Have you tangled with old Lucius himself on this site? lol
Oh my, yes. I've among the few, er, fortunate*, and am not proscribed. In fact, he is frequently in my alert list when not the respondent. Like now.
Few folks realize how the Sullan attempt to restore the old Constitution destroyed what was left of it and left the field open for the Triumvirate, and then...the 'Imperator'. ;^)
And you've touched on where LCS and I differ. He stays resigned (albeit reluctantly) to seeing our civilization go the down the same path, leaving the ultimate outcome to God (what I imagine was not the dissimilar inclination of his namesake at his retirement, though "to the gods" instead).
He calls me an optimist. I say through God (absent from the honorable Republic and too late for the decadent Empire) we can still prevent the raw power seekers from culling the planet down to no more than half a billion. Hence much of my posting makes extensive use of Pascal and Lewis -- both men who faced up to the horror they saw building in their time. They are good teachers if we listen.
It seems to me that Dictator LCS' failed attempts at restoring honor demonstrates that even among the most powerful there may still be Godliness that could be reached.
--------------
*hail to Felix
It is my belief that the parallels with late-Republican Rome will become ever more obvious in the coming decades.
We may be on the verge of an equivalent to the Social Wars. We must keep our wits about us to avoid proscription! ;^)