief hope of a return to the Reagan Principles shown a bit with the Contract for America and Newt's ascendancy to Speaker, but eventually the steam ran out and he started cutting deals with Clinton and exposed himself as a Big Govt Republican.
After that we tried Bush II as a palate cleanser from Clintonism...but our Congresscritters seemed to become more feckless and more diluted with Ruling Class asshats....so Bush II ended up a mixed bag.
And here we are.
If "we" failed we failed as far back as 1988. If "we" failed we failed (pick a year) when we didn't pool our resources and buy up media outlets and counter the MFM propaganda. The biggest joy I ever witnessed back then (apart from Reagan pressers and debates) was watching Ollie North turn the tables on the democrat asswipes on the Hill. I thought, damn, if one guy can do that, think what we could do with more exposure and more pulpits to preach from?! I was arguing all throughout the late 80's and 90's (finally giving up in the 00's) for people (you and I) and monied conservatives (like those Club for Growth asswipes) to begin buying outlets. I might as well have torn out my voice box right then and there for all the good it did.
So, some of us did not fail...we may not have succeeded in our goals because others failed to listen and failed to act...so yes the bulk of the blame does belong to those who did not speak, to those who did not act, to those who did not care.
The rest of us can rest with a good conscience, but it doesn't mean by any stretch we are happy with the result and where we are now.
No, our memories are long, our enemies many...I won't forget...to them I say "you better watch your ass!"!
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Some people, Ann Barnhardt comes to mind, would argue that "we" are still to blame for every day that goes by without taking up arms and forcefully removing those who are doing these things to the country.
I don't entirely agree with that assertion, but parts of it resonate enough that I do feel some sense of guilt about the fact that all we really do is rail against this garbage in our online fury.
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Some people, Ann Barnhardt comes to mind, would argue that "we" are still to blame for every day that goes by without taking up arms and forcefully removing those who are doing these things to the country.
I don't entirely agree with that assertion, but parts of it resonate enough that I do feel some sense of guilt about the fact that all we really do is rail against this garbage in our online fury.
I certainly agree with that as a serious solution to a situation gone so far awry that the public officials basically laugh whenever the word “Constitution” comes up. I have offered up many a seriously worded prayer along the lines of Psalm 109: 6-13 for the demise of certain political figures (along the lines of “not my will but Yours…but I’d sure appreciate it if those mocking You could be permanently silenced").
Interestingly...when I'm at a NJ2AS meeting...few visitors (usually local pols) like discussing the fact that the 2nd Amendment not only guarantees the keeping & bearing of arms..
...but the discharging of same in the face of tyranny.
#SecondAmendmentSolutions
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Reading a book on leadership that references, among others, Andy Stanley (son of Charles Stanley):
"Leaders provide a mental picture of a preferred future and then ask people to follow them there"
...we certainly are not heading towards a "preferred" future.
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I am sorry , Pandora. I feel a lot of the problem is too, is term limits, also bait and switch(Obama Care Act comes to mind). I think it is human nature for most people to worry about what personal issues, close to home, rather than the big picture.
For example, I have no children, therefore no schools to worry about, however, when someone goes into a school, and kills people, the consequences, affects us all.
The freeloaders don't give a shyt, as long as they get their free stuff, and they are going to vote for the person, who gives it to them...
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It's okay, Tania, no offense taken and none intended. I get passionate, but not often angry. (Though, I admit, sometimes it reads as angry.)
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It's okay, Tania, no offense taken and none intended. I get passionate, but not often angry. (Though, I admit, sometimes it reads as angry.)
That's the big problem with internet communications. No face, no voice inflections, just words that sometimes get misinterpreted.