Does anyone else remember Saturday Night Live's Coffee Talk. Here's a topic, dicuss?
I've been re-reading "How the Irish Saved Civilization." It is one person, Thomas Cahill's, account of history.
Given the situation in the USA, the upcoming election, this paragraph caused me to think. What is said may apply to other countries than the USA, but I'm not qualified to speak about other countries. Perhaps the debate could even include the Matrix, the machines dominance to preserve their existence and Neo's stuggle against that rigid ruling class. Someone said that if we don't learn the lessons of history we are bound to repeat them.
(My rant, educate yourself about the issues; Taxation, medical care, the shrinking middle class. Then vote!)
"There are, no doubt, lessons here for the comtemporary reader, The changing character of the native population, brought about through unremarked pressures on porous borders; the creation of an increasingly unwieldy and rigid bureaucracy, whose own survival becomes its overriding goal; the despising of the military and the avioidance of its service by established families, while its offices present unprecedented opportunity for marginal men to whom its ranks had once been closed; the lip service paid to values long dead; the pretense that we still are what we once were; the increasing concentration of the populace into richer and poorer by way of a corrupt tax system, and the desperation that inevitably follows; the aggrandizement of exectutive power at the expense of the legistature; ineffectual legislation promulgated with great show;
(take a deep breath, the quote continues)
the moral vocation of the man at the top to maintain order at all costs, while growing blind to the cruel dilemmas of ordinary life ---these are all the themes with which our world is familiar, nor are they the God-given property of any party or political point of view, even though we often act as if they were.
(one more long sentence or two)
At least, the emporer could not heap his economic burdens on posterity by creating long-term public debt, for floating capital had not been conceptualized. The only kinds of wealth worth speaking of were the fruits of the earth."
The empire described is the Roman empire at the time of it's invasion by "barbarians" and it's eventual fall.
I'd truly like to learn the opinions of others.
