Between the muscle relaxers for the spasms and the pain pills that dull the pain and nothing else, I am finding it hard to get excited by the way my country became a dictatorship in less than a week. Torture should not even be a debate topic, much less a bill that the do-nothing Congress can add to its repertoire of bills that do more harm than good.
Meanwhile, in the real world our troops are injured and dying in Iraq at a greater rate than is being reported.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think (fear) this is the presidency that our founding fathers feared. For it will have a reaction... But they had no success. For Tiberius, maintaining an honorable and just cause, and possessed of eloquence sufficient to have made a less creditable action appear plausible, was no safe or easy antagonist, when, with the people crowding around the hustings, he took his place, and spoke in behalf of the poor. "The savage beasts," said he, "in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the meantime nothing more in it but the air and light; and having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained to wander from place to place with their wives and children." He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridiculous error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the common soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and altars; when not any amongst so many Romans is possessed of either altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own, or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed, and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the world, but in the meantime had not one foot of ground which they could call their own. A harangue of this nature, spoken to an enthusiastic and sympathizing audience, by a person of commanding spirit and genuine feeling, no adversaries at that time were competent to oppose.
ReplyDeleteThat was the Blogger Plutarch.