Posted on 04/17/2025 8:24:32 AM PDT by MtnClimber
If there is a single moment in time in which the fate of Western civilization was decided, it is the battle of Marathon, 490 BC. The Persians under their king Darius landed in Greece, only 26 miles from Athens itself. A vastly outnumbered Greek force marched out to meet them. The Persians had already conquered huge swathes of the Middle East and South Asia. A relative handful of quarrelsome Greeks seemed unlikely to pose much of a challenge to them.
But they were.
When the day was done, the Persians were vanquished. The idea of Persian invincibility was destroyed forever. It would take years of additional fighting until the war was finally won, but Greece and the West would not be subjugated.
In that moment, everything that came after hung in the balance. Had Darius won, there would have been no Christendom, Reformation, or Enlightenment. When you stand in Washington, DC, and look at the public buildings celebrating the Greco-Roman traditions handed down to us, you are looking at something that was paid for in blood on the fields of Marathon 2500 years ago.
History buffs remember all this. However, few recall that Darius and his army did not come to Greece without invitation. Accompanying this invading, hostile force was a Greek aristocrat named Hippias. His family had been part of the aristocracy that ruled Athens before the advent of democracy. He dreamed of returning to power. He betrayed his own nation and sided with the Persians against his own people in pursuit of personal glory and wealth.
We find ourselves today locked once again in a battle between enlightenment and reason and freedom and the forces of darkness and tyranny. On one side stand the American people who dare to believe that they are the source of all political power and that every man is born free. On the other side stands the Chinese Communist Party, an evil, totalitarian abomination, which wants to subjugate humanity and has killed untold millions of its own people in pursuit of that goal.
Incredibly, at this juncture, as Donald Trump does what so many Presidents before him should have done and stands up to the CCP and asserts our economic and political independence, we find among us a host of men and women who share the world view of Hippias. They so crave personal wealth and the pleasures of power that they would betray their own country and stand with the enemy against us.
As Colonel Grant Newsham, USMC, retired, said recently on Steve Bannon’s War Room, “The elites, Wall Street, the business class, they have funded the build-up of the CCP.” Indeed. They have thrown in with our enemy, made him stronger, and given him the means to destroy us.
And, now, as battle is joined, they stand on the other side supporting the CCP and praying for our destruction.
Take a look at most of the popular media, owned and directed by the elitists amongst us. You will search in vain for any mention of Chinese slave labor camps, the corruption within the CCP or the devastation our middle class has experienced as our industrial base has been hollowed out, real incomes have plummeted and our citizens have been left to cobble together lives out of multiple parttime jobs in decaying towns and cities.
Instead, what you will find are “horror” stories about the price of standing up to the CCP. You will find endless exhortations to abandon the struggle, accede to the dominance of the CCP, and accept lives as vassals of Beijing.
“Tariff carve-outs underscore weak US position in China trade war: ‘This is going to get really ugly” Politico
“Trump’s trade war handed China a strategic advantage. The president signaled that the U.S. doesn’t care about its allies and trading partners, including Taiwan.” The Atlantic
“Trump’s trade war with China is ‘the end of the era of expanding globalization. But it could leave the U.S. worse off because of a major imbalance in key imports.” Fortune
“Trump's governance is wrongly isolating America from the rest of the world. Trump has further isolated America and created a crisis of competence and confidence in the United States government.” MSNBC
“How Trump’s trade war with China will hurt the American farmers who voted him in.” CNN
“Trump has already lost his trade war against China.” Yahoo News
The message is clear and one that Hippias himself might well have delivered to the Athenians gathered on the plains of Marathon and daring to stand against the God King Darius. Bow down. Accept subjugation. Better to live on your knees than die on your feet.
Fortunately, for us, 10,000 Athenian hoplites heard that same message and rejected it. They were so honored by the Greeks that the dead were buried on the field of battle in a tumulus still visible today. They had consecrated the ground with their sacrifice.
Let us hope that amongst us, their spiritual and intellectual descendants, there remain enough to hold the line and win this fight against tyranny. We are once again in a fight for civilization, and our fate, once subjugated, will be every bit as grim as that the Greeks sought to avoid.
I hope it can be done without war with China, but perhaps it cannot. It seems the EU may be siding with China.
Does anyone here believe that the CCP Chinese WOULDN’T be willing to go to war with us if they thought it would improve their position?
Great article. Worth the full read.
Troy meet Greece.
Darius and Xerxes meet Alexander and Leonidas.
Parthians meet the Romans. Byzantines meet the Ottomans.
So much in between.
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