Then and Now

The Roman pattern is the one that scholars study more than most others. The Roman nation turns from a Republic to an Empire. No more will Cincinatus lay down his mantle of power and return to the plow.  In so doing, Rome created a self-perpetuating patrician class that is freed from the demands of labor or higher thought. All of their efforts are concentrated on play and perpetuating the system that made them. It becomes essential to be seen with the right people, all of whom find themselves in an echo chamber, thinking (or pretending to think) alike.  The palaces and mansions of Pompey, buried in ash, now excavated, show the elites cavorting while servants saw to their every need.

The elite class in the US is mirrored in the Roman Patrician class. During the high period/Golden Age of Rome, many of the competent citizens, disgusted with what they saw, leaving for the provinces to make a new life, far from the Appian Way. Reading the history (abbreviated) of the Roman Emperors beyond Augustus and his Pax Romanus shows that they ended in suicide, regicide, or being smothered in a pile of dirty laundry. They seized power alternately with the support of the Spanish Legions, German Legions, Praetorian Guard (several times), usurped, assassinated, occasionally inherited and so forth. And during much this time, there was a Roman Senate seated. Presumably they were elected.

In Rome, the republic was betrayed long before Julius Caesar, but he was pivotal as was Trajan, where the Roman Empire reached its apex in territory and wealth. The transition to empire means the end of meaningful elections. Some argue that the USA is there now, but I think that we are teetering. The FBI coup attempt (or ‘insurance policy’) is the first we’ve experienced as a nation but the corrupt, co-opted, lying mainstream media’s endless stream of propaganda has served to deflect the moment when the Deep State, working in concert, almost deposed an elected president. As the elite compounds its mistakes in an orgy of failure after failure, spending and borrowing endlessly, they panic because their prerogatives are not safe. It happened in Rome and it is happening two thousand years later.  The same, and not the same.

The Roman patricians called the moral equivalent of the Americans who live in fly-over country, ‘clients’. Their relationship with their clients is precisely the relationship of many (but not all) legislators in Washington DC. The client is a pawn who the legislator, acting as the moral equivalent of a of parasite, giving them what they crave: a sense of grievance against the rest of America. Grievance is the handle by which Democrats maneuver these pawns into cultural wars. The Romans perfected the practice. We simply re-invented the wheel. The grievance becomes the source of happiness, and if there is no grievance, it must be fabricated.

In a nation abounding in wealth, employment, food, and peace, finding a grievance that works is a challenge and that challenge is taken up by the best and brightest lawyers in government and the best and brightest lawyers out of government. Working together collaboratively, they create the “reality” that the mainstream media distributes by way of propaganda. The elite refer to themselves as ‘stakeholders’ and the great unwashed between the coasts are client/pawns.

The client pawns with a remnant of power that the elites did not calculate into their process voted Donald Trump to be president, rejecting the carefully crafted, pre-anointed, and infinitely corrupt Hillary Clinton. Is it any wonder that the reaction, the failed coup, the FBI insurance policy managed by adulterous fools, chatting about their conspiracy through government e-mail servers created such a dust-up among the elites.

And what did President Trump do? He began to downsize the ranks of the privileged members of the bureaucracy (Deep State) and is still doing so. The stake holders in the State Department revolted (as I reported a couple of days ago.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

30 COMMENTS

  1. What we all want to know: exactly when will these Deep State malfeasants be held accountable? They have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and everybody (at least us 'clients') sees their treachery for what it is – a mutiny.

    Us clients want to see a whole lot of Deep Staters swinging from the gallows.

    Will that ever happen? We want to know.

  2. Donald "Maximus Decimus Meridius" Trump…America's top gladiator.

    Just read the media is now pushing their latest "got the memo" e-blast from the DC subversives that a "new witness" will deliver "damning evidence" to the Dems.

    The treasonous anarchists are getting even more desperate.

