soapboxdiner

Give us this day our daily bread

I shudder when I think of the calamities of our time. For twenty years the blood of Romans has been shed daily between Constantinople and the Alps. ... these regions have been sacked and pillaged by Goths and Alans, Huns and Vandals. ... the Roman world is falling ... Rome's army, once the lord of the world, trembles today at sight of the foe.

St. Jerome, about A.D. 410

The ... Huns ... exceed every degree of savagery ... They are subject to no royal restraint, but they are content with disorderly government of their important men, and led by them they force their way through every obstacle ... In truces they are faithless and unreliable ... sacrificing every feeling to the mad impulse of the moment. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong.

Ammianus Marcellinus, A.D. 380s

Isn't it funny how times do not change? The hungry devour the contented and complacent (those who won their fat and languid content by way of their own savage hunger).

D00d and I were debating, and it really is no different today, in my opinion. We, as a society, are the same as the late Romans; lazily and expectantly demanding to be fed on the government bread, now having nearly forgotten that life without affluence creates within our hearts drive and perseverance and ingenuity and fire, as well as generosity and charity. All forgotten within the last -- what? -- 70 years of Social Security and FEMA and labor unions and FDIC, blah, blah, blah.

What a strange conclusion to come from my own mind, being a firm liberal. I agree with a public option. I agree with stimulus. I agree with oversight. I agree with tax breaks for the middle class and Pell grants and Medicaid/Medicare. And yet I worry that all the convenience of government intervention will only further deplete our basic knowledge, ability, and willingness to be self-sufficient.

Of course, D00d contends that conservatives do not take this long view through history, and are simply fear mongering to maintain their own comfortable, lucrative and safe status quo.

Perhaps. I don't claim any deep psychological insight into conservative motivation. But I do know that fat cats lounge in the sun while alley cats hunt for their food. It's nature, and I don't see very much difference between Garfield the cat, Marcellinus the Roman, or the AIG/Wall Street/Auto Industry ilk, boo hoo hoo.

And do you know who's hungry, darlings? "Illegal" immigrants, for one (and I don't blame them); crossing borders like so many other "barbarian" peoples from the past, looking for the promise: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! -- or I'll kick your ass and take it from you, and you won't have the strength, courage, know-how or power to stop me.

Doesn't seem so far-fetched to me.

6:52 pm - 09.21.09
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