Posted on 03/21/2005 9:49:25 AM PST by MisterRepublican
Roman debauchery is greatly overstated. Certainly, many members of the ruling classes lived lives of excess (many, however, did not, such as Pliny the Elder, who died trying to rescue the people of Pompeii), but that does not reflect on the values of the average Roman any more than Paris Hilton's antics reflect the values of the average American.
they collapsed after few hundred years and completely disappeared.
The Roman Republic and Empire had an uninterrupted run of about 1000 years. You can add another 1000 years to that if you consider the Byzantine Empire. Our country should consider itself lucky if we last that long.
There is no more important influence on the Western world than the Romans.
Present italians are NOT their descendants.
There are other groups that intermixed with Italians after the fall of Rome, but modern Italians are mostly descended from the Romans.
If I might paraphrase NRO's redoubtable Florence King, summing up Bill Clinton's propensity for feeling our pain: "Empathizing with everybody is like sleeping with everybody: eventually it makes you frigid, at which point you decide it's a lot less trouble and just as much fun to empathize with yourself."
Yes, it is. TaxRelief suggests marriage before college, which makes more sense the more I think about it. Are most 18-22 year-olds mature enough to get the most educational benefit out of their (outrageously expensive) college years? Doesn't seem like it. I certainly wasn't, although I did get the Mrs., and then the B.A. :-).
One might say, When you're mature enough to be married, you're mature enough to make college worthwhile.
Yet it would have been prohibitively expensive for each of them to hire a professional.
Perhaps, but hurt feelings and boorish behavior are not causes of action, nor should they be. You have no right not to be offended.
I'm not talking about mere hurt feelings but broken homes and children betrayed by selfish parents as well.
Nothing like a good case of clap...that'll cure stupidity real fast.
I was a virgin all through college. I didn't party or anything. I stayed away from Spring Break because I didn't drink and didn't like the atmosphere. Some news program followed some girls went out for a night of drining in Cabo or some other Spring Break place. There were girls drunk off their asses walking ALONE and being led away by college guys to hotel rooms,etc. Sometimes I can't believe all those GGW videos. I wonder if those girls are acting.
Maybe SIU ought to change their mascot from the Salukies to the Sick Puppies...
You prove my point - the perversions were a phenomenon of late, indisciplined Roman culture, a culture that the founders of the Roman Republic would have found horrifying in the extreme.
Rome in 500 BC and Rome in 100 AD were as different as the Plymouth Colony in 1700 and Provincetown today. I am talking about Cincinnatus and you are talking about Caligula.
they collapsed after few hundred years and completely disappeared.
No, they did not, in point of fact.
Of course, the same arguments could be applied to the kingdom of Israel with greater justice.
Present italians are NOT their descendants.
Present Italians are indeed their descendants, in fact, prominent Italian families like the Orsinis can trace their ancestry back to the early Empire.
Of course modern Italians also have Norman, Lombard, Gothic and other ancestry as well.
Abraham is entirely different story. I am his direct descendant ;-)
Spiritually, absolutely. But you might be the descendant of some convert in the direct line and only descended from Abraham in the collateral line.
Nam Vet
LOL! Glad to help ya out! I have no love lost for SIU for obvious football related reasons! heheh
hehe thank you!! :)
Damn kids! Back in my day...
I never got invited to those sorts of parties :-(
Mark
I did every once in a while....but most of the time I either had something else to do, or went and was bored....even the college parties were boring because I was almost always having to drive and with a security clearance, one DUI and you are screwed....
Mark
Only an 85% effectiveness rate against pregnancy, less against STDs, zero against some STDs. And how many drunks do you know who are "careful" with anything?
The "condoms make everything perfectly safe" stuff is simply a lie. "Safer," yes. LIke playing Russian roulette with one shell in the gun instead of three.
Double standard doesn't matter. I'm not denying its a double standard, there is a DOUBLE STANDARD with sex, and its always been around and its always going to be around, and whether you want it to be or not doesn't matter.. it is and always will be.
You think this is something special about now versus 100 years ago you are just in denial, go ask your grandfather, he'll tell ya the same thing. You get horny and your single you call the slut.. you don't marry em. Every guy knows who these gals are, and knows what they are for... and that hasn't changed since the beginning of time and isn't going to change anytime soon... no matter what horsecrap they put on MTV Spring Break to convince you otherwise.
LOL libertarianism. "As for 'air pollution', 'air' is an abstract concept. Air cannot be polluted, only individual molecules."
Not remotely speculation.. go look at the inner city black population if you think my arguments are speculation. You wish to play the liberal nonsense card of denying reality.. you are welcome to do so, but reality is reality and its not going to change just because you wish it was otherwise.
Promescuity = increased risks of disease, pregnancy, bastard kids and all the other things that come with it. Really go do some research on it instead of just saying "I don't believe it".
A man is thrown in jail. His "freedom" is impaired.
Air pollution is not a problem because of the harm to the air molecules, it is a problem because of the harm it does to individuals.
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