I'm left wondering whether the movie will include this quote,and whether it's absence from the history channel's recounting is due to the fact that it is a rallying cry for supporters of the second amendment.
...oh for god's sake. It's just a movie based on a historical event.
These two events don't belong on the same page together,unless you're drawing lessons about the difference between a true republican revolution and the nightmare of democracy.
Democracy may well be the best form of government. But what makes America great is not so much democracy as it is its Bill Of Rights.
The Bill of Rights is a superfluous addendum.The whole point of the American revolution seems to be lost to Mr. Kar.America is not a democracy
Middle East ping.
I have never met a Persian that I didn't like. They are a great people with a great history. What is often called the Golden Age of Islam is really the propagation of Persian culture and society through the relatively uncivilized Arab empire. The Islamic thugs who run the country today are as big a problem to the Persian people as they are to the rest of us.
Some of this author's logic seems a tad strained, but I do agree that the modern-day US is much more like the Persia of 480 BC than Sparta. I also think it's important to realize that, just as the Spartans were never, ever, EVER going to allow the Persians to change their society, and to stop them from engaging in infanticide and buggering off with their young, nor will the Islamists ever, ever, EVER let us change their society. Hence the fundamental folly at the heart of neoconservatism, which is really a sort of liberalism inasmuch as it is rooted in the poisonous thinking of (ugh) idealism.
Every empire collapses when it overextends itself. Remember that Alexander crushed Darius and the Persians just a century or so after the events of "300." If the Persians hadn't attempted to expand into Greece, who knows what would have happened. This is the equivalent of a modern-day Saladin rising in the Middle East, uniting Arabdom, and crushing the West, beginning a new Asian ascent. And 2500 years from now, our descendants will be watching a film all about the current Iraq war, with those "noble" insurgents fighting to defend Iraq from an 8-foot-tall, ambiguously gay George Bush. The insurgents lost, of course, but 'twas this war that showed America to be weak, and thus the tide turned...
The ruler of Persia was, whatever his merits, what we used to call an oriental despot. Submission to his rule was demanded of all his subjects. The Caliphs of Bagdad and then the Turkish sultans all folllowed this form of government. The western tradition of government has always been different amd in broad terms can be called the history of liberty. Liberty vs. Submission. That has been the dynamic that has characterized western history. Submission vs. rebellion has been the dynamic of the east. The difference is essentially that in the west rebellion ains toward order. So the goal is ordered liberty, whereas rebellion aims only for chaos in which the rebels enjoy the spoils of violent action, which then ends inevitably in the restoration of despotism.
Can we copy this feat by killing Imadinnerjacket when he comes to America in May?
The Spartans were not even targets of Persia's attack, until they violated a universal protocol by killing a Persian messenger who Herodotus claims was asking for Sparta's submission but in reality was probably sent by Persia's king, Xerxes to convey the same message America sent to the entire world after 9/11: "you're either with us, or against us."Rubbish. The Persian King sent emissaries to the Greeks, demanding water and earth symbolic of submission to him. They killed the emissaries, and eventually the imperialist himself was defeated and humiliated. The Persian empire was merely a would-be conquering power.
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The best way present day Iranians could redeem the reputation of Iranians of all past and present regimes would be to overthrow the mad Mullahs and their madman president, hang the whole gang from streetlight posts the way the Italians hung Mussolini, and then renounce the demon-worshipping Islamic religion and join the 21st century world.
Until recently I thought the Iranian people would finally get fed up with having the maroons who run the joint put them at risk of nuclear annihilation by threatening to nuke Israel and the western nations, but now I'm not at all sure that will happen. We're just wasting precious time while the feckless UN diplomats timidly threaten Ahinaminadadabbabbado and the Mullahs with economic reprisals if they blow up the planet and kill all of it's inhabitants. Yeah, a threat like that will surely stop a gang of suicidal maniacs from carrying out their planned Götterdämmerung, right?
Once the nuclear genie is out of the Iranian bottle it's gonna be mushroom cloud-time for every westerner and Israeli within missile range of Iran. Am I the only one who sees that as a distinct possibility?
Pull your panties out of your butt and lighten up, Mr. Kar, it's just a freakin' movie for entertainment already!
I really must go see that film for the second time.
I saw 300.
IT IS A TOUR DE FORCE.
I also know the history of Thermopylae. Even went to the Leonidas monument.
There is NO WAY to be offended by this movie unless you are an illiterate delusional moron. It is a comic adaptation turned into a movie. That said, it is true to the BROAD facts. They nail the attitude of "duty, honor, and character". They nail the duplicitous politicians. They nail the battle carnage which demoralized the persians.
It is a the victory for the west which has the west light years ahead of arabic world and they are STILL fighting the same battle 2500 years ago. (meanwhile we landed on the moon and satelites beyond)
Bull. This was a wartime act (the Ionian Revolt) carried out by a standing army against a Persian satrapy. The only way the actions of an army (and its allies) revolting against its conquerors can be considered "terrorism" is if you are purposefully distorting the meaning of the word...
It most demonstrably is not.
But what makes America great is not so much democracy
Oh goody. Another foreign idiot who thinks that America is a democracy.
L