You mean demagogues like Testiclees of Barnelingus here? Nope. I don't think so.
Posted on 03/26/2009 5:58:22 PM PDT by Kaslin
In the last three months, we've been reduced to something like the ancient Athenian mob — with opportunistic politicians sometimes inciting, sometimes catering to an already angry public.
The Greek comic playwright Aristophanes once described how screaming politicians — posing as men of the people — would sway Athenian citizens by offering them all sort of perks and goodies that the government had no idea how to pay for.
The historian Thucydides offers even more frightening accounts of bloodthirsty voters after they were aroused by demagogues ("leaders or drivers of the people"). One day in a bloodthirsty rage, voters demanded the death of the rebellious men of the subject island city of Mytilene; yet on the very next, in sudden remorse, they rescinded that blanket death sentence.
Lately we've allowed our government to forget its calmer republican roots. We've gone Athenian whole-hog.
Take the AIG debacle. The global insurance and financial services company is broke and needed a federal loan guarantee of $180 billion to prevent bankruptcy. Some $165 million (about 1/1,000th of that sum) had previously been contracted to give bonuses to its derelict executives.
That set off a firestorm in Congress. Politicians rushed before the cameras to demand all sorts of penalties for these greedy investment bankers. Soon, they passed an unprecedented special tax law just to confiscate 90% of these contracted bonuses.
Those who shouted the loudest for the heads of the AIG execs had the dirtiest hands. President Obama was outraged at their greed. But he alone signed their bonus provisions into law. And during the recent presidential campaign, no one forced him to accept over $100,000 in AIG donations.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
What we are witnessing is Julius Caeser and the Roman Senate. Difference is the Senate is in cahoots with Caeser.
History of Greece & Rome should be required reading in all high schools. I was 15 or so when I read Thucydides and still remember my amazement reading Pericles’ speech at the death of 10,000 from plague.
Well, this week the Gk. Orthodox bishop referred to Obama as being like Alexander the Greek.....
You mean demagogues like Testiclees of Barnelingus here? Nope. I don't think so.
Barf.
that pic makes me think...”maybe islamofascists aint so bad.
All out HEDONISM. Many a civilization has fallen.
Plato and Aristotle were concerned about this very thing when they discussed the various forms of government. The mob can be easily manipulated. Citizens, in general, cast their votes based upon emotion rather than reason. Our government was suppose to be republican, not a pure democracy. The founding fathers were just as concerned about mob rule as they were the rule of a monarch. Jefferson may have been correct when he advocated a revolution every decade or so. The US government is broken, and it can never be fixed. Anything less than a revolution is bound the fail. Eventually, I guess, things will get so bad that people will have no choice but to revolt in order to live.
it’s easy to make that mistake:
Bawney Fwank- A corn holer
barack obama- Acorn holer
Democracy means rule by the “demos”, which basically translates as “mob”. The members of the mob learn that it is easier to vote themselves the wealth of the productive than be productive themselves. By the time they have bankrupted or run off the productive few, they have forgotten how to be productive on their own. Chaos reigns until a dictator at the head of a military force seizes power and forces the members of the mob to work.
Democracy leads to decadence. Decadence leads to shortages. Shortages lead to chaos. Chaos leads to tyranny. Tyranny leads to slavery.
Ahem, Alexander the Macedonian....
Ahem, Macedonian = Greek:
"Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it.... And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius" ~ Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian Book II, 7
"If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious GREEKS should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos" ~ On the Fortune of Alexander; Plutarch, 332 a-b
1) They were under Persian rule until Alexander I gained their independence after the end of theGreek-Persian Wars.
2) After the defeat in Plataea the Persian army at the hands of the Greeks the retreating Persians, 43,000 survivors, were attacked and killed by Macedonian forces.
3) I can name you numerious other Greeks who supported Persia over Greece during various different Greek-Persian wars.
4) The Persians called the ancient Macedonians "Yauna Takabara" = "Greeks wearing the shield-like hat" in that is the distinctive Macedonian hat named "KAUSIA" (another Greek word ..."against the CAUSTIC sun). The only Greeks the Persians ruled over IN the Greek region during that time period WERE the Macedonians.
Yauna Takabara
"For these two peoples - the one Pelasgian, the other HELLENIC - had been pre-eminent in the old days. The Pelasgians never migrated anywhere, but the Hellenes were a very well travelled race. When Deucalion was their king, they were living in Phthia, but in the time of Dorus the son of Hellen they were in the territory around Mount Ossa and Olympis, known as Histiaeotis. Then they were evicted from Histiaeotis by the Cadmeans and settled on Mount Pindus, where they were called MACEDONIANS." ~
The Histories By Herodotus fifth century BCE
Herodotus who lived a century before Macedonia's glory days, during a time period when Macedonia was STILL ruled by the Persians and was insignificant in Greek politics had no reason to claim them as Greeks if they WEREN'T Greek. The mere fact he is claiming such an insignificant people as Greeks during his time period is more evidence that they were Greek. There is more evidence that proves they were Greek then any that disproves it.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Kaslin. |
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