Posted on 08/20/2011 12:25:15 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
"As I walked through the ruins of mighty Rome, I saw not only what 2,000 years has done to them, but what 2,000 more years will do to us. What is left of mighty Rome, is a glimpse into our own mortality." -- Ruins of Rome.
What a terrible thing, Brother, is a civil war. One week your dominion is at peace, the enemy on all borders has been subdued, the army is draining marshes for farmland and repairing fortifications, the Emperor is satisfied, and the Church is expanding; then with one fell blow, one ill-advised order from on high, all is a shambles. One's life is uprooted and overturned, the Empire is on the brink of Schism, and death is all around. One week, within which one day was the turning point, though I would be hard-pressed to determine precisely which day that was, as all seem to run together in an evil blur; and within that day a critical hour, minute, and second. Before which point, if the fatal order had not been issued, all would have remained the same; after which infinitesimal lapse, all is lost, or gained, depending upon the side you are on, and on that side, depending upon whether you are a general who will be allowed to retire peacefully to an estate in Pannonia, or a mud-booted infantryman, in which case it hardly matters on which side you fight, for the end result will be the same either way, and the twenty years service in exchange for retirement, a thick-armed barbarian wife, and two acres of bottomland for a garden are as impossible as Perseus' flight to the sun. A week is all it takes, Brother, for God to create the universe, for civil war to erupt, for a plot of beans to sprout in the summer. A day is all that is needed to watch the gladiator battles in the circus, for a baby to be born. An hour to attend a Communion service, or for that same baby to die. A minute to tell a joke, to say a prayer, to ask forgiveness, to utter a betrayal. A second for a wasp to sting, for an archer to loose an arrow, for a murderer -- or an Emperor -- to snuff out a life. Yet that insignificant period of time is impossible to predict in advance, or its inexorable progress to be stopped, and despite every good intent, that which God has decreed is made manifest, and the wasp stings, and the war erupts. -- Michael Curtis Ford, Gods and Legions, pp 277-278.
More at the link-
The very thought of a civil war should frighten any sane person. Some of my ancestors participated in the last one and were on the loosing side. They chose to pack up and leave because of the intolerable abuse of power following the end of the war. They chose to come to Texas and live in the most harsh unsettle land to be free of that.
Are we there again, I pray that we are not.
The article is worth the read.
“Many have paralleled out survival as a nation and the length of the Roman Empire.”
Cicero described our current welfare state back in his day. Things just don’t change.
So far, despite all the obscene crap going on, we have not come to that. If we get to the point Rome did, of dividing the empire among rival "emporers"(there were four, at one point in time), then yes the issue will be decided by violence.
Obama and Caracalla both spurious born.
The Democrats are our Vandals!
Indeed, I use the Cicero quotes on welfare and the state in my HIST classes for my incoming college Freshmen. They always appear mind-boggled..... =.=
The article is worth the read.
///
certainly true. very profound and thought-provoking.
thank you for posting it.
[The very thought of a civil war should frighten any sane person. ]
I have just written book titled “Surviving Civil War II” Preparing for Economic, Political and Social Collapse”.
The bad news is that civil war is inevitable because the economics of the european welfare state we have embraced are doomed to utter collapse. In fact, as the London riots show, we are already in a civil war, so no need to try and incite one, conservatives are trying to preserve the system not tear it down
The good news is that we shouldn’t go through anything as horrendous as CWI because in part territory has changed to Cyberspace where only virtual beings die.
A big difference too is that the regime cannot count on the military or national guard to do its dirty work (too conservative), and is therefore reduced to using ineffectual proxy armies of illegals, union brownshirts and enviro-anarchists.
Also interesting is that this civil war is also over slavery, but this time it is debt bondage and indentured servituded to support $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities rather than plantation servitude. Inflation is a form of enforced peonage.
Just to be clear, this isn’t a call for war, this is about how you survive physically and financially the chaos that progrssives have been trying to start for decades, all the way back to their Marxist revolutionary roots. I’m just a reporter of the obvious. The progressive utopian system is collapsing on its own, so we don’t have to pick fights, we just have to stay safe and get to the other side.
http://www.futurnamics.com/civilwar.php
I have to agree, however, that a "separation" into a "conservative part" and a "socialist statist part" would not last long since it would not be long until the socialists would be out of money and come whining to the conservatives to "bail them out"...
..no CWII must be a final defeat and banishment of one side or the other or there will never be "peace".
It will be the kind of "peace" without freedom that totalitarians bring...the equal sharing of misery, except for the "leaders"...
