Robert Harris has an interesting piece in the New York Times:
IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped….
What was to be done? Over the preceding centuries, the Constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. The consulship, elected annually, was jointly held by two men. Military commands were of limited duration and subject to regular renewal. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of “Civis Romanus sum” — “I am a Roman citizen” — was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.
But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.
“Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote.
I would actually set the final decline of the Roman Republic a little earlier, with Marius and his unprecedented seven consulships granted due to fear of the Teutonic threat. That threat, unlike that posed by the Mediterranean pirates, was undeniably real, but the larger point is that whether the danger is a serious one or not, it is always the fear of the people that precedes their voluntary submission to servitude.
One reason the implosion of the Republican Party is of so little concern to me is that I believe the die is already cast. That doesn’t mean that Very Bad Things will happen today or tomorrow, it may well be sixty years before the USA formally merges with Mexico and Canada in an oligarchal superstate and the last vestiges of the God-given rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence are formally denied.
It is highly unlikely that turning to the Libertarian Party or Constitution Party will do any good, but at least one will know that one is not complicit in the destruction of one’s country and one’s culture. Republicans aren’t any better than Democrats, they are merely less open about their long-term goals for the nation.
We judge historical political parties by their actions, not their lofty words, and we should judge current political parties by the same standard. It is now clear that the Republican Party is a party of unlimited immigration, legal abortion, expansive central government and UN sovereignty. If you support those things, then vote Republican in good conscience. If you don’t, it is crazy to even think about supporting the Gay Old Pedophiles.
In the eyes of God, there is no lesser evil.