[SeekAndFind]

The late Roman Republic had the equivalent of our “Swamp,” which it called the Senate. While ostensibly there were balancing powers of influence, such as the assemblies, two Consuls (a split executive office with a term of one year) and, occasionally, the appointment of a temporary Dictator, the reality is that the Senate, made up of the richest and most powerful citizens, ran the Republic. Even when one of the assemblies or one of the Consuls seemed to be ascendant, it was the senators calling most of the shots through their relationships with the state officials, familial connections to this or that general, and their control of the purse strings.

So, you have a body of rich and powerful citizens having ostensibly limited power through the visible levers of government, but actually exercising real power through the connections, relationships, and shared ideology of the apparatchiks in the bureaucracy, the opinion makers, and those who indoctrinate the youth who always act as the frontline shock troops. Sound familiar?

Things have changed a lot in 2,000 years, but the nature of man…not so much. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As with most things today, political changes happen faster than they did in the past.

It took 100 years—from Gracchus’s emergence on the Roman stage until Augustus’s ascendance—for Rome to transform from a republic to an empire. It has taken less than 20 years since Barack Obama promised to “fundamentally transform” America for the country to change from a functioning but imperfect republic into a farce of a country characterized by a banana-republic-level tyranny.

[fireman15]

Great essay. And your summary is excellent.

[trebb]

And - as a 9th grade history teacher pointed out in the 60s, the Roman Empire started going downhill around the same time they started the Dole to support musicians and other artists...when folks didn’t have to be productive to “earn a living” things went downhill.

[spintreebob]

“In 100 yeafs” “America much faster”

Uh US has been around for almost 250 years. How is that “faster” than 100 years?