Tag: Priscus

Best Served Up Cold

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“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

“from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

“For the love of God, Montresor!”  “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

cask

Revenge is perhaps the strongest vice in my soul.  I come by it honestly.  I think it’s an ingrained family trait.  Revenge and spite are as native to me as breathing.  And I feel the urge for revenge at all levels of existence.  I equally despise the rude coworker and the oligarch who despises and demeans the deplorable masses.  And what my heart craves is revenge.  Not fairness or justice or an apology.  I long for Nemesis to strike down hubris.  And strike it down out of all proportion to the offense.

Of course, the opportunity to indulge such a passion rarely occurs without the necessity of paying a very high price for the privilege of stabbing from hell’s heart.  But the desire is still there even if the intellect steps between the doer and the deed and declares the price too high.

And so, when I think of the contempt that our elites feel for us my instinct is to imagine a way to hit back at them.  So, for instance, when they revel in the pain they inflict by flooding a town in Ohio with twenty thousand Haitians or a suburb in Minnesota with Somalis my sense of outrage wants to see Martha’s Vineyard or Bel Air or Weston Massachusetts suddenly overrun by meth addicts and Congolese.

And not because it would be a teachable moment whereby these people would learn a lesson but rather so they would become the victims of the same dysfunction that they so carelessly wished upon the fellow citizens that they despise so heartily.  But I realize that this is just a fantasy.  The wealth and power these people possess preclude them from suffering the consequences they so richly deserve.  It would take the dissolution of the United States to bring about the “comeuppance” I crave.  And so, I would be wishing for the toppling of the very place that I live in.  It would be like a Roman citizen rooting for Atilla the Hun during the fifth century.

And yet, there are documents that preserve that very sentiment by a character out of history.  That was exactly what the Greek historian Priscus recorded back in 450 A.D.  I guess the question comes down to whether revenge is more important than safety.  Or maybe whether honor is more important than food.

And the funny thing is, I’m beginning to lean toward honor.  Being a despised freak in the Left’s menagerie is getting to be less and less tolerable.  If the Russians and Chinese finished off World War III, would I really be worse off than I am now?  The rational answer is yes.  Even surviving Doomsday in Southern New England is a very doubtful proposition.  Forget about thriving.  Making believe that isn’t true would be delusional.  And yet, a part of me says, “let’s get on with it.”

Well, the dark night of the soul is upon me but don’t worry nobody has shared the codes for the nuclear football with me.  So, sleep deeply oligarchs.  Your time is not yet up.

Atilla’s Court

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As I sit here putting pen to page, or whatever the paperless equivalent is now called, I am pleased to be reaching out across this huge continent, and even larger planet to the few like-minded individuals that have found their way here over the last few years.  I have a few readers in East Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa and even a South American from time to time.  And of course, I have readers in other parts of North America; several in Canada and even one or two in Mexico.  But the bulk of my readers and almost all of my commenters live in America.  And that’s because I am an American.  What I write about is my thoughts and feelings as I live through the dismantling of the American dream.

Because that’s what it is.  To fight World War II the Federal Government and Corporate America formed an alliance to marshal the resources needed to defeat Germany and Japan.  But more importantly this alliance made a deal with the American people.  In exchange for them sending all of their sons into the meat grinder they promised to supercharge the economy and build a shiny new America full of interstate highways, technological wonders, college degrees and most importantly jobs.  And something else was implied.  It was understood that this alliance of government and business had as its highest priority the welfare of the American people.  Sure, we might have a Marshall Plan for Europe and charity for the third world but when push came to shove their main focus was making sure blue-collar workers in the industrial heartland could afford to put a roof over the heads of their children and food on the table.

And for about twenty-five years it seemed that indeed, the people in Washington made it their business to oversee an economy that did just that.  But somewhere in the 1970s that began to change.  Maybe it was the Cold War or the oil crisis but from that point on it seemed like the lives and livelihood of the middle and working classes became expendable chips in the high stakes games that the rich and the powerful played in Washington.  That deal they made in 1941 has expired.  The IOUs they wrote are now worthless.

And it’s worse than that.  Now they’re making believe they’ve never even heard of us. “Americans?  You must mean the “Old Americans.”  Those racist, transphobes that clutter up the landscape that we want to fill up with “New Americans.”  Haven’t you people died off yet.  We’ve given you enough opioids and scorn to do the job.  What are you waiting for?”

But we’re still here.  And we still remember the deal they made.  And the funny thing is we know that someday they’ll remember that they need us to fight their wars or solve their technical problems or cure their diseases.  But will we still be here?  Because eventually people who aren’t wanted leave.  And they go where they are needed.  Maybe it’ll be Eastern Europe or South America or East Asia or somewhere completely unexpected.  But the way things are going it probably won’t be the United States.  This country has retreated into a contracting pessimism.  We must use less energy, less food, less money, less space, less life.  We will have fewer children, fewer opportunities and fewer reasons to want to live.