  3. Lessons from Roman history, yes. Difference today? The clients can read, write, and instantly communicate. Despite the elite's best effort, their monopoly on information is gone. Look what Polish underground newsletters accomplished. We had our version pushed by the John Birch Society, among others. Now we have the internet.

    Take just three bloggers, you, Old NFO, and OldAFSarge. The diverse commentators would have had a much harder time reaching each other and exchanging opinions.

    On the flip side, the lists of those who need to go to the re-education camps are much easier for the elites and their minions to compile. I get the bunk nearest the stove!

  4. There's certainly an eery similarity and as it was then so now — the barbarians are within the gates.

    I like your patrician/client-elite/pawn thoughts and of course there's plenty more similarities, not least economic.

    The Western empire eventually decentralized, is that our trajectory?

  5. The main difference between the Roman clients and us deplorables is that the clients weren't allowed to have swords. We have firearms and many ( most ? ) know how to use them.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

  6. Another interesting read. I often here of the parallels of the US and ancient Rome and I hope it won't come to that. We'll likely know in the next few decades.

  7. That is why the 2nd Amendment is such a problem for the Elites. If they can get rid of it either directly or by end arounds such as red flag laws and certain weapons bans, they can institute their "Empire".

  8. Excellent comparison by the way…never thought of it that way but makes perfect sense.

    History does repeat when te Grand Poobah's forget their humility and start thinking with impunity that we work for them. They underestimate the power of the information highway we now have – alternative outlets are slowly nullifying Lefty media propaganda sources.

    I heard a deal yesterday that President Woodrow Wilson and his cohorts got into office with the intent on fully undermining the Constitution (something they placed their hand on a Bible and pledged to uphold. (There's a special place in Hell for those types.)

    Liars and thieves and subversives are running the DC asylum, and they are vastly better at the undermining tactics (the Wyoming Range War comes to mind, Cheyenne-based cattle barons got really good at destroying any competition…most of them got away with murder and thievery while holding very nice dinners in the capital extolling their "virtuous" lives.)

    We are making headway though…small step victories chipping away at the Swamp-dwellers stronghold..

  9. I think the "elites" didn't pay attention in High School math class. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the US, and at least billions of rounds of ammunition.

    Getting rid of them is a logistical nightmare, even (fat chance) with full co-operation.

    -Kle.

  10. Rounding up the aforementioned bloggers and sending them off to concentration camps will likely be more easily said than done. I do believe all of these guys are armed to the teeth.

    And exactly what gives you dibs on that stove-side bunk, Fool?

  11. Paul L Quandt: I can't imagine a whole lot of folk buying a firearm and not know how to use it. These figures would be virtually impossible to determine, but my best guess would be that ALL firearms owners know which way to point the business end of the gun, and how to pull the trigger. Give or take a few here and there. 99.999999999999999999% got it figured out.

  12. Thought provoking post, LL, with some very interesting parallels.

    Several of the people I talked with at the birthday party on Sunday commented on the complete disconnect with reality that "The Elites" (their actual wording) have. We joked about the City Folk not having a clue about where their food, water, power, and fuel comes from, and how the cities will crumble first, driving millions of 'refugees' into rural areas, *if* they even manage to get out of the cities.

  16. Hmm, thought provoking, though I would say that with all the weapons at our disposal, and years of being free thinkers, the same conclusion is less likely…

  22. The Deep State believes that they and not the President, should be in charge of US Foreign Policy. That's what the new witness said. In essence, "You America should leave those things to bureaucrats rather than elected representatives". It's interested that they swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution….maybe they need to re-read it.

  24. I think that eventually the entire world will balkanize. US, China, Great Russia, etc. It's sort of the darwinian trajectory.,

  25. 3D printing allows new metal printers to produce inexpensive printed weapons as a type of cottage industry. You may need to use barrel reamers but those tools are not difficult to produce.

  27. No, city folk don't know where the food comes from. It magically appears at stores where they trade their federal reserve notes for it.

Comments are closed.