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2018-03-04 Home Front: Culture Wars

5 Troubling Lessons For America From Ancient Rome

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Posted by Anomalous Sources 2018-03-04 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Ya missed "Bread & Circuses" aka welfare and twitter/facebook/instagram/tv

Posted by Mercutio 2018-03-04 07:56|| 2018-03-04 07:56|| Front Page Top

#2 In my recent sickness I found myself listening to large parts (about the first 2/3 or so) of the History of Rome podcast.

It gave me a lot to think about. I'd like to offer some honorable mentions as far as the fall of Rome: The Gracci brothers' famous grandfather, Scipio Africanus, for coming up with the business model of using a legion to enrich both Rome and the Generals of that legion. When they started pursuing that business model instead of having a working economy, they'd occasionally get stuck and grind to a halt.

Sulla, for having the arrogance of thinking he'd come up with a system of political advancement that couldn't be gamed, the "Cursus Honorarium" or whatever it was called. Well, guess what, it could be gamed, and it took very little time for it to degenerate into another civil war.

What Marius did after his strokes was wrong but Sulla threw a lot of babies out with the bathwater when he took back power. IMHO.

Now that I think about it... Claudius, for centralizing the bureaucracy in such a way that you needed a competent emperor to make things work. AND THEN leaving everything to Nero.

(Oh well. Insert my dad's joke about the woman's third husband dying from a cracked skull, because he wouldn't eat the poison mushrooms).

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2018-03-04 19:53|| 2018-03-04 19:53|| Front Page Top

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