Now maybe, possibly we’ll get the upper hand again and hold our leaders in government and industry accountable.  That would be an outcome, much to be desired.  But the record of the last couple of decades doesn’t give me much hope of that.  Those in charge are in almost complete control.  Sure, there are places like Florida that are still putting up a good fight and have been taking back local control from the oligarchs.  I wish them all the success they can obtain.  Maybe they can duplicate that success in an expanding circle of red states that can demand a federalist solution to the Democrat monopoly on federal power that we are living through.  And maybe those red states can assume responsibility for those IOUs that the feds reneged on.  But once again. I’m not holding my breath.

So that’s where it stands.  I feel like one of the Greek renegades who went to work for Atilla the Hun back in 450 A.D. when the historian Priscus was negotiating for the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II to avoid the sack of the Danube provinces.  The renegade still remembers the myth of the Roman Empire he was taught as a boy; a land of justice and prosperity.  But then the reality of crushing taxes, omnipresent incompetent bureaucrats and hypocritical application of the law courts against the common man are remembered and reveal the myth to be a pathetic joke.

Of course, Rome lasted, nominally, for five hundred years after it ceased to be a republic.  Maybe there is no escape from the Global American Empire.  Well, that’s something to chronicle too.  And that’s what I do in my small way.  And also, I give people a cyber space to come to when they want to make a point or share an insight.  So, I’ll maintain my outpost and report what I see and think.  You do your part and tell me what you see and think too.  And spread the word if you know any folks who would fit in here.

Bread and Circuses Again

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Today was a work day so I had to … work.  But later on, I wrote what I think is an interesting post.  But at the last minute I decided to let the American Greatness folks take a look at it in case they want to publish it there.  So right now, I haven’t got a nice shiny article to put up on the site here yet.

But I’ve been thinking lately about the situation of us plain old people who were just minding our own business trying to be good Americans when the people in charge decided to change the rules without bothering to get our consent, or even for that matter to let us know they were doing it.

I was trying to think of an equivalent case in history and as much as it’s a hackneyed example I keep coming back to the plebians of the Roman Republic.  Just as with us the plebians were the source of the strength of the Empire.  They were the legions that Rome used to batter the peoples of the surrounding Mediterranean world into submission.  But once they had destroyed Carthage, Gaul, Macedon and the other successor states from Alexander’s empire they were expendable.  Now that most of Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor were the private estates of the senatorial class and resistance could be handled by a smaller professional army the Roman people were just a burden and a nuisance for their patrician countrymen.  And so, they let them rot.  Now eventually that would spell the death of the empire but for a couple of hundred years the rich feasted on hummingbird tongues while their former countrymen were turned into serfs.

And so too have our elites decided we are a nuisance and a burden.  But they don’t want us to rot.  They don’t want us for serfs.  They want us to utterly disappear.  The Romans gave the plebes of Rome bread and circuses to keep them amused and out of trouble as they rotted away.  Our overlords have selected the internet and fentanyl to do the job.

And that should be the lesson to learn.  Do not allow yourself to be engulfed by the snares that they use to rot your mind and will.  Don’t become dependent on the worst aspects of the current system.  Learn skills that have value to those around you and use those skills to obtain things that have real value for you.  Earn a living, find a mate, form a family, build a life.  Mostly everything else is bread and circuses.

Waiting for Caesar to come along and fix everything is a delusion.  When Caesar does appear, he’ll use us to get rid of the other strong men to consolidate his control and continue with bread and circuses.  Only the strong and the smart stay free.  Only a large and vigorous middle class can hold its own against the robber class.  If that middle class disappears you had better find out where they went and head that way too.

I’ve mentioned before the story of Priscus back in 450 AD.  He was one of the ambassadors from the Eastern Roman Emperor to Attila the Hun.  While engaged in his mission at Attila’s base he met a Hun who surprisingly spoke perfect Greek.  Priscus engaged him in conversation and learned his story.  He was a Greek whose city had been overrun by the Huns and taken prisoner.  Eventually he was able to earn his freedom and even become a soldier in the Hun army.  When Priscus berated him for becoming a traitor to his civilization he answered that life under the empire had become virtually a form of slavery and living as a marauder was a happier and much freer existence.

When life under the present regime becomes slavery or worse, then it’s time to look elsewhere for a better life.  That may be in a Red State or in another country.  You’ll know it’s time when you can no longer live the life that gives you the things that make life worth living.  Each man has to decide when he’s reached that point.  A hint will be when they tell you that from now on, you’ll be eating insects instead of meat.