[Avoiding_Sulla]

I found this account well worth the read.

It left me wondering if the review was written by a moderate resigned to the fate he sees coming but dares not predict. If so, perhaps he's laying out the fate of moderates in the hopes that the extremists will have mercy on him because he helped becalm their adversaries, whichever side lost.

[dp0622]

“No country was ever saved by good men,” Horace Walpole once observed, “because good men will not go to the length that may be necessary.”///

No fears. I’m not a good man and I’m on your side :)

[9thLife]

gawd I just read your profile. Pretty prescient.

[sauropod]

read

[central_va]

The Roman Republic had to change if it was going to endure. That insight escaped the wit of the conspirators and their allies. A look at the world today suggests that this is a paradox we neglect at our peril.

The writer is a fascist.

[Billthedrill]

The assassination was, in perspective, also the last act in the Marius vs Sulla war, a war that saw the aristocracy decimated (in the precise sense of the word) and as such highly sensitive to the rise of new autocrats no matter how articulate - he was a superb orator, even by the standards of the time - and militarily brilliant. There was a great deal of backstabbing prior to his return from the Gallic Wars, and had he not brought an army with him he might simply have been killed out of hand. Political wonks like to boast that politics is a blood sport here in 21st-century America, but we’re pussycats compared to those guys.

[Pollster1]

The parallels between the days in which Caesar was assassinated and our times worry me. I am doing what I can (very little) to protect our God-given rights that are supposed to be given legal protection as the "supreme law of the land", but I believe the Bill or Rights is already beyond saving. That makes me sad, but I don't see any other future for Obama's America.

When a decent person faces ten years in prison for possession of an antique pistol in New Jersey, the Second Amendment is dead.

When a wedding photographer, a wedding cake baker, and other individuals are compelled by government force to engage in expressive acts that violate both their religious beliefs and their freedom of speech, the First Amendment is dead.

When individuals are compelled to pay for abortion against their will and in violation of deeply-held religious beliefs or face excessive fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Eighth Amendment is dead.

When most of the Bill of Rights receives as little respect as the above amendments, and when promising to find ways around these fundamental protections automatically gathers nearly 50% of the vote, America is facing a clear and present danger. We can hope to delay the reckoning until decent Americans are ready, but I am not convinced that the trend is in our direction. In any case, that reckoning is inevitable. We can, perhaps, influence the timing; nothing more. I am not convinced that the America emerging on the other side of that transition will be better. I am, however, certain that it will be different in unpredictable ways.

No doubt, the transition will be far worse for America's domestic enemies than it is for patriots. That is no comfort to me. I don't wish them ill. I just wish they would develop a sense of morality and self-reliance.

[Jacquerie]

If you haven't read Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, I think you would enjoy it.

Dictators Necessary to Keep Free Republics

[Sherman Logan]

Like Marius and Sulla before him, Caesar was able to control Rome because he controlled the army. His legions were loyal first of all to him, not to Rome.

Quite true.

However, it is simply untrue that Caesar controlled "the army."

He controlled the legions he had led to victory in Gaul. They were superbly trained and intensely loyal to Caesar.

But there were lots and lots of other legions scattered around the empire. Haven't attempted to add them up, but it's probable legions loyal to others outnumbered Caesar's legions, at the start of the war, by 3 or 4 to 1, or more.

Caesar, being a truly great general, bashed around the empire for several years taking out these armies in detail, and adding their defeated soldiers to his own.

[IronJack]

That moderates suffer under most revolutions is borne out by historical characters like the Girondins of France, Alexander Kerensky of Russia, and Shaipur Bakhtiar (and even Hashemi Rafsanjani) of Iran.

It is to our eternal credit that our own Revolution did NOT swing to the extremists, but settled on a manageable middle ground almost from the start.

It is only nowadays that the New Revolution must embrace the extremes, since moderation in the pursuit of liberty is no longer a virtue.