Money Doesn’t Stink-Don’t blame the market for the wages of secularism.

Frontpagemagazine ^ | January 15, 2019 | Bruce Thornton

[SJackson]

It does. Just ask a dog.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

“When Titus found fault with him for contriving a tax upon public conveniences, [Vespasian] held a piece of money from the first payment to his son’s nose, asking whether its odor was offensive to him. When Titus said ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Yet it comes from urine.’”

There's a story very similar to this relating to Jesus; one of the only mentions of him in the Jewish texts. Somebody asked him whether it was lawful to donate the price of a prostitute to the temple treasury. His reply was something on the order of "why not use the money to build a toilet for the high priest ... from the place of filth, to the place of filth."

[Pontiac]

A monologue by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson set off a debate over the obligation of businesses to care about the welfare of their fellow citizens, and the impact of their products on society’s morals and happiness. But the responses of both sides miss the true culprit–– the corroding effects of secularism, the two-centuries-long intellectual movement that has tried to do without God, and replace Him with government.

What more needs to be said.

You can’t spend millions trying to eliminate the father of morality from society as government has done and then complain that the people are amoral.

Business is simply people writ large. If you work relentlessly to eliminate God from the public sphere you will eventually remove morality from society.

What can you expect from society then? What can you expect from business then?

Why should business care about individuals? It doesn’t raise the bottom line.

The only reason big business does anything altruistic is optics.

Don’t be fooled business plays to the largest common denominator.

Real morality never enters the board room. Why because God has been banned from society and therefor from the souls of those who inhabit the seats of power.

[scrabblehack]

39 million vehicles in NYC in the 1920’s?
Six plus for every man, woman, and child?

[Positive]

Most of us here have never smelled money.

You see those little pieces of paper are not money. They are Promissory Notes from a private bank called The Federal Reserve Bank...who, by the way, has no money either.

Just look in the border above the head of the dead President. There in bold print are the words “Federal Reserve Note”.

[YogicCowboy]

Yep.

[x]

Libertarians argue that open borders aren't a problem; the welfare state is. But they ignore the fact that it's easier for a representative republic or democracy to do something about borders than about the welfare state.

Is it the same way here? Is it harder to do something about secularization and unbelief than about other problems? Is it harder to get people to believe in God and act like it than it is to cope with other trouble they get into?

[SunkenCiv]

In his biographies of the Roman emperors, Suetonius describes a conversation between Vespasian and his son Titus, who disapproved of his father taxing the urine that tanners and other industries collected from public restrooms: "When Titus found fault with him for contriving a tax upon public conveniences, [Vespasian] held a piece of money from the first payment to his son’s nose, asking whether its odor was offensive to him. When Titus said 'No,' he replied, 'Yet it comes from urine.'"

Thanks SJackson. I've also seen it worded, "That's odd -- it comes straight from the urinal."

[Little Bill]

Titus must have learned something, he was one of the later Roman emperors. His younger brother not so good.

[SunkenCiv]

Titus was the second of the Flavian dynasty (the third being, as you said, his brother Domitian), but that was only the second dynasty, following the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He had the longest reign of any since Tiberius, and as long as his father and brother put together.

Since his assassins were the Praetorians -- officially the imperial bodyguard -- in conspiracy with various court officials, he was probably killed by corrupt a-holes who were about to be found out, as happened in the 3rd c with Aurelian (if I had to pick one, he'd be my favorite).

Subsequently Domitian was condemned, but it is probable that whatever reign of terror had been going on was due to corruption among the conspirators and the Guard, and got even worse under Nerva -- blaming the dead victim of the dangerous Guard no doubt seemed the safest course of action.

The Flavians rebuilt a chunk of Rome, erecting the current Pantheon (the original had been built mostly of wood by Marcus Agrippa) and the Colosseum.

[SunkenCiv]

What I get for spending too much time in between naps... I was talking about Domitian in the second half of the first sentence, the part about the length of his reign.

[Little Bill]

I have read most of the classical authors on the Roman Imperiam.

If the Romans could have instituted a rational method of succession to the thrown thing and made the lesser nobles follow it Rome might still exist.

I gave up reading after Manzikurt, when Michael turned down an offer for peace and then got his ass beat,

[SunkenCiv]

If the Romans could have instituted a rational method of succession to the thrown thing and made the lesser nobles follow it Rome might still exist.

I wholeheartedly agree. Politically, the Roman system was built out of a series of bandaids. There are other reasons (none of which has to do with their plumbing system :^) but the jockeying for status and title led to failure to take external threats, and other internal threats, seriously.

Of course, somehow the Empire managed to totter on until not that many centuries ago, and after Manzikert. :^)

And even in the western part of the Empire, during the calamitous 3rd century, Roman emperors were gettin' things done.

• New finds suggest Romans won big North Germany battle [ Maximinus Thrax ]
• romangermany

[SunkenCiv]

Badass of the Week
Basil the Bulgar-Slayer (caution, blue language)
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/basil.html
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/list.html

(lists Xenophile Historian in the links)

[9YearLurker]

The stats quoted here led me to find this great article:

https://fee.org/articles/the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

Does this somehow sound familiar?

“In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.

The problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that cities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more horses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food for people), and this had to be brought into cities and distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban civilization was doomed.

Crisis Vanished

Of course, urban civilization was not buried in manure. The great crisis vanished when millions of horses were replaced by motor vehicles.”

[Little Bill]

If Old Basil's brother Constantine had drunk himself to death ten years earlier things might have been different.

Basil would have chosen his successor.

Basil's control over the Ducases might have might have remained.

Constantine's stupid demand that the Bulgarians pay their taxes in gold rather than in kind, as agreed to, would for stalled the revolt of 1049.

The early warning sysrem and rappour with the Armenians would remained in place.

Lastly close control over the Church and Treasury would remain intact.

[SunkenCiv]

It would have been funny if Basil had married a woman named Rosemary.

[Positive]

Since you are the only one to comment on my comment, and you indicate that you agreed with my point of view..so I address this to you.

In my life (just weeks ago, I woke for the 26,000th day in a row):

I have not seen this much animosity (strong hostility) and rancor (bitterness or resentfulness, especially when long-standing.).

I've been hearing this little "throw away line" quite a bit "just do the math" ((the abstract science of number, quantity, and space. Mathematics may be studied in its own right pure mathematics ), or as it is applied to other disciplines such as physics and engineering ( applied mathematics )..))

Well, I would like to see the math these politicians and pundits can come up with...on paper (I mean readable text and "math" as they apply it to their part time job in District of Corruption.

[Positive]

That would have taken a little Thyme???