Posted on 01/25/2007 5:12:26 AM PST by RAY
HATING HORATIO
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Ancient Rome's greatest historian was Titus Livius, known to us as Livy (59 BC-17 AD). In the Second Book of his monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), he tells the famous story of Horatio at the Bridge.
In 510 BC, Rome was threatened with destruction from an invading army of Etruscans. All Romans living in the countryside had abandoned their homes and fled for protection inside the city. The city walls were heavily garrisoned, but the most vulnerable point was a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, across the river Tiber and into Rome.
When Etruscan forces focused their attack on the bridge, the Roman troops guarding it fled in fear - save for one man, a soldier named Horatius, whom we call Horatio.
"Proudly," says Livy, and all alone, "Horatius took his stand at the outer end of the bridge; conscious amongst the rout of fugitives, sword and shield ready for action, he prepared himself for close combat, one man against an army. The advancing enemy paused in sheer astonishment at such reckless courage."
Horatio bellowed to his fleeing comrades that they burn and chop down the bridge while he fought the Etruscans off. Livy continues:
With defiance in his eyes he confronted the Etruscan chivalry, challenging one after another to single combat, and mocking them all as tyrants' slaves who, careless of their own liberty, were coming to destroy the liberty of others. For a while they hung back, each waiting for his neighbor to make the first move, until shame at the unequal battle drove them to action, and with a fierce cry they hurled their spears at the solitary figure which barred their way. Horatius caught the missiles on his shield and, resolute as ever, straddled the bridge and held his ground.
When the bridge finally collapsed, Horatio fell into the Tiber and was able to swim to safety. The citizens of Rome bestowed upon him every possible honor.
This happened in Rome's youth. What if it had happened in Rome's prime, with its citizens so prosperous they were cynical and spoiled? What if they despised Horatio's solitary heroism, and their leaders and intellectual elite pined for Rome's defeat instead? What if the Roman people hated Horatio for his attempt to save them, rather than honoring him?
For that is the question I had watching the President's State of the Union speech last night. Listening to him, I thought of Horatio at the bridge.
Despite all else upon which we may disagree with him, what blindingly came through last night was that this is a noble man, a heroic man, standing alone against America's enemies and viciously ridiculed and reviled for it. Yet he stands there with graciousness and courtesy, as a gentleman.
He stood there alone and spoke eloquently to a Congress, to a nation, of spoiled brats.
The day of the speech (1/23), a Washington Post/ABC News poll announced that 52% of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism, when we have not suffered a single terrorist attack in the over five years since 9/11 - and that 57% disapprove of his handling of the economy.
That means that 57% of Americans are clinically deranged. On every measure - the stock markets, corporate profits, employment, inflation, spendable income, take your pick - the US economy is doing astoundingly well. How can people possibly disapprove? Yet they do. Because they are spoiled brats.
There's an old saw that says in a democracy, voters get the leaders they deserve. Bush disproves it - for in him, voters are getting better than they deserve. If they got what they deserved, they'd get Hillary Clinton, and may very well in 2008.
But like Ronald Reagan, Bush's faith in the goodness of Americans has never wavered. Today, I talked with Tony Snow, the president's spokesman, and he explained why:
The most important word the president used in his speech last night was victory. Unlike some members of Congress, those who sat on their hands at the mention of it, Americans want victory. So we are going to give it to them.
This is no time to feel desperate. What we need is a sense of mission, a purposeful dynamism. General Petraeus will be giving regular briefings from now on, and be issuing a progress report on Iraq every two weeks. He'll report on what progress we are having on de-Baathification, disarming the Shia militias, on taking the fight to the bad guys in a very methodical way.
To lose this war is to lose our soul. The soul of our country, the soul of America. If we lose in Iraq, the terrorists will be here, the war will be here and among us. But we are not going to lose. We still have an enormously strong hand to play and we are going to play it.
Conservatives need to understand that our best days are still in front of us, if we proceed with confidence and principle. Ours is an ideology of freedom, and an ideology of freedom is an ideology of joy. Joy and freedom will triumph over fear and cynicism.
Watching Bush last night and talking to Tony today inspired me to believe that this president just may drag Americans back into adulthood once again. A nation that hates its Horatios is already in grave danger of losing its soul. GW's determination to succeed in Iraq may enable our nation to regain it.
b
Thank-you !
