In H. G. Wells\u2019 \u201cThe Outline of History,\u201d He writes a couple of paragraphs at the conclusion of his description of the Fall of the Roman Empire.\u00a0 \u00a0He discusses the phenomenon of \u201cCaesarism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut while the smashing of the Roman social and political structure was thus complete, while in the east it was thrown off by the older and stronger Hellenic tradition, and while in the west it was broken up into fragments that began to take on a new and separate life of their own, there was one thing that did not perish, but grew, and that was the tradition of the world empire of Rome and of the supremacy of the C\u00e6sars. When the reality was destroyed, the legend had freedom to expand. Removed from the possibility of verification, the idea of a serene and splendid Roman world-supremacy grew up in the imagination of mankind, and still holds it to this day.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ever since the time of Alexander, human thought has been haunted by the possible political unity of the race. All the sturdy chiefs and leaders and kings of the barbarians, who raided through the prostrate but vast disorder of the decayed empire, were capable of conceiving of some mighty king of kings greater than themselves and giving a real law for all men, and they were ready to believe that elsewhere in space and time and capable of returning presently to resume his supremacy, C\u00e6sar had been such a king of kings. Far above their own titles, therefore, they esteemed and envied the title of C\u00e6sar. The international history of Europe from this time henceforth is largely the story of kings and adventurers setting up to be C\u00e6sar and Imperator (Emperor). We shall tell of some of them in their places. So universal did this \u201cC\u00e6saring\u201d become, that the Great War of 1914-18 mowed down no fewer than four C\u00e6sars, the German Kaiser (= C\u00e6sar), the Austrian Kaiser, the Tsar (= C\u00e6sar) of Russia, and that fantastic figure, the Tsar of Bulgaria. The French \u201cImperator\u201d (Napoleon III) had already fallen in 1871. There is now (1920) no one left in the world to carry on the Imperial title or the tradition of Divus C\u00e6sar except the Turkish Sultan and the British monarch. The former commemorates his lordship over Constantinople as Kaisar-i-Roum<\/strong>[274]<\/strong>; the latter is called the C\u00e6sar of India (a country no real C\u00e6sar ever looked upon), Kaisar-i-Hind.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mr. Wells had his finger on something.\u00a0 There is a fascination, not with the reality of the actual Roman Empire, but with the fantasy of it as this just, omnipotent, supremely competent and efficient ruler and government.\u00a0 Now as any student of that era knows this was an almost polar opposite of what the empire actually was.\u00a0 The oligarchs who reaped the lion\u2019s share of the benefits from the empire\u2019s permanence were heartless creatures who thought of the poor (slave or free) as nothing but animals to be harvested in every way imaginable.<\/p>\n And maybe this gives us a clue as to what kind of government we\u2019re supposed to have.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking for a system where the humans aren\u2019t treated like animals.\u00a0 The first thing that comes to mind is the evolution of Socialism and Communism as secular stand-ins for the Christian church.\u00a0 The \u201clove your neighbor\u201d part of it puts us in mind of the utopian brotherhood that Marx and the other socialists touted as their goal.\u00a0 But of course, we all remember how those experiments end; death camps, oligarchs (commissars) and bread lines.<\/p>\n The opposite is capitalism with a capitol K.\u00a0 And we\u2019re currently living through that right now.\u00a0 And once again we get oligarchs.\u00a0 But this bunch just send our jobs to China and tell us to stop having children to \u201csave the planet.\u201d\u00a0 So somehow, we\u2019ve got to figure out a third way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Different thinkers have tried to come up with different ways to allow representative government to more satisfyingly express the needs and will of the people.\u00a0 Robert A. Heinlein thought that the vote should be restricted to veterans of the armed services.\u00a0 Some have thought that only people with children should be able to vote.\u00a0 And, of course, women think they\u2019re the only ones qualified to vote.\u00a0 There have been schemes whereby the number of votes you have should be based on things like how much you pay in taxes or receive in government benefits.\u00a0 In other words, the more you pay into the system the more you get to decide.<\/p>\n There\u2019s one guy named Curtis Yarvin who believes we need a monarch who should be chosen and overseen in the same way that a company selects and oversees a CEO (Chief Executive Officer).\u00a0 In some ways this is an interesting idea.\u00a0 The concept becomes a little fuzzy when he tries to describe what the equivalent is to the Chairman and other members of the Board of Directors.\u00a0 But he\u2019s right in the sense that the leader of this country needs much more authority in order to get things done.\u00a0 It seems pretty clear that our system of checks and balances between the three branches of government have failed to produce good governance.\u00a0 The bureaucracy has become bloated and arrogant and need to be pared back radically.\u00a0 The judiciary is a hornet\u2019s nest of special interests and influence peddling as are the Houses of Congress.\u00a0 And the stalemate between the Left and Right is maddening to anyone who wants this country fixed.\u00a0 We seem to be at a dead end.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the answer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In H. G. Wells\u2019 \u201cThe Outline of History,\u201d He writes a couple of paragraphs at the conclusion of his description of the Fall of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1263],"tags":[2062,5113,462,989,971,912],"class_list":["post-35699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-curtis-yarvin","tag-government","tag-h-g-wells","tag-julius-caesar","tag-politics","tag-roman-empire"],"yoast_head":"\n