...or the peace that real freedom and prosperity brings...the Peace of God.
“The progressive utopian system is collapsing on its own, so we don’t have to pick fights, we just have to stay safe and get to the other side.”
I find this interesting. Can you expand on this, please.
State secession is viable option to redress an overpowering central government and should be discussed OPENLY. It is truly the ONLY thing that really gets FEDGOV™'s attention. Everything else is BS.
It's a republic, if we can keep it.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)
[“The progressive utopian system is collapsing on its own, so we don’t have to pick fights, we just have to stay safe and get to the other side.”
I find this interesting. Can you expand on this, please.]
When I write a book, I have chapter titles and an outline, but after research I’m just as surprised at what pops out as anyone. Two things are going on 1) progressives have always styled themselves as perpetual revolutionaries and 2) the Federal government (read “the welfare state”) is not just a little broke, it is long term completely bankrupt only bringing in 60 cents on the dollar of what it spends.
What this means is that we don’t have to try to start a civil war, it is already baked in the cake, the system is doomed to implode. The Tea Party has made the correct approach, which is to stay sane and legal with clean protests, we aren’t anarchist bomb throwers. But that which cannot be, cannot be, you can’t spend more than you make indefinitely like progressives believe. I think the opportunity for a soft landing is past, so we are headed towards being like Greece. So we are in a civil war by default and there is nothing we can do to stop it now.
That doesn’t mean it is the end of the world, just that you have to pick your strategy like with a dope user. If interventions don’t work, then you have to let them hit bottom and pick up the pieces afterwards. So we are in a holding pattern, waiting for the crash of the Leviathan state.
If you take to the streets now in radical protest and tell people their social security and medicare are going to be chopped, all that will happen is that you will be cut down and labeled a crazy. If you wait about a year or two though, Obamacare, the EPA, etc. will all be in their death throes because money is running out. So your goal is to get through the collapse, there just isn’t any way to stop what is coming, and even if your goal was to burn down the structure (not in the nature of a true conservative by he way) why it is already engulfed in flames.
In the best case, Palin/Perry/Bachmann gets in and has 60 votes in the Senate. That puts us well into 2013 before any legislation makes any change at all. So that means 2014 before any real rebound, and maybe even later.
You see what I’m getting at? Do what you can, we all will, but you have at least two to three years of chaos to survive first and who knows how long after before the country is even slightly back to normal. Don’t stand in the path of Godzilla when it is doing fine tripping over the high tension lines all by itself.
That in itself is not the crime, but a reflection on the parents. What we observe is a reflection of the parents and the offspring. Barry the Bastard came by his bad traits honestly. Commies all, and totally foreign to the fiber of the nation and all free men.
We are as you say already in a War, but it is a war of ideas. Those are the undertow of all wars. No sane person (especially those who have fought in one) wants a war.
This nation was not forged by negotiation. The freedom of this nation was bought with the blood of patriots in a War.
You must exhaust all options before even thinking about a live military conflict. That was done in 1776 with the colonist and the English, they exhausted all options before the conflict.
Did you know that Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776? I recently learned that. Interesting.
Interesting, have you noticed the common traits of Marxists/Dictators/Muslims? None of them can gain power without lies and deception and none can stay in power without repression. It is against human nature to live subjugated. Worst of all it destroys the spirit of men.
...or the peace that real freedom and prosperity brings...the Peace of God.
Agreed. God never meant for man to live in bondage. Jesus said he came that we might live life more abundantly.
Our founders (remember those old dead white guys) understood this well.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. ~Ben Franklin
“Don’t stand in the path of Godzilla when it is doing fine tripping over the high tension lines all by itself.”
Love your imagery.
Good writing, Daxton.
I like seeing new recruits to FR; it flushes out the surrender monkeys who have given up.
You’ve got more balls than a lot of surrender monkeys here on FR.
Semper fi, FRiend.
Roman law...a spurious birth is a child born to a Roman citizen and a non citizen.
OK the child would “not be” a natural born citizen.
Correct?
I thought it meant a “bastard” child.
[We are as you say already in a War, but it is a war of ideas.]
Actually, I came to the conclusion writing my book that that isn’t correct. Their side is killing our side in great numbers if you consider deaths by illegals as a proxy war, a;png with abortions, intimidation by union thugs and anarchist riots. This isn’t a bloodless war, just fewer dying than CWI and all on our side.
Also, look at the registration of most violent criminals, it isn’t GOP.
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