Great article.
Mark for later reading
That means that 57% of Americans are clinically deranged. On every measure - the stock markets, corporate profits, employment, inflation, spendable income, take your pick - the US economy is doing astoundingly well. How can people possibly disapprove? Yet they do. Because they are spoiled brats.
What is the defining characteristic of a spoiled brat? Ingratitude. And the defining characteristic of Big Journalism is exactly the desire to deny credit to those whose courageous decisiveness merits credit."It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - Theodore RooseveltAnd the self-same ingratitude is manifest in the socialist idea. Socialism is utterly inept at developing new products and new means of production because the entire premise of socialism is founded on mere second guessing. The socialist wants to take over succesful businesses, but will not even discuss, much less take credit for, the failed business ventures. The socialist is able only to identify the businesses which have succeeded, not those which will succeed. Give the socialist power, and he will destroy the process by which new products are developed.They want to do that now in the prescription drug field. Knowing, after the fact, which drugs are successful, they argue that the production of those particular drugs - even including the cost of testing and marketing them - are far less than the prices the companies charge for them. Neglecting the cost of all the failures which nobody knew beforehand would not be the successes. Limit the profit of the successes, and you reduce the number of successes because you reduce the number of failures, which alone lead to the successes.
That means that 57% of Americans are clinically deranged. On every measure - the stock markets, corporate profits, employment, inflation, spendable income, take your pick - the US economy is doing astoundingly well. How can people possibly disapprove? Yet they do. Because they are spoiled brats.
I wouldn’t chalk it up to 57% of Americans being nuts, but that 57% of Americans believe what is feed to them on the evening news.
That's been my impression.
Good morning....
"He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Southern California, where he lectured on Aristotelian ethics.
In the 1980s he conducted a series of extensive visits to anti-Soviet guerrilla insurgencies in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Laos, and Afghanistan, and to democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, becoming an unofficial liaison between them and the Reagan White House. Based on his experiences with anti-Soviet insurgencies, he developed the strategy for dismantling the Soviet Empire adopted by the White House known as the 'Reagan Doctrine.' It worked.
He has traveled to over 180 countries and all seven continents, leads 2 to 3 expeditions a year, is a consultant to a number of international corporations on geopolitical strategy, and to a number of Congressional offices on issues regarding political and economic freedom throughout the world and in the United States."
That's from a web site about him. He's a brilliant man.
Pretty much the only effort we as citizens can give to the war effort is our support and fighting the enemy within. And we can't make any mistake - Congressional Democrats are the enemy within.
Thank you Janey. I am bookmarking it to send to others.
It looks like a fascinating article. Thanks, Miss Marple.
"The day of the speech (1/23), a Washington Post/ABC News poll announced that 52% of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism, when we have not suffered a single terrorist attack in the over five years since 9/11 - and that 57% disapprove of his handling of the economy."
That means that 57% of Americans are clinically deranged. On every measure - the stock markets, corporate profits, employment, inflation, spendable income, take your pick - the US economy is doing astoundingly well. How can people possibly disapprove? Yet they do. Because they are spoiled brats."
There's an old saw that says in a democracy, voters get the leaders they deserve. Bush disproves it - for in him, voters are getting better than they deserve. If they got what they deserved, they'd get Hillary Clinton, and may very well in 2008."
My tagline sums up the clinical derangement of the Bush Haters on both sides.
Great post. Thank you for posting it. Wonder if a sub-headline "Bush Stands Alone" might get more readers. Hope Rush sees it.
This is quite possibly the best article I've read on FR ever. Thanks for posting it. We are indeed a nation of spoiled brats.
I am going to try to bump it every hour or so, in the hopes that a few more people will see it.
Oh I don't know. If we lose, the muslim cells in America will rise up and we will experience a lot of blood shed. We will experience tortures so exquisitely horrible, as to be unbelievable.
Military letters and indorsements have not changed one bit over the years. chuckle
There are even people, mostly lefties, who say with a straight face that the Carter years were better for the economy than what we have today.
Thank you for this article!
Amen and Amen. What a wonderful post. Amen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.