That paragraph hit home.
I have taken the time to read some about the Roman Empire, and the similarities are just too depressing for me to consider. Reading Gibbons' "The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire" made my heart sink. The comparison to today is unavoidable.
Sigh. No Republic lasts forever. But I thought I would be long dead and gone before this one fell.
I am not so sure now. They seem to be greasing the skids.
“Sigh. No Republic lasts forever. But I thought I would be long dead and gone before this one fell.”
Interesting story. My paternal GF came to the US in 1923, having escaped from Russia just after the end of the Revolution. He needed to bribe his way out with gold coins (the last of which he kept, and I have). When he arrived, he had one brother and some distant family that he hadn’t even met since they had come here 15-20 years earlier. He was glad to get a job, any job, that worked him half to death, just because it paid the bills and a bit more, and he was FREE.
My father related a story from the early 1950s, when he was an older teen. Like most immigrants, my Russian relatives and their close friends stuck to each other like glue. Each weekend they would have a meal and (for lack of a better term) a bitching session. The Korean War was on, and naturally the discussion on this particular day turned to the Cold War with the USSR. After listening to the old Russians (not old by my standards now - they were in their 50s and early 60s) speak of the strength of Russia and how afraid they were, my father (with all of the wisdom of an arrogant, dumb-assed young man - his words, not mine) chimed in with “This is the richest and most powerful nation that has ever been. We stand astride the globe and can defeat any enemy or combination of enemies; the United States is forever, what are you scared old men worried about?”
Well, as you might imagine, my grandfather had something to say about that (and it was in his home, so the others deferred to him). He looked down at my father, this naive kid of his, and said, “Sonny boy, you listen to me. I grew up in Russia, the largest country on Earth, spanning 11 time zones. When I was 11 in 1912, there was a months-long celebration across the entire country of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty. 300 years! My grandfather’s, grandfather’s grandfather couldn’t have remembered a time without a Romanov as the Czar of All the Russias [As an aside, I’ve done a lot of research on my family - that distant grandfather of his would have been born more than 100 years after Michael Romanov took power in 1612]. The Czar WAS forever. Yet, only 5 years later the dynasty was overthrown, and only a year after that the Czar and his whole family was murdered like a bunch of rabid dogs. Sonny boy, NOTHING is forever. Someday even this great country will cease to exist - but at least I will not live to see it. With bad luck, you may. Never forget thisa and be prepared.”
As an aside, my father didn’t live to see it, he died 9 years ago (but he did see that America-hating Communist, Obama, as POTUS, and he could read the writing on the wall). I am now 60 and healthy enough (I hope) to be around for a while - and, with bad luck, I may see what my grandfather feared and predicted.
A bunch of imitators of Louis XIV: “Après moi, le déluge” (”after me, the flood”). He spent so proflagately that he knew that France would never recover, and he didn’t care because for him only he and his pleasure was important, no matter the cost. I can give you 3.5 trillion reasons (to start) why that sentiment should sound awfully familiar to us.
God help me, I hate these selfish, corrupt, venal, power-hungry, arrogant, condescending, entitled assholes in government and their sycophants and enablers in industry, academia and the media with every fiber of my existence. They are gleefully rushing to destroy the greatest nation that ever existed, not a perfect nation to be sure, but the single ultra-powerful nation in all of history that didn’t use its power to conquer and enslave, but to bring opportunity and safety to hundreds of millions and inspire billions. The misery that they will (intentionally) create will dwarf anything that evil men like Hitler, Stalin and Mao have ever done...and most of them will die rich, powerful and privileged in the comfort of their beds in their mansions, to be lauded and glorified by their fellow conspirators. The injustice of that bothers me to no end...except that I know that there’s a higher level of Justice that takes everything into account perfectly, so someday, somewhere, these monsters will pay for their legion of crimes against humanity.